Food is disturbing

Look what I fished out of my homemade vinegar jar the other day:

It's a layer of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria, otherwise known as a mother. The slime layers had grown so heavy they had sunk to the bottom of the jar, so I pulled it out, and now another one is forming. The mother sort of reminds me of jello, or very firm jam. It was pretty thick, too:

Cool, no?

In other news, I made a peach lattice top pie last weekend. It tasted great, but it looked like it was made by a 3rd grader. I've always been too impatient to bother with making food look pretty.