• Sugar, yeast and ginger
    Ginger and water
    Filtered water and an old tonic bottle

    I’m obsessed with fermented food, so I started a new blog. It had to start somewhere so it started with ginger ale: 

    zymologist:

    Obviously, fermentation is essential to alcoholic beverages. But don’t limit the technique to JUST the production of the alcohol. A favorite summer cocktail of mine is a simple Whiskey and Ginger. The ingredients are right there in the name. But don’t use the syrupy ginger ale from a can. Instead, take the “ale” literally and brew it in time for the weekend! This was inspired by the article last year in the Philadelphia City Paper. 

    (First, buy a 1L bottle of tonic water and drink it with gin and a slice of lime. Wash the bottle.)

    Ginger Ale:

    1. Take a 4 or 5 inch chunk of ginger (buy a ton at an asian grocery store and freeze it) and slice it into pieces.
    2. Simmer the ginger in 1L of water for about a half hour. Allow to cool to room temperature.
    3. Add about 5 tablespoons of sugar to the bottle along with a pinch of champagne yeast.
    4. Strain cooled ginger liquid into the bottle, top off with water, and cap tightly.
    5. Allow to ferment at room temperature for a few days, until the bottle feels firm when you squeeze it. 
    6. Refrigerate and drink over ice with a nice bourbon.

    This makes a deliciously spicy ginger ale unlike anything you’ve tasted. Be careful though: the yeast is turning that sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The alcohol’s not a problem — it’s only a tiny bit and your mixing it with bourbon, so who cares? But the carbon dioxide does a great job of carbon ating the ginger ale. When you open it the first time it WILL bubble all over the place. Do it in the sink and don’t worry.

    Variations to try: use brown sugar or honey instead of white sugar. Add malto-dextrin (which the yeast won’t eat as readily to end up with a sweeter product.) Add mint.

    And really, this is the general recipe for any homemade soda: sugary liquid plus yeast in a bottle.

  • Rest Guidelines:

    Attach a rhythm to a life

    • Notice one’s stress a little early
    • Pleasant consciousness is barometer for sleep
    • The body and heart is refreshed by taking a bath
    • Take a trip and change the heart
    • Maintain the balance of rest and work, efficiency rise and overwork prevention

    Take leisurely time, effective rest

    • Find one’s time for 30 minutes for one day
    • Employ rest efficiently, it is a true rest
    • Find pleasure and aim of live in leisurely time

    Take in oasis to a life

    • Value relaxation to familiar inside
    • It is variety to meal space
    • Feel the breath of health by familiar automatically

    Pass rich life, by encounter and bonds

    • Find out social participate of pleasure and few burdens
    • The creative life cherished in bonds

  • The Never Call: There are some people who love to text so much that the phone part of their cell phone has become completely obsolete.

    —

    The Nine Types of Text Messaging Monsters - Texting - Gawker

    I am one of those people. But let me explain something to you… telephone calls are rude. They are interruptive. Technology has solved this brief aberration in human behavior. We have a thing now called THE TEXT MESSAGE. It is magical, non-intrusive, optional, and, just like human speech originally was meant to be, is turn based and two way. You talk. I talk next. Then you talk. And we do it when it’s convenient for both of us.

    (via rickwebb, catbird, madeleinepascal)

  • “Tolerance” is a feel-good buzzword in our society, but I fear people have forgotten what it means. Many folks are proud of their “tolerance” for gays, working women, Tibetan monks in cute orange outfits, or blacks sitting at the front of the bus. But what they really mean is that they consider such things to be completely appropriate parts of their society, and are not bothered by them in the slightest. That, however, isn’t “tolerance.”

    “Tolerance” is where you tolerate things that actually bother you. Things that make you go “ick”, or that conflict with strong intuitions on proper behavior. Once upon a time, the idea of gay sex made most folks quite uncomfortable, and yet many of those folks still advocated tolerance for gay sex. Their argument was not that gay sex isn’t icky, but that a broad society should be reluctant to ban apparently victimless activities merely because many find them icky.

    —

    Overcoming Bias : True Tolerance

    Legalize all drugs, prostitution, paying organ donors and assisted suicide. I’m sure there are more I could list.