Recent reading
Dec. 1st, 2024 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaMy reading has taken a nosedive lately, but here are two books, anyway.
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (2010)
I read this in order to write fic forsanguinity for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trickortreatex, but never properly wrote it up. I quite enjoyed it, though it has now receded in my mind a bit. Recommended if you enjoy stories of Arctic exploration, ghosts, and queer longing. Verges on horror, though, so if you're sensitive to that, be aware.
Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz (2016)
Borrowed from my crush. This was a really cool book: sometimes when you read non-fiction, you think, "none of this surprised me, really", and sometimes you learn things, but they're complicated things you might not retain. And then rarely you get that reaction of "wow, I didn't know this, but it makes such immediate sense to me that it now feels like I always knew it". I remember having that latter reaction to learning celestial mechanics from the book The Ever-changing Sky by James B. Kaler, and it is now forever obvious to me why the full moon rises when the sun sets, or why sunset is shorter in the tropics. But as to this book: how did I not know that you can easily make your own carbonated soft drinks by adding yeast to basically any sweet liquid and putting it in a plastic bottle for a while?? I mean, I make bread all the time--I know yeast eats sugar and makes CO2, and yet I'd never put those pieces together. Also, previously I had no idea what malt was, but it's quite obvious to me now that cereal seeds need to store their sugars in an inaccessible way to be stable over time, and it's only when they've sprouted that those sugars can become accessible to the yeast to make beer. And that's all malt is: sprouted grain. Also very cool how there's yeast basically everywhere and you don't actually need to buy it.
We have so many delicious home-made drinks now that I basically never drink water any more: apple juice, kombucha (this is what we drink most, we have two alternating batches going), ginger beer (I recently made this but have not tried it yet), sweet potato fly (I made this and it has mace in it! mace is delicious), mead, apple cider (not done yet), perry (not done yet), beer (not done yet). The latter four not made by me though. Oh, and we have found a good source of delicious milk from the local farmers' market and now make our own yoghurt and occasionally cheese.
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (2010)
I read this in order to write fic for
sanguinity for trickortreatex, but never properly wrote it up. I quite enjoyed it, though it has now receded in my mind a bit. Recommended if you enjoy stories of Arctic exploration, ghosts, and queer longing. Verges on horror, though, so if you're sensitive to that, be aware. Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz (2016)
Borrowed from my crush. This was a really cool book: sometimes when you read non-fiction, you think, "none of this surprised me, really", and sometimes you learn things, but they're complicated things you might not retain. And then rarely you get that reaction of "wow, I didn't know this, but it makes such immediate sense to me that it now feels like I always knew it". I remember having that latter reaction to learning celestial mechanics from the book The Ever-changing Sky by James B. Kaler, and it is now forever obvious to me why the full moon rises when the sun sets, or why sunset is shorter in the tropics. But as to this book: how did I not know that you can easily make your own carbonated soft drinks by adding yeast to basically any sweet liquid and putting it in a plastic bottle for a while?? I mean, I make bread all the time--I know yeast eats sugar and makes CO2, and yet I'd never put those pieces together. Also, previously I had no idea what malt was, but it's quite obvious to me now that cereal seeds need to store their sugars in an inaccessible way to be stable over time, and it's only when they've sprouted that those sugars can become accessible to the yeast to make beer. And that's all malt is: sprouted grain. Also very cool how there's yeast basically everywhere and you don't actually need to buy it.
We have so many delicious home-made drinks now that I basically never drink water any more: apple juice, kombucha (this is what we drink most, we have two alternating batches going), ginger beer (I recently made this but have not tried it yet), sweet potato fly (I made this and it has mace in it! mace is delicious), mead, apple cider (not done yet), perry (not done yet), beer (not done yet). The latter four not made by me though. Oh, and we have found a good source of delicious milk from the local farmers' market and now make our own yoghurt and occasionally cheese.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-01 10:24 am (UTC)That sounds like a delicious range of drinks and a really interesting book :) How does one use the yeast that grows everywhere in cooking/drink-making to avoid having to buy it?
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-01 06:43 pm (UTC)Hmm. I am not actually a horror person either, but this one worked for me. I would say it's more psychological rather than being blood and guts and the like--it's basically someone stuck at an Arctic research station with a ghost.
How does one use the yeast that grows everywhere in cooking/drink-making to avoid having to buy it?
Well, with the ginger beer, for example, one shreds ginger with the skin and all (though it should be organically grown ginger so that whatever yeasts live on it have not been killed) and mixes it with sugar and water. Then you just let it sit in a bowl for a few days, stirring a few times every day. Eventually the water grows bubbly which shows that the yeasts are enjoying the sugar! And then you can use that as a starter for the ginger beer. It's a similar process to make a sourdough for bread.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-01 04:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-01 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2024-12-02 10:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-02 03:16 pm (UTC)We can make Greek yoghurt, yes! In fact we got it as a byproduct when we needed the yoghurt whey for the sweet potato fly--you just need to let the yoghurt drain a little.