It’s kind of like making wine. I would never ferment the pressings directly, but I had a friend who did just that. The difference, though, was that he had a wine cellar—a real wine cellar—in which he’d been making wine for half a century. By the point that I met him, his wine cellar had it’s own, distinctive and good tasting, set of fementation flora.

Interesting thought. I’m planting wine grapes this year, and have an awesome place under the house where I already keep our wines. In fact I can stand up in most of it, and I’m 6’3". Such is the benefit of living on a hill, the downside, if a quake hits, I’m fucked.

If it takes three years to grow grapes before they start reliably fruiting, maybe some pre-fermenting to establish yeast is in order….

You need to make bread fairly often in your home for this to work. If I make bread a few times a week, after a month I can do the natural air capture loaves, and even then it’s a bit of a crapshoot. Still takes about 4 days.

Huh…interesting, I wonder why that is.

I know this thread is old, but maybe you or someone else will look back and comment.

edit

or read down thread and see Comrade Darkness’ reply at 10:45 this morn.

About 10 years ago I went swimming in the ocean when I had a bad head cold. I was on vacation, and I was determined not to spend my week at the beach without going swimming even once. So in I went. Naturally seawater got up my nose, and it stung a bit at first but soon stopped. When I got out I realized my sinuses felt better. By the end of the day I knew I was going to escape my usual sinus infection that inevitably follows one of my bad head colds.

Several years ago I spotted my first neti pot at Walgreens. It all made sense in a flash. Been using one ever since.

If it stings like the dickens you’ve got a sinus infection going on or are on the edge of one. Do a little ha-cha-cha dance and keep the salt water running through—it’ll stop stinging soon and when you do it the next time you’ll notice it won’t sting nearly as much. Do it 2-3x a day for a couple of days and you will avoid a full-blown sinus infection, a trip to the doctor’s and a course of antibiotics.

I now use sea salt from Whole Foods (elitist! socialist!) instead of those pricey little packets.

I will try it again.

The initial shock of rinsing your sinuses may have caused you to produce a bit more mucus. It’s a matter of getting used to the rinse.

Initially, you should use a small amount of salt to acclimate yourself to the rinse. As you get used to it you can add more salt.

I use warm water with cheap table salt—warm enough to help loosen your sinuses and to dissolve the salt; enough salt without causing it to feel like it’s burning. :)

Don’t try to clean out everything in one day. Get used to it over a few days and you’ll find that all the ducts from your eyes to your ears will become clear.

Ordering my neti pot now… sick of the allergies, and since I’m trying for a kid I’m also trying to keep my drug intake down (no Sudafed for me…grr…)

BUT, turns out muscle cells, immediately after exercising, stick out receptors in hopes of nutrients, and if you feed them, they don’t get sore. So, if you down protein and sugar within 35 minutes of working out, the soreness thing is significantly reduced. I’ve been doing this of late (either glass of gatorade and 2oz of cheese, or apple slices and peanut butter). Good grief this works. I’m barely sore at all, no matter how erratically I exercise.

There’s another benefit to this too—it teaches your muscles to store more glycogen. More stored glycogen means you can exercise longer and harder without bonking or cramping.

Many people consider chocolate milk to be an ideal recovery drink—it has a good balance of carbs and protein. Or (if you can stand the sweetness) you can mix 3 tbsp of sugar in a tall glass of milk. Drink it within fifteen minutes of a hard workout.

When I lived in San Francisco, I tried making sourdough using wild yeast.

Pollution is really hard on the airborne critters you are trying to corral. If the wrong strains dominate, you can get some pretty bad results. Real sourdough is a mix of yeast and bacteria. Yeast to make the alcohol and bacteria to make the vinegar out of the alcohol. I’ve been to San Francisco, the air is terrible. Get an established starter next time, it’s just easier. Otherwise you are just setting your dough out as a petri dish for everything and anything and hoping for the best. This method will work for people who make it regularly because their kitchen surfaces will be infected already with the right stuff. You can get san francisco style starter dried in little packets for easy transport or ask around for a blob of someone else’s.

Best hangover remedy in the world.

Look up "Digitalin"....

Traditional medicine certainly includes more than its fair share of snake oil—but there is also a lot of stuff there which actually worked. That’s why modern drug hunters still go into the rain forest and interview the local wise-folk, you know.

I hope it’s not like the Great Salt Lake. That thing is very salty indeed and sludged up with dead brine shrimp (and live ones, for that matter). The stench of rotting Sea-Monkeys is unbelievable at certain times of the year.

I guess I’ll give it a try, I’m allergic to the 3 animals I have in my house, so whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what I currently have going on. (And yes, I am insane.)