The Black Hole, and Yogurt

If bad things accumulate in your life, you may find yourself looking into the black pit of depression. It can actually feel as though you're looking deep into a really big hole, one that goes on for as far and as wide as you can see. Weird thoughts come into your head, things that you would never think about in normal times, but when at the edge of the pit, strangeness abounds. You might have physical manifestations of the blackness: unexplained sleepiness, dizziness, frantic waking periods, anxiety, doziness, inability to concentrate and other symptoms that, if you were in a normal state, wouldn't occur to you.

I'm not there. If you are, then talk to someone. Sometimes it's more serious than you think, and sometimes it's just a buildup of day to day slights. Sometimes it's the weather (hello? east coast?) and sometimes it's your own chemistry. These issues all have different degrees of severity, and all require different treatment methods.

On a completely different note, the New Jersey - Ottawa game is on, end of the second period and its 2-1 Ottawa. The CBC cut away to Kandahar where they've got the Stanley Cup at the base, and they're watching the game. It's 5:00a.m. there, and everyone is glued to the tv. Pretty amazing.

Tonight's recipe is from a mathematician friend of ours who makes her own yogurt all the time. Since we were spending upwards of $10/week on yogurt, I decided that making it would be a good idea, and it's something that I do every three or four days. It's easier than making key lime pie.

Yogurt (no sexual favours required)
You need a litre of milk (I use organic milk), a little bit of plain yogurt without flavour or additives (i.e. guar gum or other thickeners) and a thermometer, and then you need a big thermos.
Pour the litre of milk into a nice stainless steel pot, and bring the temperature of the milk up to 180F (82C), stirring every once in a while. You're not supposed to boil the milk, although in my absentmindedness I have and it still works out okay. Really though, don't boil it if you can pay any attention to it. Remove the pot from the heat, and let the milk cool to 115F (45C). Put 1/4 to 1/3 of the plain yogurt into a 2-cup measuring cup and then add a cup of the warm milk. Stir thoroughly, then pour this back into the pot of warm milk and stir some more until everything is homogeneous. Once it is, then pour it into the thermos and maintain the temperature of the milk at 110F (43C) for at least six hours. I got a "Big Bubba" coffee thermos at Cdn Tire and I keep it in a pot of hot water. The hot water is just out of the tap, since chances are that 43C or thereabouts is where your thermostat is set on your hot water heater. another way of keeping the yogurt warm is to put it in sterilized jars and then keep those in an oven with the pilot light on if you have a gas oven, or keep the jars in a pot of hot tap water. Whatever works for you. There are also such things as yogurt makers although we weren't able to locate one and I don't know if they're made or sold here any more. Even if they are, they'll cost more than my Big Bubba.

After the six hours, pour the yogurt (which is now nice and thick. Taste it! It's the best plain yogurt you've ever had!) into containers and keep it in the fridge. It'll keep for about two weeks. You can add fruit and other stuff to it, like honey or maple syrup if you want sweetness. You can warm fruit up in the microwave with some sugar over it to make a jam, then dissolve about 1/2 a teaspoon of cornstarch in cold water and add it to the hot fruit mixture. As it cools it'll thicken up, and once cool you can add it to your yogurt if you want to make flavoured stuff. You don't have to add the cornstarch but you'll notice that the yogurt is a lot thinner than you're used to, and if you like it thicker (or more familiar) then add the cornstarch. Whatever. Once you've got the plain yogurt, you're on your own, so experiment.

I read some chemistry t-shirts the other day on some site, I don't know what it was...but one of the shirts said: Chemistry is just like cooking, except in chemistry we don't lick the spoon!

(N.B. I should update the pictures, but I haven't seen or done anything of note lately. Things are much greener than on Good 'n Cold Friday.)