wild and crazy fermentation

the world cup was amazing. they're so fast and athletic, it's as if we were watching a pack of veloca raptors instead of bad-ass international athletes. i favored the Italians more than the French. this is because Italy's serious trouble makers have been far more insurrection oriented, and have scored interesting victories. Italy was also home one of the last strongholds of European grey wolf populations. France, on the other hand, has lots of people who will throw molotovs and block traffic, but only if someone is fucking with their welfare. and if i recall correctly, France exterminated all thier wolf people in one fell swoop, walked the ENTIRE BLOODY country in a line shoulder to shoulder with guns, over mountains and rivers and everything, wiped them out.

i particularly admired the way these guys fall. the grace of a meditating swan, i'm telling ya. one Italian did a barrel role in the air to deflect the ball from his goal, then did a cartwheel sourt of thing to keep from hurting himself when he landed.

picked up a new friend, dropped an old one. pleasure and pain, yin and yang. 'sall good, though loosing friends is always tough.

La PAZ is looking so sweet, and this fall it will be fortified with all kinds of crazy and right on new plants. But because amongst my dear readership there may be malignant strains, I necessarily maintain a generalness as to who and what the new community members are.


speaking of La PAZ, there are a lot of thistles there. skin and steam the stems for vegetable, or eat the root raw or cooked. there is a flock of gold finches that dig the La PAZ thistle, and we dig them. hopefully we're good enough neighbors that they dig us, giving a full circle to this series of relationships.



and now, a DISCLAIMER: None of the following is difficult, expensive or hugely time consuming to prepare. I'll email you any of the recipes verbatum if you ask.

currently I am inviting a bunch of microscopic organisms into some of my foods. they will make the food more healthy, digestible, longer lived and add their unususal tastes to the mix. for more information, look up Weston A. Price (http://www.westonaprice.org/index.html) and read some of their information on this interesting subject.


k, so here are the fermentation projects i'm working on or will be in the near future:

to start with, REAL FUCKING SOURDOUGH BREAD, unlike the WHITE flour TRASH of San Francisco. check out Ran's site, he did a nice tutorial on how to capture feisty microbes for cheap-as-hell sustenance. http://www.ranprieur.com/misc/sourdough.html

then there are these two recipes from the book 'Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods' by Sandor Ellix Katz. One is Gundru/Kyrtse, aka Nepalese pickled vegetable greens, and Essene Bread, a sprouted grain, sourdough that is dried in the sun instead of baked in the oven.

also will make capers out of the young seed pods of milk weed plants, if i can find another milk weed community that is strong enough to approach for pods. my stupid ass picked the pods in the wrong stage of development @ La PAZ's patch. keep your eyes peeled for milkweed and lemme know.

Black Berry Ginger Brew, as found on the message board of the DIY tribe at tribe.net

OK, special thanks to Vlad and Tom Cat for their suggestions.

3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp finely grated ginger
1/4 tsp yeast
3 cups fresh blackberries
water to fill 2 litre bottle
Funnel
Bottle
Balloon

Place sugar in bottle and yeast using funnel.
Grind blackberries with some water in blender to create blackberry slurry.
Fine grate ginger.
Pour slurry into bottle on top of ginger.
Place balloon over bottle neck.

leave on counter 72 hours, then refrigerate for 12

There will be a bunch of nasty looking crud on top. just get the worst of it out when you decant, don't worry about most of it resettling in the bottle.

Serve in glass mason jar. Ice optional.

Frickeen-A People!!! This is the best sheeyat I ever drank ! Woo hoo≤ damn boy I am loving this need to make me more bottles of this right pronto yee haw!!!!!!!!!!!
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finally there is the Ruso-Sino fermented black tea drink, known to me by its Ural Mountain name: kombucha. You make black tea with lots of sugar (cheap ass brands like Lipton and Domino work best). Let the brew cool, then add the critter culture. This is a specific mix of yeast, bacteria, and other critters. Let it sit loosely covered in a warm, dark environment for a few weeks and drink up! But not too much all at once, maybe 4 oz. a day for some months. It's a blood cleanser, toniccy drink, and you drink to much and the toxins in your fat will come rushing into your bloodstream too quick for your kidneys and liver to deal with and you'll feel like shit. After you are more or less toxic free, it helps you stay there and you can drink it to get you buzzed. http://www.kombuchatea.co.uk/ you can by kombucha culture to get you started, but best to get it on the gift economy. gimme a hollar and in a few weeks i can hook you up, after starting back up again.