Yogurt and Memories

I may have set myself up for failure when I decided to make my own yogurt.  You see, I was in search of a very specific yogurt.  My Platonic ideal yogurt is thick and creamy, served from an earthenware crock in a small, dark dining room up narrow spiral stairs on the second floor of a little hotel in Athens, the name of which has long since escaped me.

I ate this yogurt each morning in the final days of 2005 when Summer and I spent a few fleeting days in Greece.

You see now why no yogurt could live up to this hype.  I tried this very basic recipe from the kitchn and it was thin and without much flavor.  Covered in strawberries macerated with sugar and balsamic vinegar, it is okay, but the rest of yogurt will get dumped into smoothies.

The nice thing about making yogurt is that it is pretty easy.  Just heat a half-gallon of milk, do about 30 minutes of yoga (not required, but recommended) while it cools to 115 degrees, stir in a 1/2 cup of active yogurt, then wrap it in all your clean towels and leave in a warm (but turned off) oven overnight.

So is it worth it to make your own yogurt?  Maybe, I'll save my judgement until I give this another try.  I'm not sure my starter yogurt was in great shape, nor did I maintain the yogurt at the right temperature for long enough.  I've heard that you can make it in your crock pot so I may try that sometime soon - I'd be glad to hear any suggestions from those of you who make your own.  For now, I foresee a lot of smoothies - or maybe frozen yogurt - in my future.

You have yogurt?

Gimme.