Bread Experiments

After spending countless hours reading about how humans *might* have figured out how to make tasty bread, I could no longer contain myself and made some bread of my own. The top picture is a loaf of beer bread whose main ingredients are flour and beer. Beer bread represents what the first risen loaves probably looked like, most likely brought about by an ancient beer enthusiast (or clean-water-poor peasant) making his typical water and flour flat loaf with beer instead and discovering that the loaf rose (due to the living fermenting cultures that at one point fermented the beer, who emit CO2 which ultimately makes the bread rise, but he of course did not know that, his explanation was probably MAGIC). The bottom picture is of two loaves of challah that I made because challah is tasty. This purposefully yeasty bread was a much later development, as it took people a while to realize that yeast was an easy to keep, portable additive that would make bread rise--it also allowed them to keep their beer to drink rather than pouring it into their daily bread. Yay food history and tasty bread!

If You've Ever Wondered what a Fish Earbone Looks Like...

Otolith! You don't want to know where we find them in order to examine them, or you might, in which case I would have to tell you that I've spent many (unpaid!) hours sorting through countless baggies of bird feces. It's like panning for gold, only the things you find are small and white and you can't sell them.

First Post

I guess I may be jumping the gun a little bit in setting this blog up a month before summer, but here it goes anyway.
This summer I'll be remaining at school since I've received a generous grant to conduct research on the nesting behavior of native birds in the Channel Islands off the California coast. Possibilities for soap-opera-like moments abound and I want to be able to share my excitement with people beyond myself so I don't become "that crazy bird girl" who spends all of my time alone in the lab.
I'm also taking part in a self-guided research course on Environmental Food History, which should yield some entertaining insights as well. 
I'm hoping to be back up in Oregon for the last two weeks of August and cramming as much Zoo Camp as I possibly can into that much-smaller-than-desired time-span, which of course will provide some entertaining stories of its own.
Stay tuned for further updates!

Thanks for Reading! Cheers, Molly.