Lacto-Fermented Veggies

So I tried pickling for the first time last night.  Chopped up some broccoli from Kroger and mixed it with baby carrots, then put it in jars with a 5% brine and spices.  The idea behind this kind of fermentation is that the salt keeps down the bad bugs while Lactobacillus gets up to speed churning out lactic acid; long-term, it's the low pH that is preserving the food.  I'm interested in it because it's a fairly easy way to get started in preserving food, plus I just like the idea of raising a host of bacteria to turn ordinary food into something better.  I'll let you know in a few weeks how they turned out and which spice blend I liked the best.

Fantasia para un Gentilhombre

Today's classical music link.  A very nice piece by the blind Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo.

Kombucha

Has anybody tried this stuff?  It's a fizzy fermented tea.  Doesn't look very appetizing in the fermenter, about a half-inch of yeasty mother floating on top, but apparently it tastes pretty good and presumably you get it out a spigot in the bottom.  It's all the rage nowadays in health-food circles apparently; I found out about it following links from that pickling webpage linked above.

World Curling TV

Yes I am a nerd.  Watching curling while I dry 3D glasses for the planetarium: Men's Euro Championships Final 2012, Sweden and Norway.

Dvorak Humoresque

I enjoy this piece quite a bit.  Here we have Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma playing an arrangement for violin, cello and orchestra.

COSI

Went to COSI with the family yesterday.  Had a really good time.  It may be that my kids are getting older and enjoy it themselves more, but I'm appreciating this museum more and more each time I go, even if it is a competitor.  As an added bonus MindBender Mansion was the traveling exhibit and I got to rock the hopscotch spelling game again.  It's a really good workout, someone needs to make these for home fitness.  It's like DDR for nerds.

Welcome!

Some of you may be wondering why I left Facebook.  The short answer is, I got addicted to the ego-boost from likes and comments.  I was neglecting too many things that I needed to do in my face-to-face life like my family relationships, chores around the house, and my job--not to mention, it's not good to be addicted to anything.

At the same time, I'd like to keep in touch with many of you, and many of you would like to keep in touch with me.  In addition, it appears that a lot of you like reading at least some of the stuff I post.  I think that's great, so this blog plus e-mail is the mechanism I've chosen to accomplish that.  Please drop me a line.

I'm going to stay away from expressing opinions and other things that feed the "I wonder if someone liked that or not" problem.  I'll save that sort for stuff for face-to-face chats.  Mainly this blog as I envision it today will just be stupid humor and cool science that I stumbled upon and liked.