Inland Pizza*
On my bike ride back from Tuft's Point, I noticed the clean lines of
Inland, an interesting sourdough pizza place in Bailey's Harbor. Also attracted to the simple design. I asked if it was a woodcut; the owner told me that it was completed on the computer. It was definitely the culinary highlight of the trip. It was unusual in a number of ways, especially in the context of most Door County food, which slants heavily towards burgers, chicken salad, rubens. A few things that provide it's character: short hours (11-5). Simple menu at a quite high price point ($30/pizza, $20 salad). One side of the place looks like a pizza take-out joint - a cash register across from an open kitchen, featuring a three-racked pizza oven. The dining area, which featured a 14 (?) seat large table, where they seated people family style, and a 8-10 2-4 tops. There's a wait staff to serve food and bus tables, but you order at the front desk from the "hostess," who also introduces you to the large bar, gives quick advice for ordering (13" sourdough pizzas) and the three types of water, self-served - cold, sparkling, room temperature. Simple menu - about 4 named pizzas and 4 salads or appetizers. We had a delicious kale caesar (which left me just about licking the bowl), a simple margharita pizza and a gluten-free crust house-made fennel sausage pizza. The gluten-free crust was really good for GF. The crust of the sourdough pizza probably the most delicious I've had. The wine list was curated with examples from Spain, France, Italy, and US West Coast. The bathrooms super clean. Altogether, I admired the whole nature of the place. It was like the owners were saying: we're going to do this thing right -- no compromises -- and people will come.
7 Stages of Becoming*
Carl Rogers writes about his experience with how clients who engage in the kind of "absolute positive regard" therapy that he designed progress. His essay X highlights what he considers 7 stages of progress. It's from a static, self-protective state that doesn't take responsibility for current situation to a dynamic, open organism in a state of becoming. The essay is filled with quotations from client sessions, so each stage, which is broken down into kinds of attributes, is illustrated with concrete examples of how a client at such stage would talk about things. What I find interesting about it is that it's based on actual quotations. It feels like he was separating student papers into piles on the floor: this is how beginning students to X, this is how they do Y. I also think it's interesting that it's a "theory" that totally built on clinical experience. One of the core ideas is that the "end point" is not an "end" at all. Instead, it's a new, open, dynamic, self-aware, and self-trusting, and self-appreciating personality. It's not like "OK, it's fixed now!" (It's not like "you've taken your pill (undergone surgery) now it's better. The "end state" reminds me a lot of things I've gathered from Joseph Goldstein, Jon Kabat-Zinn and others.
Fermentation*
On the morning we left for the Black River Falls wedding and DC trip, my purple cabbage sauerkraut overflowed all over the marble counter top, staining it. I moved the kraut to the basement and set it on two plates to catch the overflow. But when I got home, I didn't see any overflow. According to Zero Waste Chef (
How and Why to Make Sauerkraut and Kimchi), this might be because it has moved on to another phase of it's fermentation. Past the burping stage. In any case, I tried the young kraut yesterday, lifting the cabbage leaf I had used to jam in the top of the mason jar to keep floaters down, examining closely the kraut on my fork, seeing a little blackness (was this there when I put it in? possibly... I wasn't very particular when I did it), discarded a couple strands, and tasted a couple bites. I was relieved that it tasted like: sauerkraut. I immediately began thinking about how to add it to my "house maintenance schedule" in a way that there will always be one in the fridge, one at the beginning of a ferment, one nearing the end of the ferment. The first step will be to figure out how long I want mine to ferment. I started mine on June 14th. It's the 28th now.
From the website:
After two to three days (again, depending on your kitchen), the microbes will have already transformed your cabbage into a young sauerkraut. Taste it at this point. If you like the mild taste, move your jar to the refrigerator to retard the fermentation. I like my ferments strong and sour, so I let mine ferment on the kitchen counter for longer—a month or more. Taste yours weekly until it has reached the flavor you want.
On This Day (06/29):
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