we belong to each other

When I was in my sopho­more year of col­lege I spent a semes­ter on a expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing term in LA — tak­ing classes, intern­ing, and liv­ing with a fam­ily from a dif­fer­ent cul­tural back­ground. It’s where I met most of my favorite peo­ple. For our urban reli­gious move­ments class, I chose to do my research project on Judaism mostly because of this book: Tra­di­tions in a Root­less World: Women Turn to Ortho­dox Judaism.

In her book, Lynn David­man explores the resur­gence of Ortho­dox Judaism among mod­ern Amer­i­can women through the expe­ri­ences of two dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent groups of sin­gle Jew­ish Amer­i­can women as they return to their sec­u­lar roots at a con­tem­po­rary Ortho­dox syn­a­gogue (Lin­coln Square) in New York City and a Lubovitch Hasidic com­mu­nity (Bais Chana) in St. Paul, Min­nesota. The book is com­par­a­tive through­out and seeks to com­mu­ni­cate to a lay audi­ence why tra­di­tional reli­gious forms are attrac­tive to con­tem­po­rary women who have come of age since feminism.

You could, and I will, say that the slow food move­ment is a par­al­lel battle/journey. From the com­post of cus­toms a new plant will rise. Again and again, from struc­ture to unstruc­tured, unstruc­tured into new form. Each phoenix, with it’s own virtues, meets it’s end and is reborn. The post-feminism ortho­doxy is new and unable to exist out­side of it’s own con­text; the slow food move­ment is sim­i­larly marked and born from history.

With each ancient prac­tice relearned, we inevitably encounter. The inter­sec­tion of time and move­ment is a strange place.

If not for the health ben­e­fits, the envi­ron­ment, the farm­ers, or the pure ecstasy of taste… make things to encounter. You will be bet­ter for it.

There is magic in wel­com­ing out­siders and inte­grat­ing our­selves into the com­mu­nity of The Other, no? Per­haps this is the heart of my attrac­tion to cul­tur­ing foods. And so, with each oppor­tu­nity, we wel­come microor­gan­isms and are thus trans­formed by/through our col­lab­o­ra­tion. Food becomes eas­ier to digest and con­vert to energy, we become stronger and more resilient — our palates are rewarded by the won­der of tang and earth. We are bet­ter for being open.

Look­ing for water, we sink out roots deeper. We remem­ber that feel­ings of root­less­ness are a vehi­cle and not a place.

I think it was back in Sep­tem­ber when we made out first batch and we have never looked back. Store bought but­ter tastes like noth­ing and earth bal­ance, while deli­ciously nutty, just does not com­pare – where even are all of those ingre­di­ents sourced from? when were they har­vested? how much energy has gone into pro­duc­ing it? Anyways…

So here’s the drill:

1. Get your­self the best qual­ity cream you can. We usu­ally get 2 bottles/cartons of these lit­tle dudes.

2. Pour it into a bowl with some cul­ture. You could use a few spoons of yogurt (even soy or rice or coconut) or kefir, just make sure that it has live cultures.

3. Set it in a warm place for at least 18 hours or until it smells sour. We like to put it on the top of the stove or inside the oven, the pilot light is just the right amount of heat. The cul­tures like it warm, around 80 degrees.

4. Stick it in the fridge. If you aren’t in the mood to do the whole song and dance of mak­ing it just now, you can leave it in the fridge for a day or so, but when you’re ready to get churn­ing let it sit out for an hour or so to reach a higher temp. You want it around the mid 60’s.

5. When you’re ready to get started, gather the following:

• a few cups of ice water
• a mixer or blender
• a con­tainer for your buttermilk
• con­tain­ers for your butter
• any herbs or spices you want to add into the but­ter (we like thyme, rose­mary, and lavender)

6. Unless you are using a hand blender or mixer, pour your cul­tured cream into the proper container.

7. Begin mixing.

Even­tu­ally it will pass from whipped cream to lit­tle curds, like this:

You’re almost there!

What you’re wait­ing for its for is the sep­a­ra­tion of the but­ter and the but­ter­milk. It will get all sloshy, like this:

8. Pour out the but­ter­milk, care­ful not to get any but­ter in with it (you may want to use a colan­der or cheese­cloth) and save it for some­thing fun like pan­cakes or irish soda bread or ice cream or a lassi.

9. Here’s where the ice water comes in. Pour some into the bowl with your but­ter and knead. Pour it out and repeat until the water is clear.

10. If you don’t want to salt or fla­vor your but­ter, con­grat­u­la­tions! Your all set to move to step 11. How­ever, if you want to add some stuff (rec­om­mended), do it now. Mix it in

11. It’s time to pack it in the con­tain­ers. We like to use ramkins and cover them in plas­tic wrap. If your but­ter does not reach the top of your con­tainer, no wor­ries, just cover it in a bit of water. If you’re not going to use it all within a week, just stick it in the freezer until you’re ready.

Now go make some toast <3