Shoggoths

[MadGastronomer]

I got mine!  *does the happy dance*
Only his deli container got smushed, and he leaked, so now I'm trying to rescue him.  (I wonder why shoggoths seem to be mostly male?)

Also, I note with interest that, despite the Fairfax, VA return address (and wouldn't whoever lived there be surprised if it had been returned! {Yes, it is, or has been, a real address.  Google it, rather than using a mapping site, and it comes up with a list of addresses for a "dinner group," and it's on there.}), the package was shipped from South Glastonbury, CT.  So I guess we know who has the model for Elmer, and presumably who has been writing the shoggothy posts. 

I'm totally going to keep the front of the box with the return address.  I'm a dork that way.  (My friends went to England on their honeymoon, and they brought me back an empty pack of Silk Cut cigarettes, and I squeed {John Constantine smokes Silk Cuts}; <I>that</I> is how much of a dork I am.  How many people are that delighted by a piece of trash, I ask you?  I still have it, too, somewhere.)

[el_jefe]

(I wonder why shoggoths seem to be mostly male?)

Let's see, they lounge around all day, waiting to be fed, and then reproduce at random, and let others care for their offspring.

I dunno, that sounds pretty stereotypical male to me 

[MadGastronomer]

I think it's time for a chorus of "You said it, not me"!

[Emma Bull]

Ignatz arrived yesterday in excellent condition, and was a pair of himself by bedtime last night.

Today he will help me make bread.

[glinda_w]

I got mine!  *does the happy dance*

*envy*

[MadGastronomer]

Want one, Glinda?  He's going to split today, and I don't have time to make bread until next week.  I can hold him for you until we can arrange a pickup.

[laura]

i haven't kept a shoggoth since 1994, but i kinda' remember putting shoggoth food by an open window, and just capturing whatever was drifting by on the wind......  wild shoggoth....  it worked, was very sourdough and tasty, but i always had a creeping suspicion that capturing whatever was floating by near the charles river may ot have been the healthiest of ideas....  

am i misremembering?  can one start a culture from scratch?  i remember being thrilled by the concept.  

(rofl, male)

[glinda_w]

Want one, Glinda?  He's going to split today, and I don't have time to make bread until next week.  I can hold him for you until we can arrange a pickup.

OMG yes *squee!*

I'm over on that side on the 20th (next Thursday), will that work for you? we can figure out time and place sometime between now and then...

[MadGastronomer]

i haven't kept a shoggoth since 1994, but i kinda' remember putting shoggoth food by an open window, and just capturing whatever was drifting by on the wind......  wild shoggoth....  it worked, was very sourdough and tasty, but i always had a creeping suspicion that capturing whatever was floating by near the charles river may ot have been the healthiest of ideas.... 

am i misremembering?  can one start a culture from scratch?  i remember being thrilled by the concept. 

Oh, you most certainly can capture and raise wild shoggoth, and they have most distinct local flavors, but part of the reason they're traded and given as gifts is that, as with many sorts of pets, the pedigree is part of the fun.  So mine is out of the King Arthur line, which is over 250 years old (shoggoth breeders put great store by the age of the parent colony), but part of the niftiness of having this specific shoggoth is that he was given to me by a fictional person -- he's cooler than if I just ordered one from King Arthur, which I wouldn't have done anyway.  If I get really into it, I might get some more starters, maybe one from San Francisco, maybe one of the heritage cultures that are available, and also start my own wild local shoggoth.  I don't know what I'd do with all that bread, though.

Excuse me, I need to go feed Aristophanes, now.

Oh, and Glinda, I've PM'd you.

[glinda_w]

<...> the pedigree is part of the fun.  So mine is out of the King Arthur line, which is over 250 years old (shoggoth breeders put great store by the age of the parent colony), but part of the niftiness of having this specific shoggoth is that he was given to me by a fictional person -- he's cooler than if I just ordered one from King Arthur, which I wouldn't have done anyway. 

Oh yes, and mine will be the descendant of one given to you by that fictional person.

Excuse me, I need to go feed Aristophanes, now.

Cool name! My mind went in a bad direction - "Hastur" *wry* I'm thinking "George" - it's not uncommon, but fits in with "hug feed him and squeeze knead him..." 

Oh, and Glinda, I've PM'd you.

Noted and answered.

[CJ]

Mine's called George.  Partially the "hug him and squeeze him and call him George" thing, and partially a long and convoluted story involving my gaming group, a mad king called George and a rainbow trout.

[elyse]

i haven't kept a shoggoth since 1994, but i kinda' remember putting shoggoth food by an open window, and just capturing whatever was drifting by on the wind......  wild shoggoth....  it worked, was very sourdough and tasty, but i always had a creeping suspicion that capturing whatever was floating by near the charles river may ot have been the healthiest of ideas....  

am i misremembering?  can one start a culture from scratch?  i remember being thrilled by the concept.  

(rofl, male)

My first shoggoth was wild, tended to be very unstable and very sour, and never really provided as good a rise as I get from my King Arthur shoggoths. (My current shoggoth is named George.) Whatever bacterial and yeast strains are available on the wind on a ridge overlooking Boulder CO  are just not adapted to baking. (I might have had better luck if I'd been down in town and potentially downwind of one or more of the local bakeries.)

Pedigreed shoggoths are selected for their baking talents.

[laura]

did i have a recipe for shoggoth and dark beer bread back then?  i don't know if i'm combining two of my favorite recipes into one thought......  one can use a shoggoth with just about any recipe, no?

(not baking - must remodel kitchen before baking......  still living with a mini-fridge for the same reason - must remodel kitchen before buying fridge......)

[MadGastronomer]

Okay, who has Elmer-spawn, and what is its name?  Who has a non-Elmer-spawn shoggoth, and what is its name and pedigree, or at least home turf?
I'ma make a shoggoth genealogy!

[Emma Bull]

I am hand-raising one of Elmer's spawn; his name is Ignatz, a name of noble trickster pedigree. (Ignatz Mouse was Krazy Kat's brick-flinging nemesis, and George Harriman, their creator, drew backgrounds that looked wonderfully like the desert around Tucson, right down to the zig-zag, off-kilter mountains.)

He's Iggy to his friends, of course. He's done two lovely loaves of bread so far.