The days are blending together and I can’t remember where I left off or with which loaf. I started writing IV for my title and then had to double-check – this is actually the third post.
We made a lovely loaf of sourdough, perhaps our best yet, and learned a lot in the process. Like – we really need to rise the dough in the shape that we’d like it to take when baking, otherwise it will just floof out like a little Corgi splooting. Flat. No good for sandwiches, but great smeared with more of that French butter and some of the deepest darkest honey I’ve yet to witness. S is obsessed with this local brand called “Michael’s” which is just an 8 oz ball jar with a paper glued to it, and the most recent jar we’ve purchased is as thick as solid butter. It has a ton of the comb throughout in tiny flecks which really ruins my morning tea or coffee, so the only chance I get to really enjoy it is smeared over something.
It was really gorgeous, looking like a little moon we could hold in our hands. But we had to throw the second half of the loaf away as we were both experiencing gastrointestinal stress. I (we) needed a break from sourdough and the unintentional gas bombs (or was it the kraut? the jury is still out. cold. from lack of oxygen) – plus I am tired of EVERYTHING being covered in a light dusting of flour.
I’ve been on a weird Moosewood Cookbook journey. I’m not cooking from the Moosewood Cookbook – though I tried for hours searching through all of the basement boxes to try and find the book….
No no, the journey is that I’ve been thinking about the homeostasis of our home and how to better minimize waste. In 2017, when I lived in my cozy little one bedroom over by the lake, I produced 2 full size bags of trash in an entire year. I stopped using a lot of plastic and “one-use” supplies such as paper towels (except when my parents came to visit heh) and made a meaningful effort to compost and recycle, and minimize that waste as well. I still make the effort now, but I can’t help but think I could do more. So I’ve been trying. In my efforts S will come into the kitchen and say, “Look at you all moosewood and shit” while I carefully chop up leftover vegetables to put in my ‘Bokashi Indoor System’ which is a fancy Japanese brand box for indoor composting that my friend recommended.
Somewhere in there, I got it into my head that I would make yogurt. We had about a gallon and a half of milk, the good stuff, Straus’ whole milk, and each gallon was approaching its’ expiry date. I don’t drink cow’s milk, except for in coffee, and I’ve been rather gluttonous with the sourdough and pie, so I didn’t feel like ice cream was appropriate. I mean the gastrointestinal implications!
The more I ferment things, the closer I’ve been inspecting all of the other ferments I come across day-to-day. And now I have all this time. Also an instant pot. Hell yea.
Anyway, so I followed some internet recipe which, if I may paraphrase was:
- heat milk to 180 F
- cool milk, down to 110 F
- Add some amount of yogurt (I had Straus creamery yogurt)
- Incubate for 5-8 hours
- Cool in fridge overnight. Et voila, you have one of the many versions of fermented cows milk
****Just an interruption to say that mid-writing, a friend from my DC days reached out with pictures of their first pickle. What a dream to be thought of and to share in, the adventure of pickling 😀
Back to it. The yogurt came out wack. I did ALL of the things (including the step where I sterilized the equipment, eye roll, because it is the most tedious step) and the yogurt barely set. What did set was grainy, and there was A LOT of liquid/whey compared to yogurt quantity. I had to remember that the whole glorious part of this particular quarantine situation (minus all of the terrible shit of course) is that I have nothing but time, and that I can use that time to simply be curious. And fuck up yogurt, as many times as I want.
Yesterday morning I had some for breakfast anyway and honestly the flavor is quite good, despite the texture. Meanwhile, I had all of this whey leftover that I was hoping we would use for protein shakes but alas, it just sat in the bowl and I think it would be a bit sour anyway. So I did what most people would and googled, “things to do with whey leftover from yogurt making” and DON’T YOU KNOW! Ricotta. Duh.
I heated the whey to 198 F in a double-boiler, poured in some vinegar, stirred it up, and then drained it in a colander with cheese cloth for a few hours.
While it looks very ricotta-esque, it was in fact incredibly vinegar-y. Whoops. I got a little overzealous with the vinegar so it left a strong flavor. Vinegar infused ricotta! I ate it anyway. That might be the theme of my quarantine overall: “I ate it anyway.” But I did, eat it, with Pennsylvania Dutch pretzels made with well-water (as per the label) dressed with aged balsamic and olive oil.
My favorite and least favorite part of all of this is that I have yet to succeed at something at the first go. It’s real quick stab into the ego and then I just keep going because why not. As I fail again and again, I care less and less about it. Or not less, I think I’m equally, sometimes even more upset, but I get over it a lot faster. Am I teaching myself resilience via failure? What does it mean to be resilient anyway? Are we all learning that we’re actually more resilient than we thought? Should I start doing more things where I get a “no”? I don’t think I’m told “no” that often and to be honest it’s making me out to be a bit of a shit when it does come my way.
Last night I tried to make another round of dough and got lazy with it, so I thought I’d turn it into a pizza. It totally fell apart, was really annoyingly sloppy with flour flying everywhere, and me throwing a lil tantrum. Every tantrum is something different, but more and more they’re boiling down to: what have I eaten today? Yesterday there was nothing substantial, and my h’anger got the best of me, as it has many times before.
The lesson, I think, is that resiliency in the face of hunger, is extremely difficult.
Love,
Julianne
itinerant gastronomer 