(no subject)

Homemade oat milk + a little Instant Clearjel + some xanthan gum + sugar + vanilla extract + a few tablespoons of homemade Bulgarian yogurt from the last batch + overnight in the Yogotherm = oat yogurt that definitely has a tang to it, although not as much as the dairy yogurt I originally made.

not sure if that's low activity on the part of the leftover yogurt, which was taken out of the fridge and allowed to warm up but which may not have reached room temp, or the fact that I added sugar and vanilla to the oat milk, which I did not do with the cow's milk in the first batch and which may have masked the lactic taste a bit.

next oat milk recipe will have somewhat less instant clearjel (it's modified food starch, I whisked it in at the recommendation of a chemical engineer who indicated that oat milk has a lot of protein compared to other plant milks but not enough to thicken upon its own) and use an actual culture packet so it's standardized amounts of microorganisms. it'll be easier to compare results with more variables roughly the same.

also, this yogurt will be integrated into breakfast tomorrow. probably chia pudding with cacao nibs for added crunch. I'll report on it then.

also also I used a Yogotherm for this, which is about the easiest way to culture yogurt overnight short of sticking the batch in the oven near the pilot light or holding the container next to body heat or something. It's literally a plastic bucket that you rinse with boiling water and then put inside a larger Styrofoam bucket to keep warm overnight.

I try to maintain this as a politics free space.

It's a long story. The short version is that I read the Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, Reuters Newswire, and BBC News Online pretty much daily, and my office- when we were working in it rather from home- has CNBC on the monitors in the trading room during the entire work day. I see things, read things, hear things, and I know other people do too, and ... well, it is helpful, sometimes, to be able to turn to places that won't hit me in the face with more of what I have been seeing everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere else I turn.

That being said, you may wish to pay a few visits to some websites I find have allowed me to be helpful in other ways, if you have the inclination and the wherewithal to do so.

http://lawyersforcivilrights.org/
https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
https://www.massbailfund.org/
https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/

There are, of course, others. But racial, social, and economic justice need good lawyers, and the law can be expensive, and justice isn't justice unless it's safe on the ground instead of law being brought down on people's necks, so.... yeah.