More Business Travel

This time I drove to Oklahoma City for an engineering committee meeting. After the day's meeting I like to stroll through the Brickyard, which is a neat area of restaurants, bars and retail stores. They even have a small canal system. However, we had tons of rain this week in the country's midsection. The rain kept me pinned down to the motel's area. I could stroll out some between rain sessions but didn't want to get too far away in case it started up again. Wasn't dressed for it.

For the first day's lunch break I stole away and discovered this American Banjo Museum. What a jewel! They covered the four string banjo the best (it started as a 4-string collection) but had a nice selection of bluegrass banjos, too. They had early banjos or mock-ups thereof, and four long necks from the '60s (Kingston Trio and Pete Seeger style). They did not cover the open-back flailing banjo, though. All the displays were museum quality. They've spend $5 M on it so far.

Next day I HAD to get out, so I skipped over to a Starbucks for a pastry and a sketch. It was cold and misty so I couldn't sketch the Banjo Museum face like I wanted. I fixed that, though, when the meeting ended at noon and I went back to the Museum. Had another chat with the staff. Picked on a couple banjos on display for patrons to use. Bought a banjo T-shirt. Then on the road for home.

Kombucha!

I'm trying something new . . . rather it's old. Centuries ago kombucha was created and claims to have healthy benefits. My daughter Amy started making it this year and spurred my interest. So far I've made two batches, a half gallon at a time. I don't know how much is a daily serving, but I'm starting at a juice glass worth. This stuff is easy to find on the east and west coast, but is new to Kansas. Our health food stores in Topeka have it, but most of the population here has never heard of it.

I had the bottle caper from my old beer brewing days, but needed some caps. We have only one store that sells brewing supplies, and it's a guy running a business from a home. I drove up to get the caps and found out he, too, is brewing kombucha. He showed me his gallon jug of fermenting tea, with a smile. We are both cautious with our expectations, since we don't buy into all this alternate health stuff blindly. It's worth a try, though. We both see the similarities to brewing beer or wine. Fermented food is hardly a new concept. Plus there is the fun factor.

I'd be interested if any readers of my blog have experience with kombucha? Let me know. The traditional American medical community isn't buying into the claims, but that's true with a lot of health foods out there.  I figure if it's been around for centuries, if it was killing people the recipe wouldn't be around today.