Some of you may remember my plea in my November IMK post.  I was seeking a vinegar mother.  I didn’t know anyone who had one, had tried various methods to make one myself and the only place I had found to buy one was Green Living Australia, located in Queensland, and I wasn’t certain whether the jar and/or its contents would survive the journey.

And then I got this wonderful comment from Tania at The Cook’s Pyjamas:

And so I have good news for you 🙂  I am in Perth, I have a mother stashed away that I am happy to share and I feel sorry for you  🙂

As it turns out, Tania had two mothers: one that she had bought and another from an unknown source, floundering in her cupboard.  She wasn’t certain if they were alive but I was welcome to give them a try.

Tania also gave me a bottle of vinegar that had a strange thing floating around in the bottom which, to her eye, looked very promising…  mmmmm

A few days later, I went to my pantry in Perth and pulled out a bottle of red wine vinegar (which smelled and tasted odd) which had weird stuff floating in the bottom of it.

(Excuse the photo but, because the red wine was dark, I had to take the photo in bright light so you could see the debris.)

In each case, I put the vinegar and blob in a jar and added equal quantities of wine and rainwater, ie, one third blob and vinegar, one third rainwater and one third wine.  I then covered each jar with a piece of cloth.

Then, the other day, I was flicking through Jamie Oliver’s Save With Jamie and noticed he had a few pages on vinegar.  He advised that if you expose vinegar to air, a mother will form.  So I got some Bragg apple cider vinegar which is made from organic apples, is raw and unfiltered and contains the mother and put it in a small jar.  Again, I covered the jar with a piece of cloth.

So now I am waiting, expectantly, for something to happen.  For how long, and for what, I do not know.

BTW, remember the two jars I highlighted in my November IMK post?  The jar containing the cider tastes a lot like vinegar and the jar containing the red wine tastes a little bit like vinegar.  There is no sign of a blob in either.