Edible Adventures
It all started with a recipe for cultured dairy...
This comedy of errors is brought to you by THC Gummies: I use them for chronic pain, and they work. They also heighten your senses, so food tastes GREAT, counteracting the negative impact on my tastebuds that comes with taking weight loss medication. And while they heighten creativity, they also tend to dampen executive function. That’s where the error comes in, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
It all started with a recipe for cultured dairy…
Do you know about this miracle food?
Neither did I, until my rolfing practitioner told me about it as an alternative to prepared fruit yogurt I had eaten, triggering an ocular migraine. Do you know about ocular migraines? That’s where you get underwatery looking flashes in your peripheral vision.
Apparently it’s all in the gut.
And cultured dairy, she said, was a miracle gut-healing superfood that tastes delicious and is very easy to make with the right equipment, in this case an Instant Pot with a yogurt setting. Check.
I returned home from the rolf feeling all noodly, with a plan to make myself some cultured dairy.
By the next day, I was ready to move on stage one of executing the plan: acquiring the equipment and ingredients to make my first batch of miracle food.
It shouldn’t have taken a day to get that far, but have we met? A stickler for detail, think it through from every angle until you’ve made yourself ill, with a tendency towards OCD doesn’t just jump in on something as serious as this. I mean, c’mon.
As it turns out, our particular model of Instant Pot is a dinosaur and doesn’t allow you to preset temperatures for fermentation. Nor does it allow you to set any of the cook settings for longer than 4 hours. So, while it has a yogurt setting, it isn’t capable of maintaining the temperature required for cultured dairy as long as the 36 required hours.
So, off to Facebook Marketplace I goed, and lordy! Do you know how many different models of Instant Pot there are? Some of them allow you to customize cook programs by temperature and time, but not all.
I had to individually research every listing to determine whether this was the IP of my dreams.
I found what I was looking for, sent the seller a DM, and took a gummy because my pain had flared..
About the same time as peak gummy was setting in, the seller replied to my inquiry. The thing was still available and yes, I was interested. New in the box and about half the retail price.
We arranged to have the goods delivered - wasn’t that a kind offer? - next day and I texted my partner to say “I’m gonna need $150 in small, unmarked bills” Not because I need permission, mind you, but because I thought it was a funny gangsta thing to say.
We picked up the cash while doing errands early the next day and returned home to await delivery.
Another pain flare (it’s bad when the cortisone injections wear off, and you can’t get an appointment for another because the clinic uses an inane scheduling system, but I digress)
Another gummy. This one put me into a deep sleep, the kind known as a wee coma in this household.
I woke to messages from the IP dealer. He was on the way, a couple of hours early, but happened to be in the ‘hood.
I texted my partner, who was working on another floor of the house, to be on the alert.
He does all the running around, answering doors, etc. because my mobility doesn’t allow me to get to the door fast enough, often missing deliveries because of driver impatience. (He also does all the running in to the ATM to get cash for the delivery guy too.)
An SUV bearing diplomatic plates pulls into the driveway.
My partner meets them outside the car, and returns after what seems like too long a time, empty handed.
“It’s $150 bucks,” he says.
“Yes,” says I. “That’s what I said.”
“No, you said $50”
Shit.
A quick check of my phone confirmed the gummy induced typo.
My partner goes back out to ask if I can e-transfer the funds, and comes back flustered.
Turns out it’s not the dealer, but his wife, who doesn’t speak English. And we don’t speak what sounds to me like Russian.
She’s the one who’s been texting me en route using the same account where we sealed the deal, using a translation app.
Our terrace is adjacent to the entrance to our condo, so I went out to talk to her. And by talking, I mean what turned out to be handing each other one of three phones to read what we had typed (why there were three phones involved, I’m still not quite sure) and get the information I needed to do the bank transfer, all while our boisterous and cheery pup was jumping all over her, an ardent dog lover.
In the meantime, my dear partner had fetched the goods and brought them into the house and joined me on the terrace, flashing a fiver for some reason.
Turns out wifey had asked him for $10 for gas, enough to get her to Montreal from here, and while she said she’d come a long way in traffic, I doubt it was from Montreal. Also, the dealer had implied delivery was free because he would be in the area. My bad for not confirming.
And all he had was a fiver.
E-transfer completed, fiver in hand, the car with diplomatic plates drove off.
I messaged an apology for the misunderstanding on the amount and explained it had been a typo.
An hour later I got a response saying she’d just returned home (so, not Montreal) and sending us blessings because people who love dogs have good hearts so surely we must.
Wondering if we were interested in employing her as a maid.
We’re left with so many questions here, not the least of which is whether we’d just had an interaction with Russian operatives.
(A quick Google translate told me that they were actually from the Balkans, but that didn’t stop the Boris and Natasha jokes incited by a friend with a wicked sense of humour.)
This had better be some damn good yogurt.
Thanks for reading!
If you’re looking, you’ll find me here, and here and here