I got my eagerly awaited package from GEM a few days ago. Now I've got the tempeh I need to make the batch for Tim's Thanksgiving.


This is what the starter looks like:


It's a course mix of rice flour and the itty bitty black specks of spores that will reawaken into the white, fluffy fungus that does all the work.

I also ordered some calcium sulfate.

Doesn't that sound chemical? I suppose it it, but it's a naturally occurring mineral a.k.a. gypsum, and it works great for coagulating tofu. Tofu is much, much harder to make than tempeh, though that might be because I have a lot less experience with it. Tofu making also has a colder feel to it. Tempeh is kind of like a biology experiment, preparing the medium for life to flourish. Tofu is a chemistry experiment: grinding, boiling, and finally adding one last ingredient for those proteins to denature and clump together as tofu.

At dinner recently some friends complimented the tempeh I had given them. One was a dedicated carnivore, so that wasn't just the vegetarian solidarity talking. I promised them some more, this time a half peanut batch... as soon as the culture gets here.

I am waiting for a new batch of culture from GEM. My cousin asked me for a large batch of tempeh for Thanksgiving, and I'm just the slightest bit nervous that the culture won't arrive in time. GEM's is, so far, the best I've tried. Even at about six months sitting in my fridge, it produced beautiful, fluffy, clean tempeh at a smidgeon less than the recommended amount (I was running out). They offer no online ordering, though. You have to print out the form and mail it in with a check (which required me to figure out where my checkbook was - how long has it been since I've paid for something with other than Paypal, online bill paying, or a credit card?), which advances by snail mail from Philadelphia to the other side of the country (Washington state) and then the culture has to repeat the journey back to the East Coast.