Smelly Health

In addition to choosing clothes, accessories and personal care stuff the vast majority of my packing time before a longer trip is dedicated to choosing what photography gear to bring along. Despite trying hard to minimize I still end up packing about 30% more than I end up using. That means if I pack 15kg of camera equipment 5 kilograms of it never actually gets used. Which is both a waste of space and a pain to schlep around.

One of the more crucial items I don’t comprise with is my invaluable stash of chopped oven-baked organic ginger. For about four years now ginger has been my prefereed snuff tobacco ersatz. This morning I made a huge batch for the forthcoming trip and dialed in an absolutely perfect oven temperature to get the little nuggets about 90% dry.

The smell during the drying process can be a bit pungent and the family certainly doesn’t waste any time complaining to me about it. Especially when I managed not to dial in the right temperature and end up charring a full tray of cut ginger. Still I’m pretty sure they’re okay with the occasional smell since the health benefits of my current root-munching habit easily out-way my old nicotine addiction – despite their nasal discomfort. Pros and Cons.

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