Swimming upstream
Friday, April 17, 2009
Amateur Relief Printing 1
These are some of my latest efforts in the printmaking sphere of my existence, step by step.
This bearded face is of my friend Jack, one of the farmers I worked with last summer.
This bearded face is of my friend Jack, one of the farmers I worked with last summer.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Ferments for thought
"Ideas ferment, as they spread and mutate and inspire movements for change. The Oxford English Dictionary offers as the second definition of ferment: 'The state of being excited by emotion or passion, agitation, excitement... a state of agitation tending to bring about a purer, more wholesome, or more stable condition of things."
-Sandor Ellix Katz in Wild Fermentation
I define fermentation as a terribly exciting process by which you can create delicious food (which is what Katz was getting at too). For our Friday afternoon staff learning/sharing a week ago, my camp ally - Larita - and I gave super-speedy tidbits from our training at Organic Growers School in Hendersonville, NC. We made sauerkraut as a staff - the quintessential DIY ferment.
I hate to be obvious, but it is so EASY. YOU TOO can make sauerkraut at home. A lot of people did back in our grandparents' generation.
We cut up a green cabbage.
Chopped a few carrots.
And an onion.
About 5 cloves of garlic.
A little arm knob of ginger.
Sprinkled ample curry powder, cayenne pepper, lemon pepper,
and a little snowfall of sea salt.
Kneaded that for a while until it is limb cabbage and some of the cell walls have been broken.
A brine (veggie salt water) will have begun to form.
Yum.
Add salt water to cover veggies, compacted.
Keep submerged with a plate.
Taste occasionally.
When it reaches desired zest, or effervescence, or saur-ness, jar it and put in your fridge.
I am doing an experiment (which is largely what my cooking and baking projects are composed of): after 1, 2, and 3 weeks, I am going to jar the sauerkraut and put it in the fridge. And then have a tasting party to assess the nuanced differences in fermented status.
My other fermentation experiment consists of sourdough bread. I made my first loaves of wild yeast bread about a week ago! I will post that once I get the recipe correct.
Here is how to make a sourdough starter:
Add about 1 cup of lukewarm water to 1 cup of wheat flour (can be white or whole wheat). I like putting it in a wide-mouth mason jar with mesh screen on the top to allow for the flow of gases and wild yeast in and out of the starter. Stir the mixture often. In 3-4 days, there should be lots of bubbles in the dough. This indicates that you have garnered a little colony of wild sourdough bread yeast! Yay! Begin to feed the yeast once a day, by adding 1-2 tbsp of flour and stirring the starter. Once it is thick and bubbly, you can make your bread out of the starter.
And speaking of fermenting, there are lots of microorganideas fermenting inside my noggin these days. Some in terms of exciting jobs, some in terms of not jobs. I am still determined to stick to my newest resolution of not working more than 8 months out of the year. I can only work the summer or the fall. Not both. Of course, rules are meant to be bamboozled once and a while.
Massive sourdough challah loaf:
-Sandor Ellix Katz in Wild Fermentation
I define fermentation as a terribly exciting process by which you can create delicious food (which is what Katz was getting at too). For our Friday afternoon staff learning/sharing a week ago, my camp ally - Larita - and I gave super-speedy tidbits from our training at Organic Growers School in Hendersonville, NC. We made sauerkraut as a staff - the quintessential DIY ferment.
I hate to be obvious, but it is so EASY. YOU TOO can make sauerkraut at home. A lot of people did back in our grandparents' generation.
We cut up a green cabbage.Chopped a few carrots.
And an onion.
About 5 cloves of garlic.
A little arm knob of ginger.
Sprinkled ample curry powder, cayenne pepper, lemon pepper,
and a little snowfall of sea salt.
Kneaded that for a while until it is limb cabbage and some of the cell walls have been broken.
A brine (veggie salt water) will have begun to form.
Yum.
Add salt water to cover veggies, compacted.
Keep submerged with a plate.
Taste occasionally.
When it reaches desired zest, or effervescence, or saur-ness, jar it and put in your fridge.
I am doing an experiment (which is largely what my cooking and baking projects are composed of): after 1, 2, and 3 weeks, I am going to jar the sauerkraut and put it in the fridge. And then have a tasting party to assess the nuanced differences in fermented status.
My other fermentation experiment consists of sourdough bread. I made my first loaves of wild yeast bread about a week ago! I will post that once I get the recipe correct.Here is how to make a sourdough starter:
Add about 1 cup of lukewarm water to 1 cup of wheat flour (can be white or whole wheat). I like putting it in a wide-mouth mason jar with mesh screen on the top to allow for the flow of gases and wild yeast in and out of the starter. Stir the mixture often. In 3-4 days, there should be lots of bubbles in the dough. This indicates that you have garnered a little colony of wild sourdough bread yeast! Yay! Begin to feed the yeast once a day, by adding 1-2 tbsp of flour and stirring the starter. Once it is thick and bubbly, you can make your bread out of the starter.
And speaking of fermenting, there are lots of microorganideas fermenting inside my noggin these days. Some in terms of exciting jobs, some in terms of not jobs. I am still determined to stick to my newest resolution of not working more than 8 months out of the year. I can only work the summer or the fall. Not both. Of course, rules are meant to be bamboozled once and a while.
Massive sourdough challah loaf:
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