Sour Sour Sauerkraut

I pulled a purple cabbage out of my fridge the other night, and as I started cutting it up and prepping it to make sauerkraut, I began to get excited for a day in the future when Harrison will help me with that task.

Oi, my kids are going to be so ... weird? The same type of weird as our little family, it's really all good, but I can kind of see it now ... the day Harrison realizes that his friends don't cut up cabbage and pour salt on it and squeeze and pound it until it is wilted and sitting in a self-made brine.

Hah, sorry buddy. But also not sorry.

It's actually because of Harrison that I'm even eating sauerkraut these days. I've never enjoyed the stuff, but real, raw, fermented sauerkraut is incredibly healthy- given the gut-enhancing properties of the beneficial bacteria and enzymes that form, and the vitamins that are already present in raw cabbage- and I wanted to set a good example for him, so I started making it and eating it. These days I find myself almost enjoying it, and Harrison willingly chomps down on it without making any faces. A success for now!

One wonderful thing about sauerkraut is that it is enormously nutritious while also very inexpensive. A three pound head of cabbage and about two tablespoons of good quality sea salt will yield almost two quarts of sauerkraut, with quick and easy preparation and then a waiting period to allow the beneficial bacteria to work its magic.

If I'm dreaming of my 10-month-old helping me with our household ferments in just a few short months, you have good reason to believe you can start some of your own today, and enjoy tangy, crunchy, healthy sauerkraut in just a few weeks!

Ingredients
•1 head of cabbage (3lbs or so)
•1-2 tablespoons of sea salt (I use coarse grey Celtic sea salt. Pink Himalayan also works well.)
•4 quart mixing bowl (or comparable)
•2 quart glass jar (I use two one-quart mason jars)
•glass weights (or comparable)

Method
1. Peel away any undesirable leaves from the cabbage, then cut off the end, slice in half, and remove the core. (If you're using a purple cabbage, take a moment to appreciate the beauty of it.)
2. Coarsely chop the cabbage to whatever size pieces you prefer. 1/2 inch wide ribbons or squares work well.
3. Layer the chopped cabbage and salt in the mixing bowl.
4. Put on a TV show or some good music and then get to work massaging the salt into the cabbage pieces, squeezing, pounding, pulling, whatever. Just play with it for a while.
5. After some time (10-15 minutes) you'll see the cabbage has become noticeably wilted and there will be some brine at the bottom of the bowl.
6. Tightly pack the cabbage into a jar and use glass weights, clean stones, or perfectly-sized cups, etc to push all of the cabbage under its brine.
7. Set the jar out of the way and once or twice a day be sure the cabbage is under the brine (it will form more brine, so don't worry if there's not enough the first day.)
8. Wait at least a week before removing the weights and putting a lid on the jar to transfer it to the fridge. You can wait months if you're patient enough; just eat when the flavor is right for you!

Please allow some poor quality iPhone photos solely for the purpose of illustrating the steps above.

marvel in the almost trippy beauty of purple cabbage

three pounds of cabbage, two tablespoons of salt, I promise it decreases in volume

finished product, with glass cups sitting on top to keep the cabbage below its brine

Happy fermenting!

My Soapbox

The other day I did something that I purposefully make a habit of not doing- I initiated and engaged in discussion of a hotly debated subject in an online community of Moms.

Three of my stronger personality traits are being quiet, reserved, and avoiding conflict. An instigator I am not. Argumentative?- Nope. Do I enjoy a healthy debate? I'd rather observe.

But I have passions. Ooooh do I have passions. And these passions invoke in me a wild animal persona that could chew your head off. Well, in my mind that is what I want to do. Outwardly that wild animal shows itself in the form of respectful conversation, careful questions, and information presented with a combination of research-based knowledge and heart. Lots of heart.

(Jeremy gets to hear it all unfiltered, and he definitely knows a side of me that doesn't get presented to the world.)

Catch me at the right moment, with the right side story, either positive or negative, about one of my passions, and I will engage with you for hours and likely still have more to say.

So back to the other day ...

I've made it no secret that our family bed shares. (I used to think I wanted to keep quiet about it, but, passions.) Harrison knows nothing different then sleeping every night in between Jeremy and me, and taking his naps in the middle of our mattress (or in the baby carrier.)

I am a new mom, but at this point not a brand new mom, and when I see newer families struggling with the adjustment of a newborn in their lives, I like to offer to them what works for us. Often those offerings are in the form of mentioning bed sharing. I don't like to tell people what to do, but I do like to share my viewpoint because far too often I only see very one-sided (i.e. mainstream) advice. Jeremy and I have found ourselves parenting in a way that is very different from mainstream, so I like to give my insights on the off-chance that they could be helpful for another family.

So in the case of online communities, I offer my insight and that's usually the end of it.

The other day after I replied to a Mom struggling with lack of sleep and asking for advice, of course I gave her encouragement and told her about our nighttime routine.

And there came a response directly after mine, a response from a pediatrician that said, in so many words, "Do not take that advice because it is dangerous, don't do it don't do it don't do it it's wrong and bad." The response also gave information about sleeping habits and gave a terribly unrealistic age (in terms of biological norms) that a baby should be sleeping through the night.

I read that and my heart fell, and then I felt an anger inside of me that I don't often feel. The wild animal was being unleashed, seriously. I don't care about someone offering a different opinion, but it really drives me crazy how mainstream parenting has become a set of rules, and if you deviate from them you are doing something wrong. After ruminating on it for a little while, I realized I couldn't stay quiet.

I respectfully responded with research-based information and throughout the day looked back to the thread and had a short, kind conversation that clearly had two very differing points of view, but we were able to each have our say. It was a pleasant enough conversation, and that was the end of the discussion.

But inwardly, I have not been able to shake it. That discussion has stayed with me for the past few days. Because I hate seeing parents being told what they can and can't do, I hate seeing alternative points of view passed off as reckless parenting, and I hate seeing babies posed as manipulating, trainable beings.

I often feel like modern parenting ideas have actually made parenting a baby more difficult than it already is. The general guidelines for mainstream parenting feel very frustrating and I believe they contribute to parents having all these questions about what babies "should" and "shouldn't" do, rather than reassuring that parenting with instinct is the best way.

Babies need to be close to their parents, they need to be fed, they need cuddles, and they need these things around the clock. I feel this is all instinctual if you take away the insecurities that can come up when you're trying to follow the "rules"- rules that are generally designed to try and make our babies less dependent on us. Our infant children are the most innocent and beautifully needy and dependent beings that we will ever know. They communicate and express their needs through their little (or loud) cries. It doesn't matter the time of day, or the circumstance, or the location. I have fully experienced the maternal instinct that is to tend to my baby when I hear him cry, as he is clearly expressing a need that I can and should meet- as his mother, as one of his parents, as a caregiver.

So why is there such a deeply ingrained idea in our society that the most vulnerable and needy among us should not be taken care of when it is inconvenient for the parent? Why are we told, time and time again, that our babies who can't even tell night from day are manipulating us to tend to them in the middle of the night and that their cries, their needs, should be ignored? I'm not trying to harp on any one type of parenting idea, but rather voice frustration that the common information given to inexperienced, malleable parents is information that has them parenting against their instincts. Who in their right mind- a mind free of fear, free of exhaustion, free of depression, free of other people's ideas stated as fact- would instinctually ignore a baby with a need?

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So yes, one part of parenting instinctively in our household means bed sharing. This is the best set up we've found to meet Harrison's needs as they arise throughout the night. But here's a confession: on a few occasions, I have had a more difficult night's sleep, because the idea of bed sharing worried me on those particular nights. There is a common thread that links these nights- they happen after I've read an article, or blog post, or friendly discussion, or heated debate about the (un)safety of bed sharing. I second-guess my clear maternal instincts and the set up that has worked wonderfully for our family anytime I see someone mention something bad about it. I'm not even one to care about other people's opinions, but the switch can flip that quickly for me anyway. Something about that is so wrong- how can an anecdote that someone else mentions bring me to such a state of fear that I worry about the way that I am parenting my child? I'm thankful I'm always able to quickly find my bearings again and go back to fearless, instinctive parenting.

Everyone from trained professionals to our next-door neighbors to the strangers we pass on the streets needs to STOP offering fear-based parenting techniques. In fact, next-door neighbors and strangers can stop offering unsolicited advice altogether, and my heart will sing the day that the trained professionals we trust with our children offer balanced viewpoints, rather than a checklist of "do's" and "don'ts." As parents, we know our babies better than anyone else, and it is our duty to care for our children the best we can- instinctively and fearlessly.

Long Distance Family

Jer and Harrison and I went on a short trip to Tampa last weekend to celebrate the marriage of a good friend from college and his lovely wife. It was a great trip all around, and we got some video of Harrison eating sand on the Gulf of Mexico so that was pretty cool.

But my favorite part of the trip was a few days before the wedding, before the beach, before the reunion of friends, before the kitties at our AirBNB. We flew in late Wednesday night; after some airplane issues we arrived in Orlando at 3:15am. A friend who I hadn't seen in almost nine years, and her husband who I had never met, were absolute angels, Godsends, and picked us up from the airport at 4am and welcomed us into their home in Kissimmee, 45 minutes away. (Seriously-friends of the century award.)

We all went to bed around 5am, and thankfully the time zone difference worked in our favor so we stayed snuggled in bed until Harrison woke us up around 11:30.

And then at 12:45, with a knock on the front door, who was there to see us in the middle of Kissimmee, Florida, but my sister Kirstyn.

My sister who lives in West Palm Beach, who took the day off work and drove two and a half hours so that she could spend a short afternoon with us before we drove west to Tampa. Because that's how we do it in the Witzer family.

Those few hours- where we ended up driving to the Disney-made town of Celebration, sharing lunch and ice cream, and marveling at how big Harrison is getting- those were my best moments of our trip to Florida. The afternoon came and went so quickly, even after parting ways almost an hour later than planned, but it was so sweet, so special.

When you grow up close to your family and somehow manage to move to various far away places upon adulthood, you find ways to see each other no matter what. Timing? Location? Whatever- family takes trump.

Kirstyn previously came out to California and made her way to San Francisco, but not before she spent a few days with us- a month after we got married. My Mom and I took a trip to Latvia and as we were living on opposite coasts, had a mini-reunion in the JFK airport before continuing our travels together. My Northern Ireland residing sister Amanda and brother-in-law Chris and their then 4-month-old daughter planned a trip to see California, so we all planned a family reunion in Sequoia National Park during part of their trip. Kirstyn took a short trip to London while living in Spain, and Amanda hopped on a plane from NI to spend a few hours with her. I'm currently scheming up a way to get my family to visit Lexington while we're there this summer- because a 12 hour drive to Kentucky is cheaper/easier(?) then plane tickets for eight to Los Angeles.

My sisters and I do talk of wishing we could just walk down the street to say hi to each other, share meals, help care for our nieces/nephews, and simply live life together in the same proximity, but it's just not our current reality, and you can't spend your whole life wishing. When you don't have the luxury of living just down the way, you find reasons to go out of your way for each other. This is how our family works these days, and I love our little meet-ups. They are not always easy or convenient, but any time spent with family is always, always worth it.

nine months old, heart on my sleeve

Today Harrison is nine months old. This number, the amount of time, is so small yet so large. This "birthday," if you will, feels significant because he has now been on this side of the world for as long as he was being knit together in my womb. Today will likely be just a typical day, but it feels weighty with the transition of him experiencing life on the outside for a longer spread of time than being carried inside of me.

Yesterday a friend asked me how I feel about his first birthday approaching so quickly. Amazed is my first answer, amazed at how fast he's growing up, at everything he's capable of, at the fact that Jeremy and I are trusted to raise him up in the way he should go. But aside from constant amazement, I also have this yearning and want for what has already been- things I can't get back but wish I could, even while being excited about the future. I look back on these past nine months and even though I've been directly with him for probably 98% of his life, I feel like I've missed so much. No one is joking when they talk about the time flying by. And I reminisce and also wish, even though things have been fine and even great, that the knowledge I've gained over these past nine months had already been there when he was born, that as a newborn he could have had me at my best, or at least at my better, rather than relying on a new mom who was and still is constantly learning, constantly making mistakes, constantly getting distracted. Of course that's not how these things go, instead you learn and better yourself through the experience. For all the things I've learned, for all the things I've done well, I've failed at others. And that is being a parent, right? That's simply life, really.

I'm grateful for what raising Harrison has taught me so far, for the patience I've learned to store up, for this season of letting go, of learning to worry less and embrace more. I'm so thankful for him, for the quiet moments watching him sleep, for his belly laughs and the way his eyes smile, for the excitement he has when Jeremy gets home from work, for the voracious eater he's become, for his obvious love of animals, for our snuggles all night long, for his resilience when he is working on a new skill, for both his independence and interdependence, and for his beautiful and sometimes maddening personality trait of never ever ever giving up when he wants something.

Harrison has rocked my world and I never want my old life back. It's amazing what can happen in nine months, in eighteen months. I'm sure in nine years, eighteen years, I'll look back and say the same thing.

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To add some lightheartedness, in the past two weeks after just small moments of distraction, I found Harrison in situations that you just can't make up. For one, he straight up ate about 3/4 of an insurance card to our new car, and separately, after noticing his increased fussiness over the span of about ten seconds, I found him with the basket of cat toys overturned, and a ping pong ball stuck in his mouth. Life would be so boring with perfect parenting!

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The Art of Kombucha

It's no secret that I love to brew and drink kombucha. At any given time, you can find at least two gallons brewing in my kitchen (and usually it's closer to four or five gallons). Kombucha is essentially the only beverage I drink besides water, and I love that with a little bit of work, I can have it on hand at all times, and have full say over the fermenting time and the quality of ingredients.

What is kombucha? In a nutshell, it is a fermented sweet tea. Its origins are not fully certain, but there are suggestions that it comes from Ancient China, around 220BC. Kombucha has been touted in many cultures for its health benefits; it is full of beneficial enzymes and gut-enhancing bacteria. Plain kombucha has a slightly sour and tangy taste to it, and flavoring leads to endless possibilities.

The most important part of brewing kombucha is a SCOBY. SCOBY is an acronym for "symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast." A SCOBY is, in fact, a living organism. It looks like a translucent pancake, it feels a bit like firm jello or thick fruit leather. The SCOBY grossed me out for a short while, but I got over that quickly enough and now will even eat bits of it.

I've read plenty of how-to's on brewing kombucha, and I've found too many instructions call for it to be an exact science- test the pH, use this or that water temperature, sterilize jars with vinegar only, keep it on a heating pad, etc. I'm sure there's clout to those methods, but I don't use any of them. I invoke my inner hippie and brew my kombucha with love (and the occasional measuring cup). Brewing kombucha has become an art form in my household, and in two years I've yet to have a ruined batch. The instructions that follow are very specific, but only for the sake of them being in written word. This is a good way to start, and once you are comfortable with the process, take some creative leaps and find what works best for you!

Equipment
-a 1-gallon glass jar with a plastic lid
-filtered water
-1 cup of sugar
-1 tablespoon black tea, 2 teaspoons green tea (or 3 black tea bags and 2 green tea bags, or all black tea, or all green tea ... oh, here I go, already off the beaten path)
-1-2 cups of plain kombucha (starter tea)
-1 SCOBY
-a thin dish towel or cloth napkin, and rubber band

Process
1. Make a sweet tea concentrate: pour some filtered water into a saucepan, add one cup of sugar, and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. Turn off the heat and add tea of choice, steep for at least 10 minutes.
3. Fill the gallon jar about halfway with filtered water.
4. After the tea has steeped long enough, add it to the gallon jar, straining out the tea leaves in the process.
5. Add starter tea to the jar, then finish it off with more filtered water up to 2-3 inches below the top.
6. The tea should be at or close to room temperature at this point, so now it is safe to add the SCOBY. With clean hands, gently place it on top of the tea.
7. Cover the jar with fabric, keep it in place with a rubber band, so that the SCOBY can breathe, but nothing can get into the jar.
8. Set it out of the way and out of direct sunlight for at least five days to let the fermentation process take place. Periodically taste the kombucha every so often after that until it is the taste you desire. Some people like to let their kombucha ferment for a few weeks so that it becomes very tart and vinegary, while others will drink it just as it starts turning from sweet tea. There's no wrong or right in the equation, just find your preferred taste. However, be mindful that the less time it ferments, the more sugar is still there.

Congratulations, you have made kombucha! But now what?

Remove the SCOBY and transfer to another glass container, bathed in plain kombucha and stored at room temperature with a cloth covering it. Save another 1-2 cups of plain kombucha to use as starter tea for your next batch. After that, you have a few options:

1. Enjoy the kombucha as-is. Put it in any sort of container and store it at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Take note that whenever kombucha is stored at room temperature in an air-tight container it will continue to ferment and begin to carbonate. Be careful with the types of containers you use to store it; glass containers with square bottoms are very weak and you definitely want to avoid them. You can use juice bottles, single-serve glass jars, mason jars, grolsch bottles, etc. I prefer to use bottles that have a screw-top cap, rather than a flip-top, so that if the kombucha ends up being extra fizzy, I have some control over stopping the overflow as I am opening it. I mainly use and reuse old GT's kombucha bottles.
OR
2. Flavor the kombucha. This is fun and it's a great part of the creative process. A good rule of thumb is to use a half cup of flavoring per gallon of kombucha. I never measure anymore and usually end up using much more than a half cup, but always to delicious results, so play around with it. You can use fruit, herbs, spices, simple syrups, citrus, vegetables, juice, whatever sounds good to you. I like to use ginger in almost all of my kombucha, along with a fruit. My favorite flavors are raspberry ginger and orange ginger. I have the best luck with using coarsely chopped frozen fruit. There are books dedicated to making specific kombucha flavors, so do some googling to find inspiration!
Method: after you remove the scoby and starter tea, add whatever you are using to flavor into the remaining kombucha, and tightly cover the jar with a plastic lid. Let sit for at least two more days, and then bottle the flavored kombucha, filtering first if needed. Take note of what I mentioned above in regards to the types of bottles used. Also take note that the extra sugars from the fruits, etc, will aid in carbonation, so the pressure/gas in the bottles will increase more rapidly. As always, fermentation will halt once you move the bottles to the fridge.

A few miscellaneous but helpful and important notes:

-The SCOBY should always be at room temperature, always be in sweet tea or plain kombucha, and always be able to breathe. This is in regards to when you are fermenting and when the SCOBY is just being stored.
-If you don't have any starter tea, a bottle of GT's plain kombucha works just fine.
-Avoid using anti-bacterial soaps around the SCOBY and kombucha. The SCOBY is made of bacteria- the good kind- but anti-bacterial soap does not discriminate! Kombucha relies on bacteria to exist, so you don't want to kill it all off. Clean your kombucha jars well, but don't worry about a sterile environment, it would do more harm than good.
-If you are trying to get a nice and fizzy final product, I've had the best luck with bottling in 16oz bottles and leaving them at room temperature for a few days before drinking.
-A new baby SCOBY will form with each batch of kombucha, so after a while you can peel a layer off and brew more than one batch at a time, or share the SCOBY love!

Happy brewing!