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This is my blogchalk:
United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.
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Paul Hinrichs:
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Monday, October 28, 2002 |
The mushrooms have begun. This thing is the Hamburger Helper version of growing mushrooms, add water and stir. No smell from the horse manure whatsoever. Most of the box is filled with the innoculated, somewhat moldy, straw-based compost, with a large plastic bag surrounding it. This stays put, except for leveling. Another bag contains what they call "casing material", which is more compost, just plain this time, which you moisten and layer atop the compost in the box. The plastic bag is pulled over all this and the box closed. Then you put the box in an area away from direct sunlight with an ambient temperature in the range of 70F-75F, and wait 10-15 days before opening it again. After that, you're supposed to see a gray threadlike mold covering most of the surface. I'll report that when it happens and describe the details as they happen. Or you can read about them here. It's a good thing Southern States had printouts of the directions, because the box had none. A curious detail already - the instructions say the "casing" is Canadian Deep Peat Moss, but the website says they can't ship these kits to Canada. Also, the portabella kits they sell online are $33.95 plus $10 shipping, which is a lot more than the $19.99 plus tax I paid at Southern States. Maybe that guy was rearranging the peony bulbs to move the kits away from their prime retail space because they weren't selling. Both he and the clerk who rang up my order (she got excited last spring when I bought lemon grass plants there, she didn't know they had them and practically drooled ringing them up and dreaming of lemon grass soup...) asked me to tell them how the project turns out. I'll do that when I go back to buy another though, if everything goes okay, this kit is supposed to be producing mushrooms for 3-5 weeks!
5:25:13 PM 
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When the msn8 thing pops over what you want to read (like Slate or The Washington Post), quickly hit the back arrow on your browser, then the forward arrow. It doesn't come back.
3:11:55 PM
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From the tiny acorn begins a journey of a thousand miles...
The pint canning jar I throw change into was starting to overflow yesterday. I dumped the assorted coins into an empty Crown Royal bag and trekked across the street to the Food Lion, where they have a CoinStar machine. In case you're wondering, a pint of random chage (weighted a little towards the quarters I get back after paying $1.75 for a pint of Bud at the Armadillo) yields a little over $70 before the 8.9% vigorish - and not counting the coins rejected three times (about 4 dollars worth) that went back into the bag. The point is, after buying a couple of strip steak, I had $56 for my wallet.
This morning, I used the box my Seagate RMA hard drive came in to pack a pint of pizza sauce, and a half-pint each of apple preserves and scuppernong blush jelly. With all that foam rubber and an assist fron good ol' bubble wrap around each jar, it was almost ready to go. All it needed was a tape gun to seal it up. I knew there were a couple of places close, on North Greensboro Street,: Fitch Lumber, a good old-fashioned hardware store was a sure thing, but I wanted to check Southern States first, which has a lot of garden stuff and unbelievably cool items like watering tanks for livestock.
A gentleman rearranging peony bulbs on the shelves pointed down on the floor at a naked roll of duct tape - no sir, not only didn't they sell them, they wouldn't even buy him one! They would certainly have them "across the street" (ie, Fitch Lumber). I asked him about something that caught my eye coming in, a mushroom growing kit. He said that's what he was moving peony bulbs for, to make room for the mushroom growing kits. He said to go ahead and take the flyers they had printed up with instructions. I picked one up, then saw the price - $19.99 for portabellos, and I had $56 in my wallet...give or take couple of $1.75's from the 'dillo Sunday evening. I bought the kit, then stopped at Fitch's for the tape gun. Then I brought everything home, finished wrapping up the canned goods, took the package to the Carrboro Post Office and sent it on its way.
I noticed a URL on the mushroom flyer from Southern States, so I didn't have to scan and OCR it for here. Holy Shit! I spent my money on horse manure! Looks like it'll be about 21 days before the mushrooms are ready.
1:16:41 PM
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Even an appliance geek has to "just say no" to this one. Thanks to Bob Pastorio for the "heads up".
The Scuppernong Blush Wine Jelly set thoroughly less than 2 hours out of the canner. Thank you, Mr. Wizard! Yield was 10 8-ounce jars from two bottles. I'd been getting 7 before (from only one bottle), to give you an idea of how much it has to cook down to reach the gelling point. The thermometer with the braided-wire probe, made by Polder, is an indispensible tool for off-the-beaten-path jellies. I never would have had the patience to take this to the endpoint using any form of guesswork, even after two failures.
To celebrate success, I had two beers and a bowl of the long-awaited chili. Cheers! Here's a toast to both Christine Ferber and Don Herbert...
2:45:45 AM
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