I've been feeling a little bummed lately when thinking of skills / hobbies I haven't practiced in a while. I think I've now caught up on homebrewing. Yesterday, I bottled a brown ale; today, brewed the third variation on the honey wheat that I served at our wedding. Meanwhile, Cara decided that today was a good time to exercise her grain-and-yeast skills as well, and has whole wheat bread and rolls on the rise.

Relatedly, I'm mid-read of Standage's A History of the World in Six Glasses (beer, wine, spirits, tea, coffee, cola), which I recommend to anyone who enjoys other fine works of single-food anthropology. (e.g. Kurlansky's Cod and Salt.) The first section discusses beer as the first significant non-water drink in civilization, invent/discovered concurrently with bread and equally important in encouraging/supporting agricultural society. (Today's lesson: beer is both safer and more nutritious than water, so drink up!)

Hooray for grains!