Kombucha

Raspberry kombucha. 

Lots of things are nice to look at as they're being made. Dough, pasta, ice cream, all nice to look at. Even raw oysters can look good after being staged, cropped, filtered and tagged.

Not kombucha. It's the ugly stepsister right up until it's put into a glass with a metal straw and flowering mint. There are 83 reasons making kombucha the wretched little beverage it is, three of which are worth talking about: the SCOBY, the fermentation, and the explosions and shrapnel. 

The SCOBY

A SCOBY is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (s-c-o-b-y) that looks like a big disc made of algae. Gelatinous algae. A SCOBY can also be referred to as a "mushroom," and little-to-nothing good has ever been synonymous with "mushroom."

A SCOBY. It's a little brown and stringy. You let this live in some tea and then you drink it. Humans!

Fermenting Stage 1

Just like pickles and soy sauce, kombucha gets its unique flavor from the fermentation process. There are two stages of kombucha fermentation. In the first stage, the SCOBY sits in a gallon of sweet tea for 7-10 days, during which time the SCOBY moves around the jar on its own before settling at the top and making a SCOBY baby (a scaby). As the tea ferments, the mixture gets less sweet and more sour.

A note on "scaby": I made this up, it's not a real thing.

A note on "buch": My mom called to tell me that my sister discovered "people in the know" refer to kombucha as "the buch." This also is not a real thing. 

Fermenting Stage 2

Once the tea mixture has the right balance of sweet and sour, you take out the SCOBY and scaby and put a bunch of fruit or herbs or both in and wait another couple days for the flavor to be just so. This sounds nice, but it isn't, because the color gets leached out of the fruit which, like the SCOBY, mysteriously moves around the jar by itself.

Happily after the fruit is done fermenting, it gets strained out of the kombucha and is discarded.

Kombucha after fermenting for two days with a box full of crushed raspberries. Color: nice. Bleached raspberry bodies: not so nice.

Sick.

Explosions and Shrapnel

The final reason kombucha is both unfriendly and unattractive is that sometimes it explodes after you bottle it, spraying half a gallon of sugary fruit tea and shards of glass shrapnel all over the kitchen and the cat, whose food bowl you placed directly next to the brewing kombucha.

Strictly speaking, this doesn't have to happen and usually doesn't happen. But it will happen if you let the kombucha ferment in a sealed bottle for too long, since a single bottle can only hold so much carbon dioxide (and this is why kombucha is carbonated! Science.).  

One of these bottles exploded. That was hilarious. Except it was actually horrible and my kitchen ceiling will never look the same.

A Good Time For A Blog

My darling sister and I on Abbot Kinney in Venice shortly after I was diagnosed with cancer.

AN INTRODUCTION

When my little sister traveled to Southeast Asia for her second-year law school internship, she started a hilarious and insightful blog chronicling her travel, food, and cultural adventures.  Not long after, my mom started her own blog detailing the best parts of her life with my dad, including their travels, cooking and jamming (i.e., preserving) exploits, and visits with family and friends.  

At my mom's urging, I am now starting my own blog.  There probably won't be a better time in my life to do this, as I am midway through my recovery from and ongoing treatment for breast cancer.  I received my diagnosis on December 4, 2014, spent about a month going through countless blood tests, ultrasounds, scans, and fertility treatment, and started chemotherapy on January 6, 2015.  I stopped working in March of this year because the side effects of chemotherapy made it difficult to work, and I am still recovering from a bilateral mastectomy.  As a friend recently pointed out, one happy result is that for me, every day is a Saturday.  In other words, a good time for a blog.

Why didn't I start this blog sooner? To say I found it difficult to talk about my diagnosis and treatment over the past eight months would be an understatement.  I have never had a "why me" attitude about my diagnosis, but I remember calling my mom in tears throughout my treatment when the unfairness of it all was suffocating.  For example, when the first surgeon I met with told me I would lose my hair during chemotherapy.  And when another surgeon told me there was a good chance I would never be able to have children as a result of chemotherapy.  When I was feeling especially nauseous; spending hours of each day in a bathroom; experiencing migraines; losing my hair; losing my nails.  I couldn't talk about life with cancer, and definitely couldn't write about it.  

Things are getting easier now.  I've had time to deal with the trials and tribulations of cancer.  And my treatment worked: I had a complete pathological response to chemotherapy. My bilateral mastectomy was successful.  I'm still undergoing treatment for cancer, but it's easier than the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach I was undergoing previously, in my doctor's words.  A good time for a blog.

MY PURPOSE

My mom is a woman with strong opinions and ideas, and her inspiration for my blog (her inspiration for my blog) was the cooking, baking, and fermenting I've been filling my days with since I stopped working.  Ostensibly then, this blog supplements my Instagram account, where I post pictures of my cooking accomplishments (when I remember to) and my cat, Izzy (and sometimes her sister, Olive).  

But as my mom and sister and every other blogger ever have pointed out, it's difficult to know the true nature of one's blog until you actually write.  

We'll see where this one goes.