Ginger beer plant, Volga mushroom and kombucha

I recently came across this article, a really interesting writing on how in the old days people used to use and share something called ginger beer plant (aka "bees"), a weird gelatinous lumpy thing, to make ginger beer. That reminded me of something my mom told me about when I was younger. In the old days in Sweden when she used to live there people could buy at the pharmacy a living flat round disk that you kept in a jar with water and drank the broth of. My memory was bad so I sent her the link to the article saying I wondered if it was the same thing and what her "thing" was called. She replied:

No the thing that I had was called a "Volga mushroom" after the river Volga in Russia. Also, it was not a mushroom but more like a round very firm substance that was thicker in the middle than on the edges and cutting it was like cutting meat although much firmer. The color was white/slightly pink and it grew so you had to divide it now and then because it became the size of a dinner plate. They were sold at the old fashioned pharmacies we had in Sweden when I lived there. You made a black tea solution with sugar in it and let the whole thing stand for five to seven days and then you drank the product and it was considered beneficial to your health.
Love Mama xox

 So I googled "volga mushroom" and discovered that it's basically a SCOBY used to make kombucha. I've made ginger beer before but only with yeast, I'd like to try making this as well as kombucha sometime though.

Fr. Stephen on beauty

Here. Read the comments.

Church and Chinatown

Here's the outside of the Anglican church where our parish is renting a chapel in the basement.

And some pics taken in Chinatown where I went with my dad and Carlo this afternoon. It's only about a 7 minute walk to get there from church.

Fried catfish, rice and eggplant baked with tomato sauce, oregano and cheese

YUM!

More renovation pics

Here's the livingroom mostly painted, and Carlo and my sister, and a view from the balcony the other evening:

Pascha and breakfast

Last night was exhausting but beautiful and joyful :) (see previous post for pics). It was my first time going to St-Benoit for Pascha, in the past I'd always made the trip to Rawdon to attend at St-Seraphim. It was nice to be able to understand the singing, which was in French, at St-Seraphim it's all done in Russian (or is it called Slavonic? I'm not sure...). Bishop Irénée was there, and the liturgy lasted till 1am or so, then Carlo joined us for the meal afterwards. I invited him to come watch the end of the liturgy, but things progressed faster than I expected so when I told him to come after the Our Father they were already serving communion 5 minutes later! Oh well, another time :)

We all piled into the back room at around 1:30 and a small buffet table of delicious cold food was set up and we all stuffed our faces on cold cuts, salads, rice, bread, salmon, ham, sausage, lamb and several cheeses, then the usual pascha and cake for dessert :)

Carlo and I left and biked home slowly at around 2:30am, then I showered and collapsed into bed around 4am. I woke up around 11am and had a breakfast of toast, boiled carrots and double-smoked bacon, with the company of a few pigeons on our balcony :D

Christ is Risen!

New tile

So the new tiles are in, the grout is a bit cracked cause it wasn't quite set when we arrived home yesterday so he's gonna come and re-do it today.

 

Tonight and this weekend more moving furniture out of the livingroom and painting, then they're coming to rip up the carpet and lay vinyl planks in the livingroom on Monday, then move everything back into the livingroom and start all over on the bedroom. We should be done by Wednesday of next week.

 

Another good article on self-esteem

Self-Esteem | John Rosemond

Too much self-esteem?

I'd noticed lately that people are complaining a lot about entitlement of kids nowadays. Today I discovered that there is a movement away from the "praise kids for everything to raise their self-esteem" school of thought. Honestly I didn't even know the two extremes existed but I'm glad that people are pushing for more balance in that area. "regard others higher than yourself" and all that :) I read the first few articles of this google search, it was really interesting. Although I don't agree with the "making kids feel bad about themselves occasionally" part, I think a balance can be reached without that. Or at the very least, making a distinction between the child and their actions.