The Mind's I



Perspective...

"Can't you see I give you the gift of oblivion?" --Calisto in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess

I don't know why I like that quote, but I do. There's something so.. final in it. It made me think. Is oblivion is gift? I think to some it is. The suffering, for example. Those whose lives have little meaning outside daily survival. I've been depressed before when I was younger and I thought about how oblivion was so sweet sounding, but it was a temporary depression. I would have missed so many wonderful things in my life... all the friends I've made, all the good times. On the whole, life has been good to me and oblivion would definitely not be a gift. I have still so much more to go.




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December 21, 1998
Churnin', churnin', churnin'

Iko
Only a two things today. One, I think I have a definite answer for the Journal Cabal thingy. I got the gumption to email Al Schroeder of Nova Notes fame. He won a Savoy Whitman Award this year and is definitely a very prolific journaller. He is very involved in the online journal culture and I love stopping by his site and reading about his children. I admire him greatly. He has two autistic children, his oldest son (Jamie) and his youngest son (Eric). His middle son, Brian, it a total chatterbox. <grin> Reading through his journal, it is obvious how much he loves his children and I really admire him for that. I'm not one for kids. I would be a terrible mother. An autistic child would be a disappointment to me and I would miss out on the wonderful moments that Al talks about with his children. Anyway, Al responded back to me that the journaller is Scott Anderson of WORDS. I'm fairly confident that is correct... we'll see when I submit my answer.

The other thing I did today is... I made butter! I'm not sure if it is butter or clotted cream. According to Merriam-Webster, clotted cream is:

a thick cream made chiefly in England by slowly heating whole milk on which the cream has been allowed to rise and then skimming the cooled cream from the top -- called also Devonshire cream

Butter is defined as:

a solid emulsion of fat globules, air, and water made by churning milk or cream and used as food

I knew the terms "curds" and "whey" were related to butter, so I looked those up too...

curd: the thick casein-rich part of coagulated milk
whey: the watery part of milk that is separated from the coagulable part or curd especially in the process of making cheese and that is rich in lactose, minerals, and vitamins and contains lactalbumin and traces of fat

Iko's Computer So, according to the dictionary, I did not make clotted cream... I created butter. I thew out the whey and ate the curds. Here's the recipe!

Ingredients
Heavy cream
A few pinches of salt (optional)

Tools
A small tupperware container that has a tight seal

Fill about 3/4 of the tupperware contained with the heavy cream. Salt the cream. It will take a bit of trial and error to find the salt amount that you will find pleasing to the tongue. I prefer only two to three pinches of salt. That gives it a bit of flavor without removing the fresh feeling of the newly churned butter.

Seal the tupperware as best as you could and begin to shake it back and forth. Shake relatively vigorously. In about 15 to 20 minutes, it should start getting more and more solid. Open the tupperware and burp it relatively frequently. Eventually it will come to a stage that it is like heavy whipped cream. You can use it as a very light spread at this stage, but it doesn't have the fatty and oily consistency of butter. Continue shaking. Eventually it will become very solid and will flop back and forth in the container. It should look a bit like non-liquidy cottage cheese. It might seem that it is done but not yet. Continue shaking and soon it will start sloshing around again. If you open up the container, you will notice that there is liquid in the container. This is the whey. The curds should have a shiny, yellowish appearance to it. Continue to shake it for about 5 to ten minutes. As long as you want to remove the whey from it. You can stop at any time. Taste it to see if you like the consistency. The more you shake it, the more oily and heavy the curds will get because more whey will be released from it.

There you go! That's all there is to making your own butter. Share and enjoy!

© Copyright 1998, Eileene Coscolluela
[woolgathering]