Stirring the Miso

Many years back, when I was baking my own bread, culturing my own yogurt, sprouting my own alfafa seeds, I flirted with the idea of making homemade miso paste. I read a recipe and was excited about each step of the way until I came to the last: “Stir once a day for two years.” Ha ha! I decided that it would be worse than having a dog. If I went off for the summer, there would be no miso-stirring kennel. Or I could sublet my place with this addendum: “Must be responsible miso-stirrer.”

So now it’s October and I’m back from the granddaughter visit in Portland, dove back into school on Tuesday, again on Wednesday and out that night to fly to Boise, Idaho. Taught a full day today to an enthusiastic crowd of 100 or so (highlight was the trombone/sax/flute/trumpet/oboe, viola, clarinet, collective jam on Step Back Baby!), another day of world of World Music tomorrow and back home in time to go to my colleague James’ Orff Workshop at the SF School Community Center on Saturday. So not much time for reflective thinking or inspired writing.

Is there a link between the above two paragraphs? Only this. This blog is a little like the miso stirring I never did. No pressure to write on schedule, but if too many days go by without an entry, ti feels wrong. So this the image that made this entry almost worthy and now off to an evening gathering of music teachers jamming in the living room. Maybe we’ll riff on the song we sang today—Soup Soup— and I’ll be sure to sing out, “That miso soup!”