Little Updates

Okay, so I’ll do two posts right in a row. To catch you up on all the almost-but-not-quite interesting things I’ve been up to in the past week.

– I bought that mug in Duluth, as a memento of the trip. As I was paying for it, the store owner informed me that the artist lives and works in Stillwater, which is — of course — practically down the road from where I live. Bah. But then that’s how I’ll always remember Duluth: You think it’s one thing, but it turns out to be. . . not that thing.
– I thrifted that glass jug in the photo especially to use for milk. I usually buy a half-gallon carton and use about six cups of it for making yogurt. Then I feel weird about the remaining two cups hanging out at the bottom of the big half-gallon container. So, problem solved — and made more photogenic!
– Speaking of making yogurt, the story of my latest batch should convince you to give it a try: I pasturized the milk on the stovetop and then put it into the container I use in the oven. Then I forgot about it for a while, and it had cooled down considerably by the time I noticed it sitting there (I usually mix in the starter when the milk has gone down to 120 or 110F, and it was just over room-temp at this point). I preheated the oven for a couple of minutes and stuck in the pot. Ideally, I would now continue to preheat the oven for a minute every half hour or so, which I did. . . a couple of times. Then I went to have coffee with my friend Jim. Oops. I remembered about it when I got home, and it had conveniently turned itself into yogurt, despite my neglect. So yogurt making does not take much skill.

– My friend Alex came over for dinner yesterday (see dinner here), so I hid all my clutter in closets and let some light into the place. The cats aren’t usually allowed in my bedroom, and you can see they were very excited about it.
– That little grey cat tried to help with dinner by bringing me a nice almost-dead mouse right before Alex arrived. I’d noticed Beany being very interested in something behind the stove (where the pipes come up from the basement), so I thought I’d let her investigate. Then, the day before yesterday, she and I were in the basement, staring off into space (well, I was), when I heard tiny scritching noises. I turned around, and there was a mouse perched on the pipe that runs across the wall. Beany was VERY interested. I think she sat down there for about three hours after it disappeared through a hole in the wall. And apparently she found it yesterday. It or one of its many siblings, I’m sure.