Yes Whey

The title of this entry is a pretty dumb pun. Title puns are a magazine-article-writing tactic, aren't they? Now my post feels professional. The title is the necktie of my article and the dateline above it is a well-pressed collar. This is a white-collar article. Writing like the big boys now. But let's not dwell the dumbness of a dumb pun or on neckties.

I find myself drawn toward the refrigerator in the warehouse. I don't always open it up to get food out of it though. Sometimes, I just like looking at my shelf. Which--lucky me!--is the top, which is the roomiest. On my highly prized top shelf is a little jar partially filled with whey. It's this slightly sour, lemon-juice-looking liquid. I feel so proud of my whey. I wanna carry it around with me everywhere for all time.

I got the recipe out of a book called Nourishing Traditions. It's so easy to make. I used

1 big glop of organic plain whole milk yogurt
1 old dress shirt found in a box or something in the corner of the warehouse where the tools are kept
1 shiny chrome-colored bowl
some rubber bands
water

I needed a cheesecloth to strain the yogurt. John found a shirt in a box, and I used that. It was kind of a nice looking shirt before it was ripped up. It had these vertical magenta stripes and everything. The buttons were made of plastic, so I cut them off with a knife, because I didn't know if they were going to melt during sanitization. I boiled some water in a saucepan and put the shirt in. And then I boiled it again because I just think sometimes it's good to boil a shirt twice. I stretched the shirt over the top of the bowl (but left an adequate sag in it) to act as a net for the yogurt solids. The shirt was held in place with the rubber bands. Then I just glopped about 2/3 of a 2 pound container of yogurt on top and left it out on a table for a day. Oh, and I put a plate on top of it too keep out creatures. And you know what? It's a good thing I did, because when I woke up the next day there was a dead gecko on top of the plate. It was a really fucked up looking gecko, too. It was all pale and looked like it had been dehydrated. Ugh.

But no, guys, I thought about this yogurt all day. It was really at the front of my mind. I even had a dream about it. All I was really doing in the dream was sitting at the table and watching the yogurt sit in the cheesecloth. Very similar to what I did when I was awake. Anyhow, after a day, there was product. The stuff that dripped into the bowl was whey and the solid on top of the cheesecloth was yummy cream cheese. I don't know what I am going to do with either of those things. But the nice thing about whey is it is so much less gross than I thought it would be.

Oh, there is a second step to the recipie, but it is not that important and I am too sleepy to type it.

There is a little tickle in the back of my throat which I think is from shirt fibers.

Aloha, and I love you,

Jason