“Great fury, like great whisky, requires long fermentation.”
—Truman Capote
I have always admired many of my skilled friends who cook, bake, distill, ferment, create with wonderful mis en places—in their kitchen studios. I have many friends that talk about microbes as if they are family members, what they like, how they behave, how to care and feed them from sourdough starters, to Kombucha mothers, to the stinky and bubbly sauerkraut. Candidly, the idea of live microbes eating all the sugar in their base, bubbling away kind of horrified me in the beginning as did the tricky containers with these funny pressure things on the top. Nah, not for me. But I was even more horrified by the aspect of a pressure cooker and the potential for it being a bomb in your household. Albeit—a happy bomb when the fear washes away.
So, I research everything. It really is in my digital dna to google reviews, to read stuff from experts and to make a decision after reading a ton, talking it up with friends and then diving in. But with fermenting, I bought myself simple glass fermenting container with a silicone top and a simple regulator on the top. I figured if I had that, I could get going until I read on one of these perfect mom recipe websites about these things called “pickle pipes”. Pickle Pipes are these fermentation tops that fit any wide mouth mason jar (regardless of the volume) and with that, you are done….So they allow you to ferment in tiny batches to see what you like and what you don’t. So, I splurged and bought a set of 4 and away we go!. The batch of garlic/dill carrots were sensational. I have a jar of dilly beans and one of garlic dill pickles. I used the brine from the carrots and put onions in it…not to let it go to waste and dang, the sizzle and bubbling that happened literally the minute I put the onions in the jar was really something quite remarkable. I did. haul out the bigger fermenting jar and made a big batch of sauerkraut from a head of red cabbage which is tasty, sour and “soft” (where I am going with that is it doesn’t bite you the way vinegar does with regular pickles). And all of this in 17 days. This looks like a lovely thing to do while we are Coronavirus encamped—and it already is adding color to our plates, pucker to our salads, and probiotics in our mix during this time of managing your health and happiness.
So fermenting it is. Long fermentation.
My fury at the state of the world has become more focused. I don’t know what happened but the whole flight and fight thing died down yesterday and has bloomed into pure rage. I guess this change happened because the Coronavirus freight train hit as hard (harder) than projected and consistent with his behavior, Trump continues to hold television rallies demanding fealty and love despite the sheer tragedy that is unspooling right in front of our eyes. At least now, it is in front of us with 45 refrigerator trucks supporting the current overflowing morgues—as we escalate towards “peak”. The horror stories and the stories of heros will be told but for now—we watch and wait…as there is nothing we really can do except to keep our distance, to keep things clean (hands, boxes etc.) and for me to stay vigilant with those I am homebound with and those who need or like the extra “hi”. I have gone from guzzling the news from all sources (Twitter, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, YouTube, Podcasts, books by pundits on Audible) to letting it rest a bit. I am now just watching the data that is piling up on this site:
COVID-19 In US and Canada
And albeit for the saddest purposes, there are some really outstanding sites that explain aspects of this virus and it’s spread through beautiful infographics:
Washington Post : How to slow epidemics
New York Times: How the Virus Got Out
And though it’s not an infographic, The Imperial Report from the Imperial College, London. is a significant piece of writing that though horrifying, has substance and weight.
So, I haven’t totally dropped the news hose…but am trying to keep it more focused and not as much the rage echo chamber. There truly is nothing we can do but ride this out, grieve the past, the present and the hopes that will change for the future and then start looking for the sparkle, positive change and those little motes like wild yeast, that can ferment and grow into something new and wonderful.
I think we can do it.