B.Y.O.B. Week

I’ve been slopping down this entry in a piecemeal fashion, during each little break I’ve had between all my other busywork, and while I try to get some sun to transition my skin over to something else than a Siamese cat appearence¹. My August stretch of summer holidays, once again, is pretty much dedicated to home economics projects. The original “Bring Your Own Bottle” meaning is a suitable and appropriate definition for the use of the acronym around here during my free time in the afternoons², but I’ve extended it to also mean “Be Your Own Baba”: to be resourcefully frugal and efficient; to be focused with making the most with the least in the kitchen, and other areas of my dwelling, like some old Ukrainian grandmother would, as I’m sure mine did. It all started off during the month of August, in the year that I took possession of this property. Ever since then, either by strange coincidence or by some natural cycle, when early or mid August comes, it has sort of turned into an annual tradition for me to take a more serious interest of learning to do the best I can with improving my home life, and involve myself with fix-ups and various DIY projects, as I did when I first claimed this place, flipping it around to suit my standards of comfort. It also coincides and flows into garden harvest and canning season. So, I capitalize on using my time for that too. Whatever is done around here, I try to make all these little projects synergistic and interconnected: elements of one flowing into the form or function of another, to make something greater, like some sort of private little ecosystem. I’ve been happily and consciously getting reacquainted with my music collection again, playing it loudly and liberally as I get into the flow of doing my stuff around here: something else I don’t get to do at work. Included in this write up are samples from my playlists. Here are a few other ways B.Y.O.B. can be termed and used around here during this time of the year. Some things here are old tricks and hacks I often deploy; others are new little twists that I’m experimenting with that I thought were worth sharing:

1.       Be Your Own Bourne – Like Jason Bourne in the movies (I just saw the latest sequel in the theatre . . . so awesome!), the thing I’ll be doing is casting off my work identity; to be the independent loner who is an apt evader of malicious forces, and an on-the-spot improviser, who is on a mission to reclaim something that belongs to him: his own true self. Except when I do it, I’ll hopefully have none of the gunfire, car chases, or explosions. The thing I have to keep bringing to mind is that I’m not at work. For at least a little while, I’m not on some drive for using at least a full third of each of my days to solve other people’s problems. I get to devote my energy to working on my own. Thus, I have eliminated a lot of things that put me in a more negative mindset for complaint, which serves to do nothing for betterment. I don’t have to listen to it from others; I don’t have a reason to do it myself. Belay Your Obnoxious Bitching is perhaps another element that can be a part of all this. This is an important thing to do in freeing one’s mind to exercise any creativity, or to move toward improvements. When there is no one around to judge or criticize, and if failures happen during any of my experiments, or disappointments from my expenditures and exploits, I’ve only then set up a new platform for learning. Be Your Own Boss is suitable to use here too. (Best Activity Song {as I write this}: Find (Andy Moor Remix), by Ridgewalkers, mixed by Armin Van Buuren).

2.       Balance Your Own Budget – it seems like a contrary maneuver to satisfy the part about avoiding complaining and conflict, but it’s a necessary evil/challenge. Taking a good hard glimpse at what’s working well, and the reality of where one could be doing better with managing expenses, is crucial if one wants to make the necessary corrections to change things for the better. A holiday meant to relax, yet spent plunging into the red, ultimately isn’t a relaxing holiday. Be smart, and set things up to work within your means. It’s another reason why I opted for home economics projects. (Best Activity Song: Money, by Pink Floyd)

3.       Barter Your Old Books – I’ve been liberating my old stock of literature for someone else to enjoy, and trading these books at the city’s best used book store, Westgate Books, to get store credit to put something new and interesting on my shelves. As tempting as it was to collect silly, but fitting, ones with titles like I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, I took home something a little more poignant. The one I selected that I heard good things about is The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion. From the first page onward, I’ve been sort of freaked out about how much the story’s scientist narrator tends to think like I do, like I could have written much of what he said, thus it has been hard for me to put it down. Reducing clutter, freeing space, and welcoming new ideas all at the same time was the result. However, I couldn’t find any instruction manuals that I would find beneficial for my other chosen activities (see point 13). (Best Activity Song: nothing, I prefer to read in peace without distractions, but Lonely Boy, by The Black Keys would seem appropriate for this book I’m reading, either that or The Scientist, by Coldplay)

4.       Bench Your Own Bodyweight – that is, I need to start reclaiming some of the former magnitude of strength that I used to have. At least doing more things like more push ups. It’s not a vanity thing. Being alone and single necessitates one to be physically strong and fit for all kinds of motion, i.e. keeping your strength and flexibility means keeping your independence. No one is around to help pick me up when I fall down, no one else is there to help me move furniture, or other junk. It’s simply a fact that I have to be strong enough to do these things myself, and I can’t let myself weaken anymore. If I’m walking alone at night through a dodgy place or instance of time³, like I often have to, I’d want to be strong enough to be able to throw off an aggressor who is as big as I am should there be a time if I ever get attacked. That last example is a little extreme, but that kind of power is always something good thing to have in the toolbox that is one’s own body strength. It’s a shame to notice though that I have to dream up of negative scenarios to motivate me to exercise more. (Best Activity Song: B.Y.O.B., by System of a Down)

5.       Befriend Your Old Bicycle – To get active and sort of explore at the same time. Twenty to thirty clicks in a day a few times this week should be sufficient enough exercise that won’t ruin me for the rest of each day after. Depending on the terrain, that equates to about six to eight kilometres of running, except with a lot less stress on my joints.  I notice that there are many new trails that I haven’t tried yet through and around this town. My plan is to explore more territory along the unknown sections of trails that I’ve somehow ignored. (Best Activity Song: Ride (Tiësto Remix), Cary Brothers)

6.       Break Your Old Barriers – New places, new activities, new roles, maybe a chance to meet new people: all necessary to see and try. I’m ashamed to say that given all the time that I’ve lived here, there is still a lot I haven’t done or places that I’ve bothered to check out here locally. (Best Activity Song: This Must Be the Place, by The Talking Heads)

7.       Bacteria, Yeast, and Other Botanicals – As previous entries of other years can attest, the only real cultural events that are happening here that I’m involved with throughout this week of August are the ferments taking place in my crockpot and carboys. Added to whatever I’ll be brewing in them will be fresh living herbs and botanicals for unique flavourings. I’ve also been thinking about experimenting with infusions and flavouring my own gin. The fermentation cycles will be exploited thusly like last year’s experiment: once the primary fermentation of the beer is done, the remaining living yeast in the trub is used to make bread dough, the extra bread goes to making kvass, the kvass culture goes to priming the brine to make fermented pickles. Therein is the synergy. (Best Activity Song: I don’t know what microbes like to hear, but if it helps them reproduce better, I should play them some Barry White to help get them in the mood. Kind of a ridiculous notion though, since in truth they multiply by asexual reproduction (cloning themselves). For them clubbing it though, I’d recommend Piledriver (Grayed Out Summer Mix), by Ameobassassin).

8.       Build Your Own Brewery – Along with Brewing Your Own Beer. I thought I could improve on the technical aspect of things regarding brewing ale (the easier option, since making true lager or pilsner requires a converted refrigerator), and to try to re-experiment with all-grain mash brewing. To stage things for all-grain brewing in this place, I’ll need some modifications for the different space constraints and environment here. The last time I did all-mash, many years ago, it took almost a full 18 hours straight from the mashing process, to sparging, to boiling/hopping, to cooling the wort, to pitching the yeast, and the long messy clean up with the jury-rigged system I had back then. But, it was honestly the best damn beer I ever made, and the fact that I reduced the cost of producing it to around seven cents per 341 mL bottle was a feather in my hat too. I doubt if I’ll ever get to make it that cheap ever again: considering inflation, and a big investment needed for the proper doodads, and gizmos. Trips to places like Peavey Mart, Princess Auto, Canadian Tire, Cabella’s, and Co-op Do It Centre were made to hunt for parts for engineering and crafting something for better thermostatic control, a counter flow chilling unit, creative moulding of food grade plastics for some sort of sparging appliance, and outfitting a propane burner unit that won’t torch the balcony area of my place, since my little stove would be quite inadequate for the volumes that I need to work with. That, plus there is no flippin’ way I’m going to be adding the heat of 18 hours of steam and stove use in my place when it’s going to hover around 30 degrees with the humidex outside for the week I’m off. However, I had no luck at all in finding the right stuff. It was fruitless; an exercise in futility. The time I wasted had to be regained with finding a kit that’s even more simplified than my regular brewing methods. It just seems wrong that the only input of preparation energy and ingredients for this time around was about 4 litres boiling water, plus the addition of whatever volume of cool water to reach my target gravity; but I hope the results will be within the same parameters, or possibly even better. That’s for the treatment of the Y(east) part in point 7. (Best activity song: Y Control, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

9.       Blend Your Own Butter(s) – More uses with the botanicals part mentioned in point 7.  Crafting my own herbed and seasoned butters is a trick I learned to amp up the game in the kitchen. Locking in the botanical flavours in butter fat, and then freezing it, is a way to conserve that “fresh” flavour of them longer; as opposed to just being limited to using them in their dried state as the other alternative. It’s damn easy to do: just mix them in room temperature butter, form it, wrap it, and then refrigerate/freeze it. It makes it speedy to transform something from ordinary to something decadent, and adds other interesting dimensions of flavour to meat, vegetables and sauces. When I get a couple of extra pounds of butter (when it’s on special), I also get my hands on some fresh herbs, usually at this time of the year when the Farmers Market has a good, locally-sourced, seasonal variety in stock. (Best Activity Song: Spread The Love – Chuck Love) This time, I made five kinds of herbal butter, yielding about 230 grams for each one. They are:

a.       Sorrel and Crushed White Peppercorn – The lemony flavour of the sorrel is good with chicken, fish, grilled seafood, and vegetables like asparagus. I made an alternative sauce for Hollandaise, using this instead, when I didn’t quite have the right stuff when I was craving Eggs Benedict. It turned out OK.

b.       Dill – For putting on salmon fillets in a pinch, or shrimp, or lighter meats like chicken, or stirred into cooked carrots or beets, or a nice generous knob of it goes well with on top of mashed/baked potatoes when I’m in the mood for them. It can also be spread on hot toast to make an amazing tuna sandwich.

c.       Thyme – If there is no barbeque sauce (as I rarely buy it because steak eating occasions are becoming seldom), I simply grill a steak to my preferred doneness with just some salt and pepper, and then add some of this with some crushed and chopped garlic in it immediately once the steak is taken off the flame. Nothing more elemental or complicated than that; yet it’s so delicious. You actually get to appreciate good beef this way. It can be used a little more sparingly with lean pork or chicken, or for making a brown sauce. I couldn’t guess as to what sort of vegetables it might go well with, but I’m going to stir-fry matchstick cut parsnips and celery, and adding a little fresh garlic, and salt and pepper with it to see what happens.

d.       Basil – This stuff makes a cob of corn super yummy when you tuck some under the ears of a soaked cob, and then throw it on the barbeque grill. Also good with stirring into finished pasta, or making a white sauce for it.

e.       Mint – This one is new for me. I dared myself to make this specifically to use

with all this lamb meat I have left in my freezer, using it the same way I use thyme butter for steak. It wasn’t too bad!⁴ I’m guessing that it would mix in well with cooked green peas too, or other vegetables with a higher sugar content, like carrots or beets, or sauté zucchini in it. If you were wondering what I did with the rest of the big bunch of mint I had left, you’d be right if you guessed that I made a few Mojitos. Waste not, want not.

10.   Brew Your Own Batches – of sauerkraut and pickles. It involves the first B of

point 7: bacteria. May they find their jubilation and celebration with their procreation and propagation in the new creation of my fermentation station (Yep . . . I think those Mojitos are kicking in right now). This season’s attempt at brewing my lovely, five-kilogram, mass of smelly cabbage involves a 7% weight of course salt to shredded cabbage ratio, plus an addition of about a teaspoon of caraway seeds for an extra little zing. Making lacto-fermented pickles comes next week after this experiment after the series of other steps I mentioned above. (Best Activity Song: Strange Brew, by Cream)

11.   Boil Your Own Broth – I was blessed with enough time to devote to making authentic Vietnamese Phở Broth with my extra botanicals. I needed six hours to make it, but it was well worth the effort. Homemade Chicken Stock was made too. Getting all the flavours out of marrow and bone is waste reduction and frugality at its best. (Best Activity Song: Feel It in My Bones (featuring Tegan and Sara) – DJ Tiësto)

12.   Better Your Own Bullshit – I mean reframing your mistakes, and making an effort to correct them, or to do something better with them. I don’t mean being a better liar; I’m not a proponent of that. Mistakes can, and will, happen in my kitchen all the time; especially if I’m trying to do a hundred things at once. The only real mistake I find unforgivable in a kitchen is needless wastage, all other mishaps are fertile ground for experimentation. For example, I had the noble ambition to make some jam out of the gift of some raspberries that were given to me by my Mom. (Best Activity Song: Jammin’, by Bob Marley) However, I misread a recipe and underused the quantity of pectin I needed, but it was too late to add more, as I already canned it.

My Blueberry Jam.

No mistakes there. 

It's an obviously possible botch up if it doesn’t set right. If that happens, I instead will have made raspberry sauce, or raspberry syrup. Better yet, let’s call it raspberry coulis: because if you have something called coulis on a plate served in an upscale restaurant, it automatically seems to make that dish at least twenty percent more expensive than something with just plain old sauce on it. Redefining and repurposing a fouled result is redemption, and thus isn’t a mistake anymore. It leads one to really wonder about these so-called upcoming innovative and genius chefs. Are they really so, or were they just really incompetent at fixing up a dish according to orthodox methods and recipes, and to avoid being fired, they did something radical with food to hide or distract from their blunders, and then give it some pretentious name to feign ingenuity? Most mistakes in the kitchen are bullshit, and you can easily recover and make even better with them if you are cagey enough. Bob Ross, that instructional artist with the crazy big permed afro on the PBS stations, with his Zen-like calm and stoned-to-the-bones-sounding voice, said of painting, “There are no mistakes; just happy accidents.” The same also applies in kitchen work, although the likes of Gordon Ramsey would have you thinking otherwise. Speaking of Bob Ross, and his effed-up afro, I now shift to the subject of indulging in visual arts . . .

Trial started.

The base form is laid out,

I need to let the first layer

dry before I can add

details to her face.

My model is rather

uncooperative.    

13.   Better Yourself at Oils and Brushstrokes – I must say that this is the most challenging of all the exercises that I’ve done so far. When day 5 of staycation (Wednesday) came, I hit the wall with doing kitchen projects, and it was raining all day. I was so restless and irritated for some reason; feeling cheated out of a sunny day to enjoy on top of it. While cleaning out my office closet, I found an easel that was collecting dust. I bought it about five years ago, and used it maybe once. Being in DIY and home décor improvement mode, I was already probing through shops earlier in the week, looking at paintings and pictures to see what I could use to cover some of my naked wall space. So, then came the notion to trying to make some kind of art. I really do envy people who have such talent. I wish the people who I know who have it could just easily avail themselves to come here, so I can learn and feed off their creative energies while I watch them work on such projects. I don’t know what it was, but as I set up this easel, a cloud of hesitance came over me. Overthinking it, as I typically do. I’m sure there is a more complicated psychological term for it. The “happy accidents” idea just didn’t sink in. I somehow was getting an anxiety of putting myself in a spot of expressing myself visually, scared of facing the fact that this is something that I completely lack talent in. A performance anxiety when there was only me to perform for. It did help me realize exactly what kind of visual forms I find satisfying and impressive. I like things and forms with geometrical precision. Anyone who has tried to read my dreadful handwriting would agree that I certainly don’t have the ability to mimic that technical skill. I set up a blank white canvas, just staring at it for a long while, becoming more self-conscious that I would just sully this thing in some weird way. I thought that if I just projectile vomited on this thing it might be more aesthetically pleasing than anything my clumsy hands, driven by my undisciplined mind, could ever produce. Bob Ross made it look so bloody easy, and I could watch that bugger paint all day and be amazed, but it’s the complete opposite for myself once I have a brush in my hand. I freeze with indecision. I then went to the local Michaels art supply store, hoping to find either some sort of aid or inspiration. I found neither. I just found more stuff that overwhelmed and intimidated me from the idea of painting. I then had to ask myself, “What made me buy the easel in the first place, and what real pleasure did I really get from it before?” The answer was not in the easel, but rather the palette that came with it. What I really enjoyed was just mixing and matching the colours, curious to see what tones I’d get, and finding out what shades went well together. From there, I thought I’d take another step backwards to start with something a little more basic involving colour. I spotted one of those adult colouring books – thinking it would serve to guide me for what to put on canvas later. It was a book of mandalas: the circular symbols in eastern religions that have geometric precision, which I like. That’s when I went through what I would call a dreadful sense of embarrassing regression – knowing that days before this, I was doing this very mature and masculine thing of fervently hunting for fixtures, components, and chemicals for building something technically sophisticated and scientifically systematic for crafting stuff for adult enjoyment. Now, I’ve been reduced to practicing something that four-year old kids do. There was a whole lot of shattered ego crashing down there and then. But keeping precept number 6 on this list in mind, I forced myself to buy it anyway. I remember feeling so very weirdly sheepish as I brought this thing to the till: kind of trying not make eye contact with the cashier, like I was standing there trying to buy the most depraved and raunchiest form of pornography that can just barely be legally sold. I guess that’s how estranged I’ve become from my “inner child”. Using that book and some pencil crayons at home though really did make me a whole lot calmer. Actually, it was the most relaxed I’ve been since . . . well, I can’t remember when. It’s a good way to remind myself that I don’t always have to be purposeful or “productive”. I use and justify playing around with language learning apps, and I buy math and logic puzzle books of the Mensa standard for “edutainment”, rationalizing that these are to help keep my wiring for analytical and logic skills in shape, so I’m less likely to lose my marbles later in life from dementia as I get older. I forget that the other hemisphere of the stuff between my ears needs a good workout too with the right stimuli. That trip to Michaels that day was probably my salvation for keeping me away from the only sort of “addiction” that I probably do use impulsively for handling my restlessness and angst: buying technology. Kind of weird too, since I can’t seem to take that a sense of wonder and playful curiosity I have for figuring out technology, and apply it to using it artistically. Given the day that I was having, without that trip to Michaels to get an $8.00 colouring book, I could have easily walked a few steps further to Best Buy, dragging away another TV, or a computer, or whatever other kind of console, gizmo, or accessory that costs hundreds of dollars, kind of blowing point 2 up in smoke. Mixing my oils, and applying brush to canvas is coming up, but right now I’m happy to be involved in just being present with filling in colours in this book, as I enjoy a refreshment and listen to tunes. So . . . yay for me, I suppose I was successful at discovering a new hobby, even though it is seemingly “non-adult”. At least it doesn’t add to my current frustrations. More people should learn to be content in retreating into doing something so childishly simple⁵. (Best Activity Song: Any Colour You Like – Pink Floyd).

14.   Better Your Output on Blogger – So, to sum up, for this week off leisure-wise, I’ve been doing OK as an amateur chef, a bookkeeper, a brewer, a beer sampler(guzzler), a puzzle solver, a bookshelf reductionist, a recreational cyclist, a fermentation biochemist, a food preservationist, a kitchen ecologist, a Mojito mixologist, and most recently, a page colouration specialist (well, not so much a specialist, but a budding enthusiast). Now, I’m back to immersing myself in the role of humour essayist. Sure, it’s not exactly like being a true renaissance man, nor was this all as exciting as traveling somewhere new and special, but I haven’t been wasting time just parked in front of a TV frittering away these fine summer days either. As much as I’m flagellating myself for not having better artistic ability, I’m also grounding myself in the fact that not everyone out there is skilled or daring enough to write their own blog. Reading a lot will make you smarter; making an effort to express yourself better in writing will help keep you that way - or at least I hope that’s true. Being able to chronicle something or tell a story, be it frivolous or poignant, either with factual accuracy or for entertainment, doing so with a voice that’s truly all your own is an alright asset to have and improve upon too. These words are for those who I wish I could have had here to make all this going on more of a party during my time off. They are spread out all across the province, the country, and the continent. I miss them dearly. Putting all these BYOB exercises into words is my last exercise.

A Random List of Another Few Songs from My Collection I Enjoyed Chilling to as I Wrote All This (multiple decades; multiple genres):

·         Home – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

·         We Used to Be Friends – The Dandy Warhols

·         Juliette – Hollerado

·         Dirty Paws – Of Monsters and Men

·         Airscape – Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

·         At First Sight – The Stems

·         Our Love – Editors

·         Dirt – Phish

·         No Never Mind Blues – David Deacon

·         Poor Boy Blues – Jazz Gillum

·         Mannish Boy – Muddy Waters

·         Hoochie Coochie­ Man – Eric Clapton

·         Wishing (If I Had A Photograph of You)­ – A Flock of Seagulls

·         Fine Without You – Armin Van Buuren

·         Prayer for Rain – The Cure

·         Pictures of You – The Cure

·         Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

·         Four Play – Fred Wesley & the Horny Horns

·         Limelight – Rush

·         La Villa Strangiata - Rush

·         Red Rain ­– Peter Gabriel

·         Kashmir – Led Zeppelin

·         Bron-Y-Aur Stomp – Led Zeppelin

·         Spill The Wine – Eric Burdon & War

·         Just Like Honey – The Jesus & Mary Chain

·         More Than This – Roxy Music

·         7 Years – Lukas Graham

·         Bourée – Jethro Tull

·         A New Day Yesterday – Jethro Tull

·         The Only One I Know – The Charlatans

·         You Read - Eric Charles Band

·         Passenger – Iggy Pop

·         I’m Afraid of Americans – David Bowie

·         How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths

·         Tight Black Rubber – Black Francis

·         Hallucinations – The Raveonettes

·         Love In A Trashcan – The Raveonettes

·         Where Is My Mind? – The Pixies

·         I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses

·         Fool’s Gold (Remastered) – The Stone Roses

·         Little Monster – Royal Blood

·         How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead

1 - Brianese to Canadian English translation: Siamese Cat complexion – when your face, lower legs, and forearms are quite darkly tanned, but the rest of your body is looking ghostly white in comparison.

2 - I have quite a few good, if not interesting, ideas that strike me while I’m in a mildly conspicuous, yet still lucid, state of inebriation.

3 - I specifically refer to the gang-scum festered traveling shit show that is the EX, and the plague of thefts, robberies, and assaults that spike in the surrounding neighbourhood when it’s here. It comes here next week . . . Blargh!!!

4 – Really meaning, it was rather awesome. My Canadian attitude shows itself in my writing a lot, including the sometimes annoying proclivity we have for being really understated.

5 – I know some of those who know me who may be reading this might be thinking I’m starting to slip some gears; the most critical of the ones I’m thinking of who are ready to jab a barbed opinion at me for doing this are themselves inked up in the most skank-ass tattoos you can think of. Oh, the hilarious irony . . . people turning themselves into colouring books ready to snicker and beak off at a guy who just had a moment of curiosity to pass the time with one. If you have a tattoo, you don’t get to judge.

Fermentation Experimentation (on Baba's Magic Rocks)

I’ve started this entry after work, by the light of the Blue Moon. I almost feel like howling at it as I sip and sample a rather large glass of the mead that I brewed last year. Tonight marks the beginning of having another stretch of days off before the better part of this summer slips away; ones in which at least the sky won’t be a dull grey haze, and the air won’t be loaded with smoke like the last stretch of time off.

One of the first things that I’ll be indulging in with that time is preparing and eating some decent food. There are enough moments when I’m involved in the Iron Chef challenge at work, but I’m still limited by their menus and the lack of ingredients, or the crap ingredients I find there, so I’m never able to make the stuff that I really want. I have a bit of a reputation in my circles as being a bit of a food rebel (believe it or not). I don’t allow myself to be restricted by recipes very much. Time off means I get to bend the needle into that zone again with ingredients I really want, but then again there are still limits. More on this tomorrow.

Aug 1st, Mid-afternoon

My time off runs into a phase when I’m in the middle of a brewing project. So, I’m sticking around home for the first few days to tend to it before I act on any impulses to leave town. It’s also the time of the year when somehow the rural instinct in me from my early upbringing is aroused, and I become tuned into crafting some preserves, pickles, and doing other folksy kinds of canning projects. I’m also on a kick now to make a mindful effort to eat more (locally grown) vegetables. It’s a good time to do it because now that late summer is approaching, more local fare is available at the Farmer’s Market. As much as I would enjoy my time off by hyper-utilizing my propane grill to barbeque all the meat that I can lay my hands on, the price of it lately has skyrocketed considerably: this drought we are having is the excuse for that. Imported fruit produce is costing more too because of our devalued dollar. I’m also trying to heal my legs again, so my running progress has regressed, and I’m not burning off the same amount of calories as I usually would at this time of year. Eating more veggies and less energy dense food like meat and carbs/fructose may be the remedy. I’m trying not to feel deprived, so I’m preparing my greens and veggies in the ways I like eating them. Eating them raw/marinated, or having pickles or sauerkraut are my favourite ways to intake vegetable matter. So I’m focusing on this.

I got lucky recently after taking a random tour through one of the Asian grocery stores* here in

My new baby, who's ready to get
down to business.

town, and found an amazing fermentation jar: the same kind used by Koreans to make kimchi. This one was the perfect size for my needs. It is enamelled earthenware crockery, and it was dirt cheap too: a real bargain, costing less than a quarter of similar ones I was looking at while browsing online. Other fermentation crocks I’ve spotted in yard sales start at ridiculously high prices too because they are sold as “antiques”. I thought it would be a great investment for experimenting and making my own lacto-fermented pickles and, more importantly, for brewing sauerkraut**. So there I was, excitedly hauling it over to their till: a crackpot with crockpot. I won’t go broke now buying what is considered as delicatessen food at a hyper inflated prices. I can make my own now at will. Nostalgia also was the driver, probably the most pressing one, for me to get this thing. Homemade sauerkraut, like the stuff I was raised on, tastes the best.

However, I have the humbling and disappointing realization that I won’t ever be making the best that there is or ever was, because I will be lacking one especially crucial element for brewing up the perfect sauerkraut. That would be . . . my Baba’s magic rocks. My Ukrainian grandmother’s sauerkraut, in my mind, was the best that there ever was. It wasn't delicious because of any sort of special ingredient she added. Only salt and shredded cabbage were used. It was delicious because of the special rocks she used in the process. Traditionally, or at least as it was in her tradition, rocks were placed on top of the shredded cabbage to keep it submerged and compressed in the brewing vessel in such a way that the bacterial culture that makes this stuff does its job right. The magic power was in those rocks! The more scientific explanation is that the pores in those rocks harboured the lactobacillus microbes, which used whatever mineral matrix that is in those stones to direct their particular course of evolution through natural selection after several generations of replication. The fittest ones that could exploit those minerals, and withstood being immersed in the salt and that specific pH level that a crock full of raw cabbage has, out-competed and out-performed all other strains; and the inferior ones then died off and disappeared. The result is a dominant, unique strain of anaerobic bacteria which was thus optimally mutated for making and imparting that lovely signature flavouring. In essence, that particular kind of rock is a micro-biome, and my grandmother was lucky enough to find the perfect ones to allow this kind of goodness to happen. It's easier just to say that those rocks are magical.

It’s kind of like the same concept of how artisan cheeses from Europe can only be made and found in one special unique place, because of some certain breed of cow eating a specific plant that only grows in some particular valley, which then flavours the milk fat, which then makes the curds that are pressed and then cellared and aged in some cave which has its own unique microbial environment that is found nowhere else on Earth. Replicating stuff like this elsewhere becomes nearly impossible, even in lab conditions. Fermented stuff is special in another way. Such food stuffs are given more of an opportunity than regular food to affix some special cultural identity: e.g. milk is ubiquitous, but things like skyr, an Icelandic cultured dairy product, is something very unique. It’s not really cheese, and not really yogurt because of its unique microbial culture profile. It was probably made entirely by accident during the first part of human settlement there a over thousand years ago, when some microscopic gollywobs native to that island probably shot out from the bowels of the Earth through one of their geysers, and plopped into an open pail of milk, and then someone dared themselves to consume it. It doesn’t get much more elemental than that. It is only cultured and made there, and not readily available anywhere else beyond Scandinavia. Icelanders are probably very proud to call this stuff their own, as it is a part of their culinary tradition and no one else’s. Belgian beer is another example. Rather than conforming to the rigid standards of having antiseptic conditions for brewing within a closed system, the beer in some places in that country is brewed in open vats, and the windows of the brewery are opened to allow the natural wild yeasts, pollens, and other God-only-knows-what particles (like dust falling off from the overhanging cobwebs) to blow in and ferment and flavour the wort. The resulting beer, like it or not, can’t be replicated in a test lab, and can only be made in Belgium. If the technique was tried somewhere else, it would never be exactly that same kind of beer, because nowhere else except that specific area of Belgium has that particular environmental signature. This is what the French call terroir: the characteristic flavourings in wine and other cultured foods and produce that is a direct result of the elements and environment that they were produced in. In the case of Baba’s rocks though, I would imagine and guess that the proper French term could probably be called pierroir*** since the unique culturing conditions stem from a stone.

After my grandmother died, my Mom became the keeper of the sacred magic kraut stones, and she still uses them to make our family’s sauerkraut. It’s a little milder than I remember what Baba’s was, but it is still kick-ass stuff; with that same unique signature aroma and notes of flavour that I can’t describe. Back in the university days, when we received care packages from home, the roommates I had would tie into the jars of my Mom’s sauerkraut, and they gobbled it up like greedy pigs. They agreed that it was the best they ever had. They foolishly thought though that it could just simply replicated if they made it themselves . . . my brothers and I knew better.

As well as for healthful endeavors****, I’m interested in exploring new measures of conservation of

This is trub . . .Horrid looking slop
 . . . but it did its job nicely!

energy and preservation, home economics and frugality, and reduction of waste on all levels. This guy here, who once studied biology and is interested in sustainability, is very curious to see how far cycles of fermentation can be taken within a single system, and how they can be expended and/or expanded by producing stuff with the by-products from a former fermentation cycle. An example of this is rather than discarding the trub (yeast sediment) after brewing beer, I collected it and used it as a sort of sourdough starter and to make some rye bread, which was goddamned delicious by the way! I’m now using that same bread to make kvass (see earlier entry). The lacto-culture from that kvass could be used for making more kvass, or used with fruit and honey to make a sort of healthier sort of pop, or used to ferment other vegetables for pickling. The remaining liquor from 

My resulting rye bread. Not too pretty,
but it tasted great, and will be sacrificed
for my next experiment.

that process could maybe be later used for pickling eggs . . . and so on, und so wieder, et cetera. It could probably last as long as I’m willing to commit to it.

It’s a shame that some of the younger and urban generations of today will never know what some of these homemade fermented products will ever taste like. That’s their loss. I think they have already sadly missed the benefits of such stuff. I don’t have, and never had, any sort of food allergies or intolerances, which seem to be more common with the younger people of today. I strongly suspect that starting off life being raised on things like homemade sauerkraut, unpasteurized milk, homemade cottage cheese, fresh picked unwashed berries, taking a carrot right out of the ground and eating it, and playing in real dirt helped me to develop a more resilient immune system. Having a pantry full of mason jars, and the knowledge to make stuff that fills them makes me feel like a bit of a relic from the past, but at the same time I’m bypassing an industrial system and food culture that seems to do nothing but figure out new ways to put more noxious chemicals and preservatives in the stuff we eat to poison us. There is a bit of a renaissance starting again with home canning and using natural preserving methods that include using probiotics like lactobacillus bacteria. I can only hope it catches on more.

The beginnings of bread kvass: rye bread
+ raisins + spices + yeast + water, and a
little dash of alpha-amylase to accelerate
the mashing process. And yes, I do just
happen to have a stock of refined
biochemical enzymes just lying
around in my kitchen cupboards
. . . I'm kinky that way.

If I don’t ever get to use my Baba’s rocks, it is my hope that either one or both of my nephews would get to, and learn and appreciate how to use them at least one time in their lives, so they can see and enjoy the results that they can procure, and be cognisant of the power of taste and tradition, and what real food is all about.

*- I freakin’ love probing through the merchandise at some Asian and other ethnic market stores. It opens your eyes to a lot of weird and wonderful ways and variations people can express their palette, and some stranger foods that bring people comfort. Discovering something new and tasty, when you’ve thought you’ve already had all that you wanted to try in your life, is a great experience. I do have to be wary though that some of the “medicinal” teas, herbs, spices, and condiments there that you could have tolerated well enough when you were younger can, within half an hour after consumption, make you feel like you were shitting pure battery acid.

**- For you pretentious, snobby foodies out there, I’m talking about choucroute. I know it sounds weird to be sentimental over something that in essence is the result of bacterial putrefaction. There are just some weirdos, like me, out there who love sauerkraut, while others out there would compare sauerkraut as the collecting all the most vile beer farts from everyone at an Oktoberfest, and condensing them into a jar of shredded cabbage. There is no accounting for taste.

***- Terroir is derived from “terre”, meaning land or soil; so it stands to reason that pierroir could be coined as a word derived from “pierre”, meaning rock or stone.

****- Fermented foods make for a healthier gut/digestive system, and are also proven to be useful in detoxification and chelation (removing heavy metals from the body).