Losses in my Kitchen

I have been on a roll lately. I mentioned yesterday that I had ordered a new SCOBY for the kombucha. All the things that need motherly love have died. At least the pets are still alive

First, it was my sourdough starter. I should be charged with murder on that one. I totally neglected her. When I’m making bread and rolls and sourdough everything, I keep the starter out and feed it every day. During the summer, when I don’t have time to make bread almost every day and it’s too hot in the kitchen to think about baking every day, I stick my starter in the fridge and feed it about every 5 days. I’ve done that for years and everything worked just fine. But this year, I stuck the jar in the fridge and never thought about it again til a few weeks before I went to MO. I was thinking it’s getting to be bread baking time . . cooler days, soup and sandwich weather. I dug way back in the fridge . . near the back . . where there were several unidentifiable substances in jars. I pulled out the things that needed to be tossed and grabbed the jar of sourdough starter. I knew there was a slim chance it was still viable and I was right . . a thick later of hairy, moldy looking stuff on top so I tossed it . . jar and all!

I dug out some starter that I had dried and stored in the freezer and have it “awakening” so I can start baking sourdough bread again soon.

Second, my beloved kombucha. Maybe negligent homicide on that one because it was more of an accidental death. I think, but am not sure, what caused the problem. I’ve been making kombucha for a couple of years and have never had a problem. I always use Lipton or Great Value (Walmart) green tea. The week before I left for MO, I used some green tea that Vince had bought – one of his on sale bargains either from Big Lots or T. J. Max. It was a no name brand and right after that, I noticed my brew became cloudy. I thought that I could feed it more often with fresh tea, kinda like diluting the bad and added fresh, good tea, but when I came back from MO, there was a layer of mold on top of the SCOBY so . . the SCOBY got tossed.

For the longest time, I kept a SCOBY “hotel” where I stored extras that I had separated off when mine got too large but that all has to be fed too and I got tired of doing that so I dumped those.

I’ve read that a starter can be made from a bottle of either home brewed or storebought kombucha so I grabbed a bottle from the fridge that had been made with my SCOBY was healthy. Some of that already flavored (

I obviously have been a very neglectful mom to all my “live” cultures.