Wow. I’m tired and I don’t know how I’m keeping up on anything. I have a four day weekend next week and I might spend most of it napping. I don’t know yet.
My partner and I started fermenting a hot sauce last week. It’s my first one, and I’m really excited about it. I cut a mango into small chunks and roughly chopped some ginger and red onion while my partner washed a pound of habanero peppers we got from our CSA share. Then we worked together to cut the habaneros up, de-seed them, and remove their membranes. We wore gloves to protect our hands. We put everything in a 2 litre mason jar as we worked. Then, we made a 2% salinity brine and poured what would fit into the jar. We tamped it with a weight and left the weight in.
I’m honestly not much for spicy things. They upset my stomach easily and I don’t exactly like the burning sensation I get on my lips from raw spicy peppers. I still tried one of the habaneros with my partner to quality test them, and I instantly regretted it haha. I like the underlying flavor of them a lot, though. They don’t taste like plastic to me the way bell peppers do.
I’ve been burping this hot sauce ferment a lot for a couple of days now. A couple days ago after work, it was so fizzy that when I opened it to tamp it, two pepper pieces jumped out. I tried them, and they already have a much mellower spiciness and a richer, deeper flavor. On Friday, it overflowed when I burped it after work because I forgot to burp it before going to work. I had it resting in a bowl to catch any juices, so I tried some of the juice. It was salty, spicy, oniony, a little sweet, and effervescent. It cleared up the little bit of sinus irritation I had from the weather getting colder here.
We’re probably going to add some ground allspice and thyme (and maybe some other things?) when it’s time to blend it all up and add vinegar for further shelf stability and flavor. It’ll still live in the fridge when it’s done fermenting, of course. I don’t really want to can it because that would take away the nice little helpful microbes. We don’t have proper canning materials right now anyhow.
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Work is less stressful. I think I’ve acclimated to some extent. I am making better connections with my clients than I have in previous seasons. It seems easier. I feel lighter on my feet. I suspect it might be some combination of having been able to let my nervous system take the time over the past year to rebalance itself, sticking to more routines, and engaging in mindfulness activities like journaling and meditation?
Maybe it’s that I stopped consuming caffeine? Maybe it’s because I’m getting older? Maybe I finally successfully pirated a copy of the allistic OS for brains? I’m kidding, of course. I don’t actually feel like I’ve been sacrificing my neurotype needs to accommodate allistic folks as much as I was expecting to. Maybe I’ve gotten better at boundary setting and figuring out how to get allistic people to talk about things they care about almost as intensely as I do about my personal interests? Those are skills I may have improved—I have been working on them. I dunno.
I’m still ready for my four day break. I struggle with connecting with coworkers specifically, still. Some of them are bitter and don’t seem to take the tasks or the weight of some of the responsibilities seriously. They’re paid well as the “real” professionals, they get benefits, they get paid time off. I dunno. I guess I don’t know what’s going on with the rest of their lives, maybe that’s why they feel that way. People are grateful for different things.
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I’m still working on my sweater. I’m making a lot of progress, but it’s still a ways away. I need to buy a set of double pointed needles in the right size to do the sleeves, but the local fiber arts store I go to has been out of stock for months. It’s one of the only stores I can walk into now and not get so overwhelmed that I need to turn heel* and leave. I already have the smaller circular needles I’m going to use to make the neckline. I need more yarn, also.
The fiber arts store is an attractive, well-maintained building—deep and narrow like a canyon—in a strip of otherwise rundown and defunct businesses on one of the main thoroughfares of my old neighborhood. There used to be a locally owned and run pharmacy, a bakery, a coffee shop, a takeout restaurant, and a theatre for plays that was converted into a movie theatre. The theatre is abandoned; many of the lights on the outside lining the titles sign have been broken, and their glass litters the sidewalk below. The titles sign itself just says “CLOSED”.
The single window of the fiber arts store has had a different display of someone’s pretty needlework or quilting skills every time I’ve stopped in. Most of the people that work there are very friendly and helpful, with a couple curmudgeons mixed in (again, I don’t know what’s going on in peoples’ lives, so I’ve started trying to take other peoples’ moods less personally). They’re all artsy people, working on their own creative projects, happily sharing tips and tricks, seemingly enjoying the connections they make working in the store.
The yarns are all neatly arranged by color and fiber type along one of the longer walls. The fabric prints they have in stock are along the opposite wall, also arranged by color and type. Accessories large and small are sprinkled throughout the middle of the building in shorter shelving units or on tables, creating a sort of open yet cluttered and cozy feeling. The entire floor as far as I can see is carpeted by a busy but muted low-pile pattern. The walls are brick, but painted white. The lights are a warm orange. It sort of feels like a used books store. There isn’t an unspoken pressure from the employees or the other patrons to get what you need and get the heck out. There’s a browsing culture, a homey feeling. I don’t know exactly how else to describe it. I haven’t felt that way in a store as an adult anywhere else.
*I thought “turn heel” sounded neat and I wanted to use it but I seemed to remember it meant something akin to “cowardice”, so I looked it up and it’s more like “swiftly changing an allegiance”, usually from hero to villain, and is used a lot in wrestling… I’ve left it in because I think it’s a funny mistake.
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I sprouted the seed from the mango that I put in the hot sauce ferment. If it survives to growing leaves, I’ll show you it when I pot it. It’s a Kent mango seed. Mangoes are fun to sprout. I had one that was growing leaves a couple years ago—another Kent mango—but it died from cold exposure when we forgot to move it when opening a window during the winter. If you want to try it yourself, there are definitely more detailed and well-informed instructions on the internet, but this is what I do.
Make sure the pit is stripped of fruit and as dry as you can make it. Then, you can use a butter knife to carefully pry the seed casing open. If you find it difficult to hold onto, you can try using a towel or grippy dish gloves. Inside, there’s a green seed. With clean hands, wrap the green seed in a damp, wrung out paper towel in a few gentle folds. Put the swaddled seed in a clean zip top bag. Squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can, zip it up, put the date on it, and put it in a warm, dark place. I put ours above a radiator in a corner that doesn’t get any sunlight.
Overtime, it’ll start to sprout and visibly stain the paper towel brown or black. With clean hands, take it out and check it every week to make sure it isn’t growing any mold and that the paper towel is still damp. Once your seed has a large network of roots and a visible stalk shooting up and out, plant the seed with the roots pointing downwards and the stalk pointing up. It should keep growing if you keep watering it, and eventually it will grow some leaves. It doesn’t like cold at all, so be careful about the temperature you keep it at. I think they like well-draining soil, also. I found that the one I sprouted a few years ago liked cactus soil a lot.
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Anyway. That’s a lot of words, I’ll stop there for now. Thanks for reading! I hope you’re doing well and finding ways to grow. See you again sometime.