It's Alive!!

I can't believe I almost forgot to acknowledge the THIRD Anniversary of "The Beast". Well, actually I can believe it since we are now less than two weeks away from moving out of Manhattan and nowhere near being packed or even mentally prepared for any of this. To add to the stress I have found that trying to go through years of accumulated junk with a toddler around is very, very trying. There have been some difficult moments with the wee lass lately, (like pulling off her diaper and throwing it into a bag of clean clothes destined for Goodwill or turning over and dumping an entire box of toys after I had spent several hours matching pieces and neatly packing them away) "Somebody kill me plee-ase*” is constantly running through my head these days. Good times around here. Good times.

So "The Beast" is three. I'm really proud of this starter, it began as a Rye Starter but then I separated some from the "mother" and gradually switched the flour I was feeding it, after a while I ended up with this lovely paste that has definitely mellowed but is still quite tangy. Very nice. I have visions of my great-great-grandchildren migrating to distant lands and bringing with them the treasured family starter. Ha! Let me stop. The poor "mother" is gone. I'm not sure what happened, all I know is that one day it was happy and healthy and bubbling away and two weeks later it had some scary fuzzy stuff in it and I had to let her go. No worries Dear Readers, I poured her down the drain gave her a proper burial.

I celebrated this anniversary by taking it out of the fridge and giving it a good feeding, we laughed, we cried, but mostly we laughed, then I relocated it temporarily so that I could clean out the jar, it was the least I could do. "The Beast" has been good to me over the years, it was there the day I got "crazy" and used it to create an original recipe and it has grown (a pun!) with me as I’ve struggled to become a better baker and has helped me deliver some nice results. So yeah, cleaning its tank was the least I could do. I'm looking forward to many more kitchen sessions with it in our new house. It will be interesting to see what, if any, flavor characteristics it takes on from country living over the soot and poor air quality of city living.

Happy Anniversary little yeasties!

*Loudly and off key-very similar to how Adam Sandler sang in the movie "The Wedding Singer".

Written by Deb on October 31, 2005 12:31 AM