Colter announced he was a fermentation guy on a Sunday in February, which I know because I still have the text: "I think this is my thing now. Like actually my thing." No context. I had been asleep.
By April — which in Marquette means the sun is blinding and the thermometer says 23°F and the lake is still basically a threat — Colter had accumulated: two ceramic crocks, a pH meter he didn't know how to read, a bag of kosher salt the size of a throw pillow, and a notebook he called his "culture log," which contained exactly one entry that said "Day 1. Smells like possibility."
He had watched, by his own count, "like forty videos." He had not, as far as I could tell, finished any of them.
The first attempt was sauerkraut. Fine. Classic. Even I will admit that sauerkraut is a reasonable place to start. He shredded the cabbage with genuine focus, massaged in the salt with what I can only describe as ceremony, and packed it into the crock like he was tucking something precious in for winter. He was so proud. I took a picture. It actually looked correct.
He opened it four hours later to check on it.
"You can't open it," I said.
"I just want to see how it's doing."
"It's fermenting. It doesn't need to be checked on. It's not a sourdough starter, it doesn't have feelings."
"My sourdough starter definitely has feelings," he said, which was the first I was hearing about any sourdough starter.
The sourdough starter was in the cabinet above the fridge. It had a name. The name was Gary. Gary was, according to Colter, "going through something."
I want to be clear that I have known this man for two years and he had never once expressed interest in bread.
The sauerkraut came out fine, actually. Legitimately fine. A little soft, but tangy and real and the thing it was supposed to be. Colter ate some standing at the counter at 11pm and said, with complete sincerity, "I feel like I understand time differently now."
The problem was that this worked, because then he got ideas.
The kombucha SCOBY arrived on a Wednesday. He had ordered it online — from where, I do not know, I did not ask, I have learned to limit my questions — and he held it up in its little bag of starter liquid like he'd won something. It looked like a sad beige frisbee. "She's beautiful," he said.
He named her Diane.
By the Festival of the Angry Bear weekend — which Colter had circled on his phone because, and I quote, "it's basically a fermentation holiday" — we had Gary the starter, Diane the SCOBY, the sauerkraut crock, a jar of something he was calling "experimental kimchi" that I was not allowed to smell, and a beet kvass situation that had developed what he described as "a personality."
Our kitchen smelled like a very enthusiastic basement.
His culture log now had eleven entries. Most of them were emotional. One said "Diane seems distant." One said "Told my mom about Gary. She was supportive."
I came home on April 1st — sunny and hard and cold, the kind of Upper Peninsula April that doesn't apologize for itself — and Colter was on the couch watching a video, brow furrowed, fully focused. I thought, briefly, that maybe he had pivoted. New era. I've seen it happen.
"Tepache," he said, before I even set down my bag. "Mexican fermented pineapple drink. Super easy, super fast. I think this is the one where it all comes together."
"I thought sauerkraut was where it all came together."
"That was phase one," he said. "I'm in phase two now."
He looked so genuinely, helplessly excited. He had his notebook open. Gary was probably thriving. Diane was probably fine.
I sat down next to him and watched the video.
It was forty-three seconds long.
"You know you have to let it ferment for a few days," I said.
"Obviously," he said. He paused. "How many days?"
I love him. I really do. I just also have to live in this kitchen.