So you wanna be a soda jerk?

I warn you, this is not a project for the faint of heart. In fact, as I write this, my boyfriend is going into obsessive-compulsive shock at the thought sleeping in the same apartment as the "soda bombs" that I have created. The last time I made soda I was awoken at 6AM by a loud bang and sleepily wandered into the kitchen to find it covered in glass shards and sticky ginger soda. I'm still finding crusty sugar in the corners. But if you really think you're up for it, I'll outline the basics.

First you have to make the bubbles. One way is to make a lacto-ferment start. Put all the ingredients in a jar and every day add another couple tablespoons of sugar until little bubble start to form (4-7 days).

Add all of this to a big pot and simmer until the sugar dissolves. Let it cool down to room temp.

This makes a lot of soda, about eight 750 ml bottles.

Check it every couple of days to make sure that the lacto-ferment babies are eating the sugar. (You'll know it's working if it gets less and less sweet.)

Put a lid on the jugs and shake it up real good to distribute the simple syrup.

Open the bottle carefully when you check them--the soda has a tendancy to shoot out when done. You'll know they're getting on their way to done when tiny bubbles form after you open the bottle.

Be careful: when the carbonation gets going, it goes fast and WILL explode if you're not vigilant.

Strangely this project began with my eyeballs turning into reptiles. I've got this little thing called eczema...you may have heard of it. Being averse to doctors, I started looking up herbal cures on the interwebs and found that sasparilla (the main flavor in root beer!) is commonly used to alleviate skin problems. Upon further intensive research (a.k.a. another 5 mintues of googling) I found that sodas were originally prescribed as elixers for all sorts of ailments. Coca-cola for when you needed a little pep, ginger beer for colds...you get the picture. But this is not a story of soda-pop heroism. In a strange act of sanity, I visited my physician who prescribed some creams that are healing my scaly skin. The eczema was merely the inspiration and now it has evolved into it's own reward: delicious, pro-biotic tastiness!

Musings: Arbitration with Inspiration?

A friend recently turned me on to Radiolab.  And yes, that means that I've been living under a rock for a while....specifically a rock in Hawaii and then France.  Nonetheless, I have now rejoined the ranks of the hip adult world and am sufficiently impressed with the stimulating sonic bath that is their weekly podcast.  Just yesterday I listened to an episode called Help! which talks about the battles and negotiations that we have with ourselves.  Very interesting. 

Most interesting to me was a discussion that they had with Elizabeth Gilbert about a conversation that she had with Tom Waites; subject: inspiration.  Liz and Tom both seem to think that creativity is something outside yourself...a force of nature that can be caught, lost, negotiated with, threatened, sweet-talked....depending of course of on your methods and personality...basically that creativity is a relationship not a characteristic.  Which would mean that creative people aren't gifted, they are just devoted lovers of the Muses. 

Obviously this struck a chord, thus the post.  This theory seems particularly true of writing.  I myself am a writer by trade, though not the creative kind.  I churn out grants, proposals, fund development plans, newsletters.  Nothing that will ever earn me a Pulitzer or even an invitation to a cool dinner party for "literary" folks.  But even this mundane type of writing either flows or it doesn't.  The first draft either comes out in one crystaline stream of narrative or I sit there staring at the screen and checking at my cell phone every five minutes.  So I can relate to the idea that inspiration is something outside of yourself....otherwise writing would be a piece of cake all the time.  And for other projects...the more I spend time creating, the more inspiration I find for new things, the more new ideas I get for things to make.  Like any relationship, the more I put into it, the more I get out of it.  So I can relate there too.

What do you think? Is creativity something we are, something we borrow or something else altogether?

Edible Love in Three Steps

Step 1: make a heart-shaped coconut cake and then soak it in rum, coconut milk and cream.





Step 2: Assemble into a high-rise of delectable goodness and top with rum-soaked Morello cherries.




3. Serve to the target audience: your pirate-loving, tiki-bar-obsessed (i.e. rum and coconut loving) sweetheart.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A New Project for My Projects

I begin this new writing project with its inspiration. A haiku, a photo and a philosophical statement all wrapped up in a nice yellow package. Clifton Burt is the mind behind the print, which has been hanging on my wall for the last year and half. Lately it's become more than an inspiration. It's been my mantra, my new artistic destination, a lens to focus all of the disparate obesssions of my creative life. And now a catalogue of all the things I make: dresses, tiny birds, ginger beer, sweaters, parties and whatever else my little brain dreams up.

So here we go....