What do second stage ethanol fermentation and metabolic detoxification have in common?
Vinegar! Acetic acid. Good for excreting into the toilet and preserving produce. Except probably don’t use urine for the produce part. Too many other things in that for a good pickling medium.
Fortunately, it’s easier to just buy vinegar than to rely on the above in-home methods of production. And much easier than attempting the lactic acid route (though I’ll totally try that one day). But for now, it’s refrigerator pickles, sans-Orléan method. Standard grocery store vinegar for this one. Here’s the recipe I used:
1 cup water
1 1/3 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. kosher salt
Seems a tad sweet, but I’ll give it a week to settle and adjust accordingly.
We have cucumbers (there’s an abundance from the garden right now and the kid wanted to make some after learning about it at summer camp), serrano peppers, and red onions. So far, the red onions are pretty good. One of the most ridiculously up-charged items to buy, by the way. More street tacos in the future!
Despite my sister’s and hairstylist’s grumblings at my continued use of synthetic fertilizers and inorganic pesticides (hey, I still live in the suburbs, all right?), it is possible to strike a balance with desirable native species. And after several failed attempts to germinate milkweed seeds, I instead bought a plant, which then proceeded to spread by seeding itself throughout my hosta patch. Life finds a way, right?
And with it came the monarch butterflies. Always happy to see them.
After stripping this particular plant of leaves, it disappeared. Try as I might, I can never find their chrysalises…chrysali? Whatever.
It was a dark and stormy…afternoon. Such is the whim of the Midwestern climate gods. I’ve seen worse, but I’m never one to underestimate the atmosphere.
Especially when its associated cloud formations are so dramatic.
Ever notice how those who buy guns appear to be the least able to afford them? I will grant you that, outside sporting use, a self-defense gun is a ubiquitous right and should remain as such. But, when Foodstamp Frank begins to grow his collection beyond that, I start to wonder if preparing for a statistically unlikely scenario is really the best use of Frank’s money.
Shopping for guns is an interesting experience in that regard. Like perusing the aisles of TJ Maxx, there might be a good deal amongst the overflowing selection of crap – one that everyone else is trying to grab – because their type of clientele has more time on their hands than money. And just like the old lady who pushes me out of the way to see what I’m looking at in the cookware section in an attempt to snipe a bargain in front of me, so too does Foodstamp Frank always immediately ask to the see the gun I’m looking at in the glass case.
But unlike TJ Maxx, the gun in the case is usually just a display sample for the boxes of identical factory mint duplicates in the back room. But there’s no way to know for sure. It could be the only example in the store – like Suburbia. And Foodstamp Frank can’t take that chance, even if it’s at the expense of his children being able to eat that week. And to compound the problem, Foodstamp Frank is attired in the gun-buyer’s archetype: torn jeans and a T-shirt with far right propaganda, so he always seems to get service first. Khakis and button downs don’t elicit the same kind of response from gun counter employees.
Fortunately I was at a chain, not an independent gun shop, so the queuing process was more democratic. Plus it was staffed by old men, and I had my dad with me, so I got some cred there. And my whimsical fantasy turned into reality when I saw this:
Walther PPK/S .380
Ignoring the pseudo-panache of the James Bond character who most famously carried a variant (requesting a shaken martini just means you don’t know how to drink well, and awkwardly flirting with every female colleague is hardly a sign of a well-bred gentleman), the gun itself is very elegant with its perfect simplistic German design and all-steel construction – something rare to find in the American sub-compact handgun market. Although, it must still be growing in popularity, seeing as they’re now being manufactured domestically in Arkansas as a branch of the original German company as of 2013 (apparently they were previously being made in the US under license with Smith and Wesson, during which time they obtained a bad reputation for reliability).
Whatever the reasoning or hokey Hollywood mythology, it fills the niche that I was pursuing casually: a small and concealable pistol, not made of plastic. And no – I don’t want to argue about stopping power with 9mm Parabellum fanboys (I really like this writeup on that topic though, for some additional light reading: https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/alternate-look-handgun-stopping-power).
I haven’t shot it yet though, so the verdict’s still out on its handling. But it does bring some additional elegance to the safe. Which it why it’s been christened “Elegance”.
Plus there was the added bonus of needing to buy another ammo can and ammo!
