Photo courtesy of Publix in Jacksonville.  This was meant to be a cake for Christmas.  I’m assuming that I don’t understand because I don’t celebrate Christmas and I’m from NY.  Does Santa bring hams down your chimney in Florida?  I hope so.

Fermentation is a way for organisms to produce energy in the absence of oxygen.  Our own muscles sometimes use fermentation to produce energy.  During an intense workout, your blood can’t shuttle oxygen to your muscles fast enough, and so they, through fermentation, produce some energy and lactic acid.  That’s why you ” feel the burn!”.

When yeasts undergo fermentation, they produce ethanol instead of lactic acid, as well as CO2.    You use yeasts to make your bread nice and fluffy, and your beer and wine delicious and intoxicating. Two species of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Saccharomyces pastorianus and responsible for ales and lager beers, respectively.  The former is also used in the fermentation of wine grapes.  Yeasts are just trying to survive, but as they are doing so, they are creating some good stuff for humans to consume.  Take beer, for example.  There are very few ingredients that go into beer (traditionally).  They include a starch source (typically barley malt, or wheat)*, hops, yeast and water.  Isn’t it magical that with so few ingredients, you can get so many different flavors?  Is you’re not sure what “flavors” I’m talking about, immediately put down your Corona, head straight to your nearest alehouse (The Blind Tiger and the Waterfront Alehouse are nice places to start) and ask the bartender for help.  Different strains of yeast are involved in producing these flavors.  They have enzymes that break down the sugars in barley, as well as the other molecules that make up the vegetative structure of barley.  I can’t even begin to explain all the molecules that end up in your beer through these enzymatic processes….but the results are delicious!

The process of decomposition is not as enticing as fermentation, but it is biologically important.  Decomposition is necessary to breakdown dead organisms so that the nutrients contained in these dead organisms can become available to living organisms.  Nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, are finite in the environment.  Bacteria and fungi break down dead plants and animals in the natural environment and allow their nutrients to cycle to plants, then herbivores, and on up the food chain.  Unfortunately, when you throw old food in the garbage, their nutrients end up locked away forever in a landfill.  They will not be able to cycle back to living plants, like the ones that make you more food, and feed your friends.   I recently started a composting bin to address this issue.  The wonderful result is that, once the fruits, veggies, garden clippings and leaf litter in there break down, I will have a rich, natural fertilizer to spread on my garden. It requires some maintenance: it must be stirred and aerated frequently to provide air for the microbes (and so it doesn’t smell).  However, I reduced the amount of garbage I produce…and I was able to watch my Halloween pumpkins break down within a few weeks!   For the city-dwellers, you can reduce your trash by bringing your fruit and vegetable wastes to green markets around NYC.

If you’re not ready to collect and/ or shovel around your old food, but you want to appreciate microbial activity, grab a beer and a hunk of bleu cheese and say, “thanks, little guys!”.

*Rice or corn if you’re cheap, like Budweiser

I love our kitchen, but its pretty small. I would say at maximum capacity it fits two small ladies, a chihuahua and a big burly man.  Anything else and its a clown car.  We like to cook (alot!) so we’ve become very adept at moving appliances around, as we have very little in the way of counter space and not nearly enough cabinet space.  It is probably good that this is true, as it prevents me from being the crazy lady with all the kitchen appliances. If we are going to introduce a new toy into the kitchen it needs to be small and its needs to be essential.

Enter our new waffler!

Our waffler (for real that’s what it’s called) has made us so joyously happy. It calls for parties (Saturday) and the invention of new kinds of waffles. We made pumpkin ones for our inaugural use of the machine.  All that were missing were the flax seeds.

Pumpkin waffles

Ingredients

* 2 eggs
* 2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 3/4 cups soy milk
* 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
* 1 tablespoon sugar (whatever you have around)
* 4 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your waffler and spray it with cooking spray. In a bowl (obviously), mix the wet ingredients first and then add the dry. We learned that if you accidentally add too much vanilla extract it does not matter in the slightest. Pour it in the waffle maker and try to contain your excitement for just a few minutes. Probably about 4 minutes, but on the waffler a green light goes on to say its done. This made like 6 servings. By the way, pancake syrup is not allowed. Go buy yourself a jug of real maple syrup. You won’t be sorry.

Today I accidentally watched Univision for the first time where everyday at 6pm, Walter Mercado tells you your horoscope. I didn’t even know I believed in horoscopes, but anyone wearing sparkles will make a believer out of me.  This video doesn’t really do him justice. Today he was wearing a large pink sparkly cape. I don’t speak Spanish. The person I watched this with today told me Walter said that I’m going to have a lot of money and am very intelligent. Awesome.

*Amazingness is apparently not a real word. Neither is amazingosity.

Kate Micucci of Garfunkel and Oates.