Crisp

I bought an ice cream machine! lots of frozen treats are going to be churned. My first batch was Earl Grey. Second batch, Nutella toasted hazelnut with cacao nibs. Delicious. 

One of my friends frequently gives up eating chocolate for Lent (supposed to be 40 days but the church doesn’t count Sundays… so infact, longer than 40 days) So for Fat Tuesday — the day before the first day of lent, Ash Wednesday, I made her an ice cream cake made with the nutella ice cream with a chocolate ganache topping, sugared toasted hazelnuts and a 62% scharffenberger shell. Again, no picture because of no camera. I’m so sorry. 

Today I went to the mushroom farm to buy cheap bulk mushrooms, but they were not as cheap of as good as expected. Mushroom compost, I learned, is about $5 per truckload–about one cubic yard. BUT mushroom compost is used three times (aka spent) and it has inconsistence in quality. Sometimes you find fiberglass in it.  Mushroom compost is also supposed to be high in salt content — probably due to the salt given to animals and the compost is made from animal manure. 

If you live in Ventura County, The Ojai Valley Sanitary District offers free biosolid compost. Its supposed to be 50% horse manure and hay and 50% biosolids. They have a labratory on site… They’re open from 8-3 and you can pick up anywhere from a bucket to a huge truckload of compost. They have more available in the drier seasons– summer and fall. I haven’t used it yet so I cant vouch for its quality, but I got a truckload of it equalling about 2-3 cubic yards. It smells more like ammonia than manure. Biosolid, for those of you who don’t know, is basically processed and treated from wastewater. Biosolid compost use in comercial produce is controversial in the US but as much as 50% of European produce is grown using this stuff.  Again no pictures, and tears because of this.

The address for the biosolid compost  6363 N. Ventura Ave, Ventura. Take the 33N to Canada Larga… turn left off the exit. Right at the stop sign…Its about half a mile down on the left.  The facility is down a long, old street and the address is unmarked from the street…