Go through shit, grow through shit…
Tags: Pickling, Plumbing, DIY, Recipe, Baking

The last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy as my little bigger brother would say. So much happening at the triplex. We’ve had a recurring gas smell in one of the apartments so we bit the bullet and had the entire house repiped. It’s never fun to put money into a crawl space but it’s a relief to have that fixed. One worry gone…

Speaking of crawl space…at the same time as the gas issue our plumbing backed up on us. Guess who’s retention wall prevented a whole load of human waste from draining right back down under the house. That’s right, my retention wall. It’s hard to explain the conflicting emotions going on inside of me when I looked down to see a pool of piss, shit and toilet paper behind our house that was successfully being retained there by my masonry. On one hand, there’s the natural panic of realizing you have a pretty big plumbing problem, but on the other hand the wall was working it’s magic. I almost saw it extend a little brick thumb up into the air at me as it held back the urine and feces. A DIY project gone right brings real joy.

Now there’s no easy way to move from sewage problems into food so I’m just going to do it. I’ve been really indulging in the art of homemaking lately. Baking bread, pickling, gardening, even homemade tortillas. Here’s a quick rundown on each one…

Baking: Just out of college, I got a job as a bread delivery person for a local bakery in Athens called Big City Bread. Great place…check it out. I really enjoyed the job. I ran into some characters and saw the kitchens of most of the local restaurants. The toughest part was getting up early to start my routes. I was normally there around 5:30 am which was nothing compared to the bakers who’s day started (or job started) around 2:30 am. I can only imagine the peace of working the small hours. The smell of the yeast…the music that I had never heard before…the manager who seemed like an overqualified aspirational idler…it was a very romantic environment. Anyway, for years I’ve wanted to try baking so now I’m doing it and it’s great. I’ve baked about 6 loaves of bread with varying results and think I’ve come up with cornbread recipe that’s really solid. If you like cornbread, try subbing out your basic vegetable or canola oil for coconut oil. One of our renters left some coconut oil behind and I gave it a shot in cornbread and it’s delicious…kids ate it up too. And yes, we eat the food that our renters leave behind :)

Pickling: I’ve pickled cucumbers, carrots, onions and green tomatoes. The green tomatoes were awesome…everything else mediocre. One thing I’ve learned to avoid is using anything other than white vinegar. I tried using apple cider vinegar and it was not good…

Gardening: I’ve become quickly obsessed with gardening. So much so that my kids are jealous of my plants…which I call my babies…and may contribute to them feeling slighted. My babies are really starting to bloom. I have peppers, tomato, acorn squash, butternut squash, basil, cilantro, arugula, kale and a few other lettuces that have come up from seeds. I saved many of the seeds from vegetables that I bought from farmers markets last fall and over the winter. It’s a beautiful circular process that I’ve just started to get into. I’m only slightly obsessed at this point but I could see this turning intense / weird at some point.

Tortillas: Just let someone else make them. It’s not worth it. That being said, I’ve made around 4 batches and they aren’t bad. It just takes for…ev…er…

So that’s it for this blog post. I just went from human waste to food that we’ve been eating and I think it works. We’ll see how Sarah feels as she’s editing my lousy writing…ok she approves (w/ edits)…