Take This Worth a Grain…

How certain food stuffs advanced human civilization never ceases to amaze me, especially salt, a biological necessity often taken for granted these days. To be honest I never give it much thought unless monitoring my dietary intake or perusing the grocer’s ever increasing variety. Just last weekend I spent quite some time locating a plain, relatively inexpensive sea salt.

My Find

Today’s quick online search taught me that an existing Bronze Age road reaches an ancient sodium chloride deposit. Historically difficult to procure and refine, its well-known preservative qualities resulted in wars over ready resources like salt lakes. Hilighting the impact, ancient adages remain such as ‘salt of the earth’ (Gospel of Mathew 5:13) and, sad to note, a male slave being ‘worth his salt’.

Enough on the abundant facts, though. A humorous incident brought the mineral’s importance to mind after my husband and I, working as a team, made a loaf of bread. I mixed our preferment the night before and he continued with the various steps throughout the following day.

Saying nothing at first, thinking my tastes buds were off, I couldn’t detect any flavor. When he tried a slice without Kerry brand salted butter my husband all but gagged, saying I must have omitted salt.

He was half right. My guy dropped the ball on this one. The preferment doesn’t call for salt.

Deserved apology accepted. ~smug grin~ But I won’t rub salt in the poor fellow’s wound.

Heh…

Do you bake bread? Would you use a machine or prefer Alton Brown’s hands-on technique?

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Long Overdue

I’ve been meaning to share some photographs for a while now. Last Sunday I decided to take a walk. But every place I contemplated looked full of people. Driving on instinct, I found myself in a suburb just north of my hometown. This deserted lot centered in a tech industry district caught my attention.

Define Isolation

I recognized the plot as serving employees of a cold war era nuclear research center. The Miamisburg Mound history is amazing, if you’re interested, with over fifty years of dedicated scientists contributing toward many areas of manufacture and testing including space exploration.

The facilities namesake, a burial mound
built by the Adena tribe, predating
arrival of the Miami peoples.

Again, if you’re interested, there are a slew of pictures better than mine. I like how I stood at the same level after an easier climb from the elevated lot.

My lone little vehicle parked below my
vantage from the previous picture...

Looking down the stairs pictured above.
And no, I didn't use this rickety flight.
Another several yards to the south
are in much better repair.

I hoped for a better picture from up there, but difficulty seeing the iPod screen and mild vertigo ruined it. ~grin~ But you get the idea. Anyway, there were other decaying signs of past productivity.

Break glass in case of a car fire, I guess?

Imagine driving to work and then taking
a shuttle, almost like a theme park...

The Old and the New...

I like how artistic the rust looks on
this neighboring rooftop...

 

More cave trolls, as spotted by the river.
Uh, oh. I left shortly after this sighting.
(You didn't think I could avoid a
flight of fancy. Did you?)

Can you believe the facility isolated all its waste water, including from employee restrooms, to test for radioactivity? And that tomato and eggplant seeds sprouted in those particular holding tanks? (ewww…) Would you have felt comfortable working in such conditions, like the neighbor (rest his soul) who told me the above story?

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