Hello hello. Welcome to my blog spot. I have been waiting for an excuse to start one of these, or rather, waiting until I had something interesting enough to say. Let me start off by talking about my name for my blog. Treasure Hunter. Yesterday, during my free time before work, I made a trip to goodwill and then to my favorite antique store in search of "treasures". Although I do this quite frequently yesterday my series of random thoughts made me come to the conclusion that I am a treasure hunter. I search for things I find to be treasures like cheap unique objects that may inspire me or just be nice to add to my surroundings.
As cheesy as this all sounds I take pride in calling myself a treasure hunter. Tonight while trying to find a fitting name for my blog my series of thoughts on being a treasure hunter led me to the realisation that treasures aren't just objects. They are anything that you perseive to be treasures to you. For me, not only do I treasure beautiful objects and such, I treasure knowledge. I LOVE learning at any opportunity I get. I try to read as much as I can but I learn better when someone is teaching it to me or by my own experiences. And I hunt it! I search for it! Which leads me to why I started my blog today, mentioned at the beginning.
Today I started my first EXCO class.
At EXCO, the Experimental College of the Twin Cities, everyone can teach or take classes and all classes are free. EXCOtc is a collective of Experimental Colleges in the Twin Cities that shares visions of a better world, offers free and open classes and is building a community around education for social change. Taken from excotc.org
That is a brief explanation but you can learn more at their website. Anyways the class I am taking right now is basic fermentation. We are learning things like the history and science of fermentation and also how to make things like sourdough breads, saurkraut, pickles, vinegars, beer, yogurt, cheese, kimchi, and kombucha. Kombucha is the Western name for sweetened tea or tisane that has been fermented by a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a "kombucha colony," usually consisting principally of Acetobacter-species and yeast cultures. I can't even begin to tell you how great this class is. I learned SO much tonight about the history and process of fermentation and it was only the first class! It's crazy to think that not that long ago it was very common to preserve vegetables and fruits and even meats. Famous explorers, especially traveling by sea, would bring fermented foods to last the voyage. And our ancesotors did it to preserve food through the winter from the summer and falls harvest. And I feel privelaged to even get the chance to learn about it. Clearly I grew up in very modern surroundings.
Kirsten, the woman teaching the class, even gave everyone that wanted some a piece of her "mother culture" or "kombucha colony" so now I can begin fermenting my own kombucha culture! I'm so thrilled to begin experimenting with this and I'll make sure to update my prgress in my blog. And when my "mother culture" grows to be big maybe I can give you a piece of it. Exciting right?
I left the class tonight with an intense buzz, like an adrenaline rush almost, from being overwhelmed by the excited of learning something so interesting to me and from being surrounded by beautiful, positive people from all walks of life.
Anyways, this blog took me an hour and a half to write. JEEZ I have to get better at this.
goodnight!
8 years ago
