#beasty yeast.....

[reggiestein]

🤯🤯🤯💥💥💥❗️YALL !

#this is so cool....... #dare i say beasty.... #beasty yeast..... #beast yeast #licorice sea #? #shadow milk #shadow milk cookie #crk #cookie run kingdom #idk WHAT else to add...just thought this was cool

[cookierunauprompts]

I just finished watching King Kong (2005) and this idea hit me like a truck: Shadow Milk Cookie as King Kong and Y/N Cookie as Ann Darrow!

i have never seen king kong but i sorta understand like... the tiniest bit about it.... So uh, Reader's getting kidnapped for this one as that's pretty much the only thing i know from King Kong.

Requested Prompts #44 - 💓

" White Lily Cookie! Don't! It's a trap!" You try to scream out, but no matter what you say nothing can reach White Lily's ears as she was trapped within your captor's maze. You watched as the flurry of the new guardian's magic went towards the fake tree, reviving it almost instantly to the shock of the eerily real-seeming fake Shadow Milk Cookie. You were the only one to have realized that it was fake, so he'd given the group a question that he knew they'd get wrong no matter what. Thus he'd taken you prisoner back in the 'real' world, one that looked a lot like the world within the Maze of Deceit except the key difference was that there was a lot more goopy, abyssal shadows littered with blue eyes staring at everything. You silence yourself with a yelp as one of the beast's fingers press into your head, because yes he does have actual hands apparently. " Ah ah ah!" You heard him tut, " I don't believe that this play needs any input from the audience, does it now?" Shadow Milk hummed, bringing you up to his face so you could look into his calculating gaze. " Besides, they can't hear you anymore anyways, so why even bother?" You hesitate, he was right and you knew it. You almost instantly deflated, your prior determination to escape filtering out of you like air from a balloon with a hole in it. " Aw, you look so cute when you're all hopeless like that! It's almost making me reconsider your position as prisoner!" He cooed, poking at your face with his claw(not the tip of it though). " I doubt that there's anything worse than being a prisoner to you." You groan, leaning away from his touch. A shriek is pulled from your throat as Shadow Milk grabs onto the sliver tree, or at least what remains of it. He spins around it like those character in musicals sometimes do with poles before hoisting himself up to sit between the branches as if they were a throne. " I' wouldn't be too sure about that~!" He teased, holding you up in front of his face. You doubted that, and it showed on your face. " No offense, but I doubt that there is." You said rather un-enthusiastically. " You really think so?" The beast grinned in an almost wild manner, you got the feeling you said something you really shouldn't have. " Because i can think of a lot of things! Of course, I won't be listing all of them for the sake of our family friendly audience. But there are much worse fates than being a prisoner to me!" " Like... like what?" You asked hesitantly. " Hmm..." He leaned in close, eyes shining brightly as he stared down at you. Some kind of deranged hunger slipping into his expression as he did so. " Like being a little snack." You froze up, the pause between that and his next statement being far too long for your liking. " Oh I'm only joking! There's no need to fret, I don't intend to cannibalize you... yet." You squeaked with fear, leaning away as much as you could as he threw his head back into a maniacal laugh. " Oh you're just so gullible- it's adorable!" He mused, a grin that was still far too wide plastered on his face. " I think I might have to keep you, even if Silly-Lily tries to seal me back up in the tree for real!" Well, at least now you know that unless the others save you you're probably screwed. Yippee.

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run au #crk #cr kingdom #shadow milk cookie #cookie run au prompts #beast yeast #shadow milk cookie x reader #i love it when beast cookies are a bit beasty <3 #give them hands/j

[butchyena]

been trying to think of a job where i dont need to talk to customers and had an epiphany driving home from costco… when i saw a brewing co. i could try to get a job working the vats….

#I LOVE HOPPY YEASTY BEER STANK sorry #found a job paying my current rate or more w my desired hours just cleaning and sanitizing #ough………… also ‘yeast’ management #i want to raise those little beasties

[lithokelyphopedion]

More like, the Yeastie Boys

#beastie boys #yeast #mycology #shrooms #art #music #Rock #pop rock

[dduane]

Today's cranky baking vaguepost, "Unclear On The Concept" dep't

So I want a burger, and I'd like a bun for it, but we don't have any in the freezer. It happens.

So: time to find a fast burger bun recipe.

A bit of googling turns up a promising-looking one. The recipe calls for easily twice the usual amount of yeast and about a quarter cup of sugar, which are set aside to pre-prove. ...A bit unusual for an active dry yeast, but whatever. The recipe, though, then earnestly enjoins me (twice!), "Do not allow to rise."

Sorry, how do I manage that exactly?

Because—especially after proving the yeast—WTF am I meant to do? That dough now contains 20g of yeast on a sugar rush. The little beasties are busy doing exactly what a billion years of evolution have taught them to. And now I have to keep them from raising the dough? Gee, thanks. Will blandishments work, perhaps? Death threats? An injunction? FFS.

...Also: the recipe, while promising, comes from a website so thickly wallpapered with ads that it's nearly impossible to deal with. Yeah, I understand perfectly well that a site of this kind likes to make enough money to keep itself afloat. Or more, if it can. And yeah, we've got a long-running food site (about to be redesigned/replatformed, it's so overdue, don't judge me...). And sure, we've got ads, but not like this. This is ridiculous.

And then after you've scrolled aaaaaaaall the way down to the actual recipe... past the pictures that are mostly inserted to make the page's real estate friendly to yet more ads... you'd better move real quick, because if you don't the page will reload itself and make you scroll aaaaaaaalll the way down again.

I'd be embarrassed to put people through that kind of thing. WTF WTF.

(muttering)

...Anyway. The finished buns don't look bad, but the proof of the pudding (in the word's original sense as used for the yeast, the one that means "to test something") will as usual lie in opening them up after they've cooled to find out how the texture is. We'll soon see...

ETA: Here's one cut open. The texture's fairly close, but that makes sense for a burger bun. The flavor's a bit sweet for my taste, so when I make these again I'll cut back on the sugar.

...And now I get to actually have my burger. Yay! (The original recipe for the buns is over here.)

#burger buns #recipe sites #yeast #yeast gonna do what yeast gonna do

[fuck-customers]

please stop walking up behind me and loudly announcing a random ptoduct while I'm holding fragile objects or using my knife to open/break down a box. not only might you cause an accident, I will not have heard what the fuck you just said.and if I did manage to actually hear what you said, I'm going to pretend I didn't, until you stop acting like a yeast infection (annoying, can show up in unexpected places, and something people are forced to deal with)

(ps, if you are a customer wondering how to avoid being a yeasty Beasty, try a) checking what the worker you are trying to get the attention of is doing first, because you may cause a legitimate injury, b) start with "excuse me" "Hi!", etc. just yelling "potato peeler" at me will earn you the title of dipshit)

Posted by admin Rodney.

[clatterbane]

Redneck Cider Experiment 2: Ginger Lemon Cyser!

Next to the previous batch, which is nearly finished fermenting. *fingers crossed*

Yep, I did go ahead and throw together a test batch using that ginger-lemon-apple juice drink! The base juice wasn't much darker than the other kind starting out, but certainly turned that way once everything else was in.

I decided to use a little honey mainly for flavor this time, putting it somewhere in cyser territory. Though closer to cider strength than the usual run of mead. It's mostly apples! 😁

I thought we had some of the plainer generic honey left that Mr. C picked up for his mead batch, but turned out he did use it all. So, I ended up using what was already in the cupboard, which is a little stronger flavored wildflower type honey that I spotted at Lidl. (And totally delicious.) Just as well that this only needed like 1/4 cup, with that little jar.

We have some more nice apples that I mainly got for cooking but haven't made anything with yet. So, I decided to do a little prep work in advance, and cored/chopped up a big one last night to stick in the freezer. Which also helps break it down some for better brewing. Pulled that out of the freezer a little in advance to thaw out, and the little chunks were definitely mushier trying to feed them down into the bottle.

I'm hoping that the fruit pieces will break down enough to pour out of the bottle without too much trouble later on. If not, that will have to be a problem for Future Me to contend with. 🙄 Making do with the best equipment I have on hand.

Partly to help break the fruit down and bring out the flavor better, I did indeed also pick up some pectic enzyme in that new haul of actual brewing supplies. Also, some proper yeast nutrient to hopefully keep the friendly beasties happier. (Labeled for beer, but the stuff Wyeast pushes for wine/cider/mead is apparently exactly the same.) The pectinase is also supposed to help it turn out clearer, but we'll see.

I may or may not have used anywhere near the appropriate amounts of either thing, but went with a wild-ass guesstimate based on what people with a lot more experience were saying. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If anything, I tried to err on the side of using less, to hopefully avoid any strange flavors.

I just went with the same yeast as last time again. Seemed to work pretty well. Almost ready, just waiting to get the yeast hydrated here before pouring it in with everything else!

The actual recipe and numbers, btw:

Yes, I am using a Cider / Wine Tracker app for convenience, because I am just that kind of nerd. Who never intended to find another hobby rabbit hole to jump down like I seem to be in the process of doing.

The airlock wasn't bubbling yet at last check, but it hasn't been that long. Interested to see how this goes!

#redneck cider #homebrewing #cyser #alcohol mention #food

[punkbakerchristine]

11 o’clock at night and I’m thinking about my rye bread

i really liked making this one back in october, as my second loaf of bread following the standard bloomer. i think this was the one that made me realize that being a baker is going to make me extra toned in the muscle department, simply because of the kneading: the basic bloomer is just 400 grams of flour, 10 grams of salt, 8 grams of yeast, and 120 milliliters of water, mixed in the bowl with your hand and then kneaded out on the countertop with a thin layer of olive oil underneath until it’s smooth and then you let it proof for an hour and a half, and then you take it back out and rub some flour over on it and “knock” the air out of it and let it proof a second time for an hour.

bread proofing requires putting the dough in a glass bowl that’s been oiled down—you never want to do it in a metal bowl because it can contaminate the dough—and i like to set it in the oven with just the light on, or at least someplace warm in the house. the yeast will do their job in a warm environment, but not too warm (the bakers on the british baking show have proofing drawers right next to their ovens but you know. not all of us are as lucky).

this beastie called for rye flour and some pale ale: paul said in his cookbook that rye flour is heavier than regular old bread flour or all-purpose, and—

yeah. no exaggeration.

i remember it being heavy and dark and grainy and reeking of hops from the ale, and i was pushing my full weight against it, too (this was back when i was still around 230 pounds, too, so you could say i was doing calisthenics 🤪). and yet, i still managed to make the dough smooth. and because rye flour is heavier, it had to proof for 2 to 3 hours. and so i let it proof for about 2 hours and it had doubled in size: i took it out of the bowl and floured it down and knocked the air out of it—knocking is a lot like kneading but it’s slower, more deliberate, more emphasis on folding and using your knuckles.

i then shaped it into a loaf shape and made a paste/glaze of sorts, of the ale and some rye flour for the top, to which I set it aside. as for second proofing, you want to lay the dough on the baking sheet and loosely wrap it in a large plastic bag so the yeast can continue to breathe. i honestly have no idea why the dough spread out and turned into a disk the way it did, but there was very little i could do at that point: my oven needed to preheat and the sun was going down at that point, too. so, i fired up the oven to 220° celsius (about 430° for an american electric oven like what i have) and spread the paste over the top of the dough. with my fingers smelling of ale, i washed them off really quickly and picked out a cup of oats to spread over the crown.

with the oven ready, i stuck the loaf in there for 25 minutes, and then i bumped down the heat to 200° c/395° f for another 10, if i recall correctly?

it came out looking like… ^that. but the flavor was incredible, and it was delicious with some butter and a bowl of soup. i thought of the presence of rye bread in the jewish diaspora upon letting it cool on the rack, and i knew right away that it would be something to save. i think this was also the thing that confirmed to me that i’m really partial to rustic or “vulgar” recipes, probably because of the beer and the oats! 🍞👩🏻‍🍳

#rye bread #homemade bread #bread #rye bread with oats and ale #recipe #paul hollywood recipe #mine

[mediocreclementine]

*feeds your yeast to paramecia*

NOOOOOOOO MY BEASTIES

#mc rambles

[tropical-lazor-beams]

homestar: hey strong bad. did you know passover is coming up? sb: uh, yes homestar, i did. i am almost amazed that you know this. why do you know this? homestar: well, y'see ess-bee, i was having a bread sing-along in the comfort of my own home, by which i mean marzipan's house, because you can't have a sing-along with only one person and no stick. but then i realized, hey! there's an awful lot of yeasty-beasties in this bread! you can't be eat-along that at passover. sb: doesn't marzipan have like, an entire section of her kitchen dedicated to some organic-vergrown whole wheat sourdough poofer proofer bread starter thing? homestar: she does? i didn't know that. what does that have to do with yeast, though? sb: nevermind, forget i even said that. homestar: yeah, anyway, i wrote this whole new album of tunes all about un-heavened breads. there's a tortilla tagelied, a chapati chorale, a lovely laud to lefse and, of course a matzah medley to close it all off. sb: great, man. tell me when bubs has it in stock so i can avoid his stand for the next week. homestar: sure thing!

#follow for more incredibly unembellished jewish homestar runner content #don't actually i haven't very much decided what this blog's going to be honestly

[kasper-k]

Yeast is a collection of wee beasties

[avannak]

Tempted to try making a quick no yeast bread in honor of the Tales of Arcadia movie. Thoughts since you’ve made bread?

Oh man, well I love my yeasty beasties, but you could make a good soda bread!

You can call the currants in it ‘gravel bits’ ;)

[benedictusantonius]

By adding some yeast to your flour/water mixture and letting it sit for a few hours before cooking, you will produce leavened bread. This works because the yeast you’ve selected for are bred to feed on the sugars in your flour and water, and if there’s oxygen around, they’ll produce carbon dioxide as waste. This carbon dioxide is trapped by the gluten in your flour, where it causes your bread to rise. When you cook your dough, the yeast will happily keep gorging themselves in the food utopia you’ve given them, right up to the point where things become so hot that they all die as their entire colony is cooked to death. Congratulations! You have used the labor of microscope beasties to produce a more pleasant bread, then killed them the instant they were no longer useful. Millions of their corpses are baked into every slice of bread you eat. CIVILIZATION PRO TIP: Don’t let anyone tell you bread is vegetarian.

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North ( @ryannorth )

#Ryan North #How to Invent Everything #Bread #Yeast #Vegetarian

[thisaccountiguess]

Dumb shit me and my friends have said

“mid squirt, I realised this was not a good idea”

“You make me feel ashamed of being human”

“ I don’t have a yeast infection! (another friend): yeasty beasty”

“ will I finish my GCSE’s or will they finish me?”

“I might just kill myself, actually ill just send nudes to jake”

“ the Spanish language is a complicated place”

“ This happened and I don’t know why it happened or how it happened but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to it”

[wineschool-blog]

Beer Reviews

https://j.mp/3pZn1GD Beer Reviews https://j.mp/3pZn1GD Table of contentsBeer ReviewsPhilly Beer School Kenzinger Brasserie Dupont Duvel Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen. Brasserie Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA Sly Fox Pikeland Pils Stoudt’s Karnival Kolsch Russian River Supplication Wine ReviewsWine School of PhiladelphiaSimi Chardonnay, Russian River ValleyBaumard SavennieresDomaine Hauts Chassis “Les Galets” Crozes HermitageWirra Wirra “Catapult” Shiraz Viognier, Mclaren ValeCims de Porrera 2005 “Solanes” Priorat Beer Reviews Philly Beer School Check out our upcoming Beer Brewing courses and tasting classes! Kenzinger What? Wait…I am drinking a Kenzinger right now. Life is good. Forget the Geek-isms sometimes, a beer needs to be straightforward and refreshing, and I don’t often sit down for just one, so the low alc content on Philly’s favorite session beer is right up my alley. Brasserie Dupont Saison Dupont or Foret, for example, are perfect choices with just about any meal. Dupont’s beers always give you a great balance between malt, hops, and fermentation funk without overwhelming anything. Duvel What can be wrong with a beer that drinks like a pilsner but packs 8% abv? Duvel’s white fluffy head wafts floral hop aroma while the beer is smooth on the palate and soothing to the soul. Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen. I’m a big smoked beer fan, and the Schlenkerla brewery is my favorite. Schlenkerla’s Marzen pours a ruddy brown and makes you crave rye bread and wurst. There – can I go back to my Kenzinger now? Brasserie Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek I’m spontaneous and so is my favorite beer. Spontaneously fermented, that is. A beautifully sour lambic from my favorite brewery, the Lou Pepe Kriek has notes of candied citrus, sour cranberry, and balsamic vinegar. A frothy pink-hued beer that looks feminine, but packs a punch. Below all that sour fruit is earthy and peppery funk and a sturdy body. Summertime perfection. Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA Taking hops to the next level, Adam Avery is a serious man. Subtlety be damned, the Mahraja is a grapefruit and pine BOMB. Hops for the sake of hopping. At a beasty 10.2%, this beer shouldn’t be a quencher on a hot day, as you’ll be seeing sideways in no time. A perfectly smooth mouthfeel and hearty finish puts this brew in my current top 5. Sly Fox Pikeland Pils The beer in the can that could. A Gold Medal winner at GABF, no one does delicious canned beer better than Brian O’Reilly at local brewery Sly Fox. This is a refresher of the highest order with a hefty amount of bitterness and big leafy grains on the nose. With a glut of great pilsners in our area, Sly Fox can swing with the best of them. The portability and convenience of the can put this one over the top. Stoudt’s Karnival Kolsch Before closing the brewery, Carol Stoudt was known as the Queen of Hops and is the first female brewer since the lift of Prohibition. The woman can brew a beer. None is better than their Karnival Kolsch offering, which is new this year but used to be part of the Brewer’s Reserve series. Luckily, we can get it all the time now. In an area teeming with Germans, this beer is the German-est. Smooth like a lager due to colder fermentation temperatures; there’s a touch of sweetness upfront, thanks to red wheat malts peeking through. Also, a GABF winner. Delicious! This beer (and the brewery) will miss it. Russian River Supplication Ahhhh yeah, Russian River. Super brewer Vinnie Cilurzo makes delicious and rare beers that Philly can’t get enough of. The best of the best is not Pliny The Younger. No, my friend, the best is Supplication. A tasty brown ale is barrel-aged in Pinot Noir barriques, with three separate strains of wild yeast added to the brew. Very barnyard funky and sour cherry on the nose, but quite vinous and silky in mouthfeel. For as deep a color as it presents, this beer is surprisingly refreshing and, as such, falls into my top 5. Forget that. It kicks and uppercuts its way into my top 5. Wine Reviews Wine School of Philadelphia Check out our upcoming wine tastings! Simi Chardonnay, Russian River Valley Classic Cali style Chardonnay. Melon and cream with a core of cinnamon stick and a splash of apple cider. For lovers of this style, its worth every penny of the $14.99 the state is charging. Baumard Savennieres Steely acidity and popping apple notes give way to cool chalk and ripe apricot and just a hint of forest fire: a complex and beautiful wine that will develop over the next five years. If a marble fireplace was edible, it would taste like this. 23.99 Domaine Hauts Chassis “Les Galets” Crozes Hermitage It is rare to find a very good Northern Rhone wine for $20. That makes this delicious syrah a great find. Drinks more like an Hermitage than its often lesser Croze neighbor. With classic mineral and tobacco notes leading into a mess of blood and tar. Only in a wine could that be good, and here it is amazing. $20.99 Wirra Wirra “Catapult” Shiraz Viognier, Mclaren Vale This wine goes for the smooth and rich style that is expected of an Aussie Shiraz. However, this one goes much deeper, with a smoky aroma tinged with floral and white fruit notes. On the palate, behind the big juicy fruit lurks a charred but bloody tenderloin. $17.99 Cims de Porrera 2005 “Solanes” Priorat Priorat is Priorat is Priorat, and this is PRIORAT. Earthen clay aromas peppered with iron and black fruits. On the palate, there is good depth and tannic grip. Flavors of black cherry and dry spices dominate. Very good now, but expect it to mature well for another 4 years. $19.99 More Wine Reviews

[radiantgoodhealth]

Autumn: Cider, Football, and Your Lung Health

Friend: I can feel autumn coming. Me: I know. How are your lungs? How is your sadness, your depression?

Friend: Pardon me?

Now, those are weird questions to come up when you hear “I can feel autumn coming,” ain’a?

Autumn is, in fact, coming and with it the body-mind changes that acupuncture and traditional medicine treat with every seasonal change. We are organic beings after all, made up of the stuff of this precious Earth, living in the ecosphere of our little blue ball, and necessarily responding to, adapting to the cycles she offers us.

Sometimes, we ain’t all that good about adapting to these changes. In Traditional Medicine, autumn is the driest season of all.

Even the sun’s rays begin to dry up, so to speak, as our daylight hours suddenly shorten, and we move toward the Winter Solstice.

Let’s look at the Lung River and it’s qi. Most acupuncturists use the terms ‘channel’ or ‘meridian’ to describe the discrete pathways our vital energies—our qi—flow through in our body-mind. For me, those are meh terms. I use “river”. Qi flows through 14 different and discrete rivers inside you, me, and all living beings. Acupuncture helps to keep those rivers contained in their banks when they are too exuberant, full of qi in times of depletion, and flowing smoothly always, from their wellspring to the sea. When those are all balance, we are healthy. And then, there’s autumn.

The Lung River is associated with autumn and autumn is associated with dryness. A dry Lung River is an unhappy one; lungs like to be wet (but not too wet). Since the lungs are the most exterior of all the qi-organs, the harvest season can give us problems if we are not full of care for them.

Every season has its own emotion as does every qi River. Autumn and the Lung River are associated with the emotions of grief and sadness—particularly things that have arisen more recently. For example, a child trauma will more like settle in the Heart River but may arise acutely in autumn. A loss within the last few months or year will probably damage the Lung River now.

Think of what it feels like to sob—the Lung qi is moving erratically up and down, the River is in turmoil, tossing in any direction; breathing is hard, there may be pain in the chest and shoulders, there is constriction and anxiety.

In our medicine, each River is associated with one of the elements of our planet. The Lung River is associated with the element of metal (ore, minerals). Metal can generate good body fluids (think of a metal cup full of cool water and the condensation that forms on its outside). Metal can also hold heat such that good body fluids evaporate or become scorched. Think about that time your very wet cough (cold, damp, and phlegmy) turned into a persistent dry, scratchy, hoarse cough (heat and dry), your sputum changed from white and liquid to yellow or green and thick—heat and dryness cook fluids and cooked fluids are a problem for the Lung River.

Another fascinating aspect of the Lung River is that it regulates the cou li, that space between the skin and the musculature. The cou li is the space where our defensive qi (we call it the wei qi) moves to protect us from exterior pathogens. Or, if you like, we can rename all these components as “lymph and immune systems.” Functionally, we are using different words to describe the same phenomena, although the traditional medicine terms also include more subtle effects. For example, grief is very often followed by sudden illness related to breathing or opportunistic infection.

Autumn Precautions

We need to take smart care of our Lung River for the next three months. We do this in three ways: Good cover, good emotions, and good food.

Good Cover: Our upper back and neck, from the base of our skull, across our shoulders, and extending a down the paraspinals is called the “wind gate.” This is the original source of infectious coughs and colds that are so common in the cold, damp weather of autumn. It is important to keep this area impeccably protected from wind, cold, and dampness during this season—especially so on warm days when the pernicious qualities are masked by the sun’s warmth. Pull up your collar, wear a hoodie, toss a scarf or a sweatshirt over your shoulders. 

Protect your wind gate and you protect your Lung qi. Protect your Lung qi and you prevent related diseases.

This is a good opportunity to consider the relationship between traditional energy medicine and contemporary biomedicine. We know that the common cold and influenza are caused by viruses. No dispute. What’s with this “wind gate” chatter then? The wind gate is an exposed area of the cou li, This is our immune system, energetically speaking. Sweep it away with damp, cold, wind and you’re left exposed to viral and bacterial lung infections. Nothing “wu-wu” here—just different words to pick out the same phenomena. Cover your shoulders, rest appropriately, boost your wei qi, and don’t let opportunistic infections get a foothold.

Good Emotions: It’s fair to say that all illness, from the perspective of traditional medicine, is entangled with some emotion or other. Even happiness can go into deficiency (a kind of depression—there are many of these in traditional medicine) or excess (difficulties ranging from insomnia to mania). Each of the qi rivers are associated with a different emotion. We live, unhappily, in a culture were all emotions are either suspect, commodified, or devalued…except warrantless anger which seems to be permitted in every circumstance. So, we learn young to squash them down. Wall out sadness. Crush grief under the weight of a mountain of feel-good. Deny love. Deny them all if we can.

When the sadness of autumn arises, don’t look away. You needn’t let current sadness or old grief mow you down. Khalil Gibran said in The Prophet “to suppress a truth is to give it power beyond endurance.” Our emotional state is one of many true states. 

So, if you’re truly sad, that emotion must have its day, either by you permitting it (even encouraging it) or by the emotion simply taking over because it is unbearable to wall it off another minute.

At the same time, we must surely not allow emotions to pretend to a permanence and power they don’t truly have. Emotions are soap bubbles. They arise, catch our attention, then pop and fall away, only to be replaced by another emotion—maybe the same one or a related one or an opposing one—each of which will arise, pop, and disappear like all the others. Our emotions only gain strength over us if we forever deny them their voice—and then they gain power ‘beyond endurance’. At that point, they manifest as illness, psycho-emotional, mental, physical diseases, or combinations of these. Deep breath.

If you need to, want to, or must, just have a good cry, especially if one arises naturally, spontaneously. Then “pop” it’ll be gone...for now or forever, who knows? Take a deep breath (directing your Lung River qi downward) and take the next step of your life. Humans have emotions. Be a human. Good Food: Autumn allows us to access the excess of the harvest with an eye to preserving techniques for the next season. It is, in this sense, a season of conservation, of storage and preserving, anticipating the beginning of drawing within in winter.

Sour and fermented foods are especially helpful in this season since they nourish the yin and the jin ye (the body fluids, including those on the intima of interior lung tissue).

Grains: One good choice for the season is sourdough bread. It takes a bit to get a starter going, but so very worth the time and effort. The best sourdough starter I know of involves a pound of organic grapes, locally grown if you can get them. Wrap them in a cheesecloth and give them some gentle bonks with a pastry pin—enough to break the skins without creating jam. Squeeze the juice into a suitable container, add enough water to make 2 cups, and add 2 cups of (preferably organic) flour (white or wheat seem to work well; feel free to experiment with rye or buckwheat). For the first week, you’ll need to add water and flour every day to keep the grape yeast-beasties well fed and stimulate fermentation. Once the concoction bubbles, you can use it as the base for your favorite bread recipe. Keep it fed!

Aduki (adzuki) beans, barley, millet, almonds, sesame seeds, and pinenuts stimulate yin fluids. Add them into soups. Millet is a wonderful warm breakfast cereal or savory side dish.

Meat, fish, and proteins: Tofu, clams, crabs, oysters, mussels, oily fish, pork, and lamb—these are the go-to yin nourishing fluids and especially beneficial to the Lung River.

Veggies: Generally speaking, you probably can’t eat too many vegetables, so long as they are a dominant part of an overall balanced diet. Leeks, cukes, pears, loquat, mushrooms—these are the roots, the sours, and the fungi of good Lung River health.

Foods: Pickles of all kinds, sauerkraut (and other fermented veggies), rose hip tea, citrus fruits, and “the sour varieties of apples, plums, and grapes.”

Welcome to autumn! It’s a grand season, full of richness (and dryness), harvests (including the inadvertent one of lung harmful bacteria or viruses), and the opportunities to both store the goodness of our lives and let go of the dead leaves of it. As a wise woman once said, ‘The trees drop their leaves when they are dead; that is good advice to follow.’ If you’d like a Lung River nourishing preventive care treatment—or if the season overtakes you and you fall ill—please consider visiting us at the Enerqi Center. Prevention may be worth more than cure, but if you’re sick, the curative effects of good acupuncture, good herbal medicinals, and the ever popular TDP heat lamp-liquid moxa combo are beyond compare, and key components of your Radiant Good Health.

  Works Cited

Gibran, K. (n.d.). The Prophet.

Maciocia, G. (2005). The Foundations of Chinese medicine. Churchill Livingstone.

Pitchford, P. (1993). Healing with whole foods: oriental traditions and modern nutrition. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.