To decipher my unremitting silence without going all desperate housewife on you is no sinecure, as I’ve been heavily focussed on getting reacquainted with the processes that enhance our nourishment, by dusting off my dated practical knowledge on fermentation, but unlike winters before when things swiftly spiraled out of control and took over most of my other daily aims, now intended in a more controlled and confined way, although the bubbling jars on our kitchen cupboard would probably beg to differ and still dictate my days.
Feed my fiercely frothing-over sourdough starter, filter out the milk kefir grains and feed them towards creating tomorrow’s supply, setting aside the fermented milk for our ultra-hip lunch smoothy with freshly harvested leafy greens from our garden, like kale, chard, radicchio, rocket salad, lamb’s lettuce and a variety of seeds all birds would envy, bake the sourdough focaccia I started yesterday, also for lunch, as well as preparing the sourdough Naan flatbread for tonights Indian dinner, that also involves making the cheese for the Paneer Butter Masala and soaking the chickpeas for the accompanying Chole Masala, shred a white cabbage from the garden and start a new batch of kraut by rubbing it in salt and cramming it into a jar, feed the young cider vinegar with the cores of our lunch apples, wash the natural cheeses I made last week with a mixture of whey and salt to ensure the correct mold grows on their skin, all this repeatedly interrupted by the stretch and fold of tomorrow’s sourdough loaf. Oh, and make Skyr, preferably for the week.
A more gentle, lyrical and tangible description of my taciturnity, or ‘valued mania’ as Ivory likes to call it as it provides him effortlessly with tasty meals and the opportunity to work without interruption on his article, came to me whilst driving home from groceries in a nearby town. The perceptible part of a serene spectacle, with all visible elements of the scenery severely bitten by frost as if it was snowing from the inside, directed me on a detour I usually try hard to avoid, but it now literally forced me to prolong this awe:
“You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream”.
