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My list of what I've read. Everything goes in here, even the embarrasing stuff. That way I, (hopefully), don't get duplicates as gifts, and eventually I can be proud of my long list.
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A short self-help book, based on a commencement speech. A quick read, kind of bubblegum self-help. The speech it’s based on is at the end of the book, and I’m not sure reading the whole book gave me that much more than just reading the speech would have.
My main takeaway was that I need to build a team & not try to do everything myself.
As a guy in my early 40s I’m not the target audience for Anne of Green Gables, it’s something most people read as an older child or young teen. As a Canadian I feel like it’s a bit weird to have never read it, I even went to Green Gables twice with people who love Anne! There have been copies of all of the Anne books in my home for years, I finally picked one up.
I get it. I understand why Cavendish has been a draw for tourists around the world for a century, why people keep making Anne shows for TV, and why, when I went to the maritimes with Anne fans there was no question that we were going to visit Green Gables.
There are a bunch more Anne books on my bookshelf. I am worried that they won’t hold up to the first, but I suspect I will read them.
I finally read Jurassic Park, and I should’t have waited so long.
By accident, I re-read The Whistler on a recent flight, so when I heard there was another book in the series I wanted to read it.
Fermentation has traditionally been used to preserve a surplus, to make the inedible edible, or to transform a product into something more desirable. In modern times we don’t use it so much for preserving abundance, but it is used to create new flavours, or products, that are difficult or impossible to create in other ways.
Some techniques are very widespread, like lacto-fermenting vegetables with salt. Others are more regional, such as the use of mold on grains, which is mostly confined to Asia.
As the food supply has industrialized many traditional ferments are at risk of being lost. For example, a whole class of African ferments is being replaced by bullion cubes. Industrialization may also be affecting the way fermenting by-products are being used – or not. In community-scale fermenting it seems that the by-products are used, sometimes for animal feed, (whey), or to create other products, (kasuzuke).
Trying to categorize fermentations is easy and hard. Many are easy, pure, lacto-fermented pickles or a straight-up conversion of sugar to alcohol, but there is a lot of cross-over. Even turning grains to alcohol often uses an intermediate step such as mold.
Tofu can be fermented! I had always thought of tofu as an end product, but it doesn’t have to be. To be safe, tofu should have an initial fungal ferment using mold, then there can be subsequent ferments, (often lacto), to enhance flavour. Meat also needs a multi-pronged approach to preservation, and usually only one of those prongs is fermentation.
It possible to add a bunch of carbs to meat and get a lacto-ferment going in the carbs, and the acid from the lacto-ferment pickles the meat.
I finally learned what the processes mentioned on coffee bags mean: it’s how much of the fruit is left on the bean during the fermentation/drying process. Intentional fermentation seems pretty new in coffee. The processes are: Natural, where the whole fruit is fermented, Honey, where the skin is removed but the pulp remains, and Washed, where only the bean remains. Washed the way most coffee has been processed, and is supposed to give a "cleaner" flavour, and the more fruit is left on the more interesting flavours may develop.
The concept of a never-ending brine looks interesting to me and I’d like to try it. In fact, there are several ferments and recipes using ferments from the book that I’d like to try. It would be fun to get into koji, but I really don’t have the space.
I ate a peanut butter & kimchi sandwich, it was pretty good. It might even be good with jam, (but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll do some testing).
Sandor filmed a series called the People’s Republic of Fermentation in China. It’s available on YouTube and seems like it would be interesting.
