October 20th, 2020

 Yay! Day 2!

Today I went to the grocery store to get some food storage. I went with my dad because I have been harassed at grocery stores for not wearing a mask. My husband would have come, but he had all kinds of work to do. I'm so grateful I live close to my family, it's been a real blessing. Anyways, I got 50 lbs. flour, 40 lbs. pasta, 25 lbs. oats, 25 lbs. rice for about $80... good deal! My next goal is to get things to go with these staples; pasta sauce, brown sugar, vegetable oil, etc. I also need some canned veggies and meat.

I'm learning how to make sourdough bread next week. I'm going to learn with a fancy chef this Saturday, maybe Sunday and then with my old neighbor on Monday. That way I get 2 perspectives. I'm really excited! I think fermenting is really cool. I have a batch of kombucha and a fermented hot sauce in my closet right now. I've heard fermenting works best in a dark area that stays a pretty consistent temperature, that's what my closet is. Cooking is a passion of mine, that's why I went to culinary school and worked as a chef. I'm glad I get to keep learning and experimenting.

Something I learned today is that you need to take the skin or membrane off an animal liver before you eat it. My sister and her boyfriend went hunting this past weekend and shot an elk. They took most of it to a butcher to process (which I think is lame, I would have liked to be part of that), but brought the heart and liver to my house to start cleaning and cutting. We trimmed the skin off the liver, chopped it up, and now it's soaking in salt water. The salt water helps to pull the extra blood out of the liver, so it tastes better. It soaks for 4 hours, so it has 3 more hours to go. My husband likes liver, I've never tried it before. I guess I'll be finding something to do with it. I just hope these pregnancy hormones don't keep me from trying it out. So, the heart was kind of fascinating. I took a class at the University of Utah some years ago about dissecting animal organs that look similar to human organs. We got to play around with some cow eyes, sheep lungs, and pig hearts. This elk heart was SO much bigger than that pig heart, I think it was bigger than my entire head! My sister's boyfriend says he likes to eat them as steaks. I don't know if I could do it. I used to be such an adventurous eater, but I've really stepped back the past, maybe 2, years. But we're going to be eating elk backstrap steaks tonight, and I'm really excited for that!

I feel productive today, even though I haven't really done much. Just shop and stuff some envelopes and do the dishes. But, that's ok. I'm making progress and that's all that counts!