making yoghurt

I've always been slightly freaked about things rotting. Food, that is. Anything going bad and becoming such that it would make me (or anyone else consuming it) sick. I'm a freak for my nice cold fridge. I like it COLD. And if something is supposed to be there, I don't assume it's safe in the back of my car for hours. Raw meat freaks me right out, and yes, I am one of those people who cook pork to death mostly because it scares me.
(being a vegetarian for 20 plus years would do that to a person.)
But anyway. Rotting food scares me.
BUT I totally love yoghurt, cheese, lacto-fermented stuff, sourdough bread (although I don't eat it, I am still slightly obcessed...), kombucha, water kefir...

So the fermentation I'm going on today is yoghurt. We live on the stuff. We have yoghurt lust so badly we are guilty of standing and staring longily into the case at the co-op where it is stored. All the containers...Sigh. The glass jars filled with creamy beautiful full fat jersey cream...well. You know. Obcession. I'm probably worse then he is. I've got dairy fat on the brain so badly that I've been known to  eat sour cream straight if I'm in the right mood.
During the end of my pregnancy I started making our own. It has taken a while to get the consistency right, the flavour good and tangy and everything as we would like. Yoghurt is a trial and error experience, but like any other cooking, it's been a fun journey. I am still very aware that the milk is breaking down and becoming (as Sandor Katz would likely put it...) partially predigested.  The freak in me is slightly grossed out by that and of course reassured when someone else does that (like the Seven Stars people) but my love and adoration of yoghurt far outweighs my ability to be grossed out by it.
Sigh. Yoghurt love.

And this summer I am searching for water kefir grains and a new kombucha baby if anybody happens to have one to spare. Ours got nasty and was fed to the chickens. They loved it.