"pet" project

As a child our household didn’t have pets. Okay that’s not entirely true. My very unstable mother had a habit of buying puppies and then when she learned she couldn’t control them she’d return the slightly older puppies to the breeder and then go back to controlling my brother and me with a vengeance. One summer when I was around 7 years old I left for a month-long vacation and in that time she managed to select, purchase, and return a (barkless) Basenji. What’s curious is that she had had dogs while she was a kid so I’m not sure why her affection and skillset didn’t transfer to her adult life.

Aside from limited pets and being extremely allergic to cats, I live what can be best described as a pet-free life. That was until last Thursday when my roommate asked me if I’d make blueberry sourdough pancakes. My roommate is wise to have made this request. Whether she knows it or not, I like to try new things and pancakes are a terrific way to start (& end) any day.

Being that I’m absentminded I had to pin a huge note to the kitchen wall “start sour dough starter” or else these pancakes would never appear.

On Saturday, using a basic recipe of water, flour, and rapid rise yeast, I started my first starter. (Now that I’ve done a little research I think I want to try “capturing” wild yeast next time I head to the country.)

In any event I’ve realized that sourdough is alive (with yeast culture), and needs to be fed. Ergo sourdough is currently my “pet.” Although a pet that is eaten seems more along the lines of a crop. (Have I ever mentioned how irked I get when hunters harvest deer from my forest? It seriously pisses me of. GD poachers. Go get your own forest and stay the f*ck out of mine.) Sourdough starter could almost be likened to a producer such as hens -- they yield eggs and the chicken itself can be eaten (if you raise broilers or feel like eating spent hens). Or cows which produce milk (and if you’ve got nothing else around to eat I suppose you could slaughter your milk-cow and dine on her?). What I’ve really got is a flock of cultures at my beck and call. Does this mean that vegans don’t eat sour dough? Is sourdough is a pro-biotic? Why does every turn of my life seem to yield more questions?

I was told a long time ago by my Tibetan doctor to avoid wheat. In recent years I’ve gone on wheat-fasts but I like artisanal beer and anytime someone at work brings in baked goods I’m all over that like a third grader at a birthday party in homeroom.

I’ve noticed that with artisanal beer I’m not hungover the next day. I can knock back 6 pints in a sitting, stumble home, and wake up the following morning feeling as fresh as a daisy. (Which is totally fantastic!) On my stumble home I stop by Shade To Go and get a crepe. (It’s a wonder I’m not the size of a double wide.) When I was last in my favorite beer store I mentioned that the micro beers never leave me hungover and another patron said that true micro brews haven’t had the vitamin B killed which makes it easier to digest the beer. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it sounds good to me.

Applying beer logic to sourdough I’m hoping that the fermentation process is going to create a wonder food and I’ll shed pounds eating this yummy living wheat-mess instead of growing wider and having to let my belt out another notch.