Right Brain Feed

 Caution: pottery nerd post! One step in the rather lengthy process of turning a blob of clay into a finished bowl is trimming. You put a leather hard piece back on the pottery wheel and trim away the excess clay. I kinda like this part of the process, it’s when the final shape of the piece takes form. I think I also like it because it’s when I have a chance to overcome a cr*ppy throwing job. I’ve developed a process for trimming that doesn’t involve using clay lugs to stick the piece down to the wheel. I have a sheet of squishy stuff that I use under my piece to give it traction, I’ve even found I can tap center with the squishy stuff in place (most of the time, sometimes the tap centering goddess vexes me). Using this method saves me time, and lets me trim the piece all the way down to the wheel head. I also put a bubble level on top of the piece, it gives me a nice wide smooth area to push down while I trim the outsides of the piece, so I can apply lots of downward pressure with...

 I keep a sourdough starter, but don’t use it super often. So occasionally I need to feed it between bakes. I’ve started saving off the layer of clear liquid that forms on top, it’s a byproduct of fermentation. I used to pour it down the drain, but it has nice acidic twang to it, so now I save it and use it in my bread. I save it in a separate jar so the acid level doesn’t get too high in my starter. It’s definitely acidic, I added it to the milk I was using in my last bake, and it curdled the milk! The loaf turned out great, and the sourdough flavor was definitely enhanced.  That led me to google the fact that people use milk that’s about to go sour in sourdough. Since the interior of the loaf gets over 200F during baking, it kills any bad guys in the sour milk. So next time we get milk that is getting a weeee bit old, I’ll freeze it and use it in bread. My starter is named Bubbles.