Adventures in kombucha...

Natalie brought by a grab-bag of goodies on the day I arrived for my recent Houston gig, and one of said goodies was a container of kombucha, or "mushroom tea" ("грибной чай") from the Russian store between where she lives and Clear Lake. Calling it "mushroom tea" is a misnomer, of course, as the fermenting agent in kombucha is a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).

I even managed to create another batch of the stuff after the first few days, by adding brewed tea and sugar, and the resulting beverage was enjoyed during the last few days of my assignment.

Since TSA frowns on liquids, and as I didn't want to entrust a bottle of kombucha "mother" to my checked bag, I gave the bottle to Natalie to bring to Pagosa for the wedding. I neglected to ask that it be kept out of the heat. When I opened it in Pagosa, it looked and smelled "dead."

So I went to the local natural foods emporium here in Pagosa and picked up four bottles of the commercial stuff that swears it contains parts of the "mother." I drank most of the contents, being careful to decant clear liquid and to retain the mother. Today, I brewed about a gallon of black tea, sweetened with organic sugar, to which I added the balance of the commercial kombucha, enough to hopefully acidify the tea (to keep it from developing bacteria and/or mold) while the mother goes crazy and replicates itself in a caffeine-and-sugar rich environment.

More news on this front as it develops, say, in two weeks.

Cheers...

Unreserved endorsement...

Somewhere a while back I picked up an 11 oz. container of "Hatch Chile Pepper Dip" marketed by Robert Rothschild Farm. Today, I cracked it open and spooned a healthy tablespoon on top of some boneless beef short ribs that I hadn't done much to, except heat them through.

Oh, my!

Delicious!

Cheers...

Am I Jackie Paper?

The storage capacity of my Sansa e260 is small enough to where I can't carry around all of my tunes (my experience with my iPod has taught me that there's no overarching reason to carry around 80GB of tunes, etc.) yet large enough to where the occasional not-as-listened-to song can find its way onto the unit without making me wonder what's eating up the device's memory.

So there I was, yesterday, driving up through the middle of New Mexico, through the Jicarilla Apache tribal lands, when a song came on that I hadn't heard in years - Puff, the Magic Dragon - by the inimitable Peter, Paul, and Mary.

I mused about how easy life is when everything is possble and you know you cannot fail.

Noble kings and princes would bow whene’er they came
Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name!

Now, I must've listened to this song about a million times (only Big Blue Frog has received more play from me), but it never hit me, until yesterday, just how sad a song this is, really.

Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.

Before I realized what hit me, I was crying.

One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

Indeed, the song continues, "Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave," and I realized that, deep down, it wasn't Puff who had lost his fearlessness and could not be brave, it was poor Jackie - which is to say, me - and that's why I was crying.

I need to focus on life's possibilities more.

Cheers...