Prep for the Fair!

It's true...I'm entering the Minnesota State Fair!  I've registered for all bread items.  The categories are whole wheat, whole grains, white, and in the category of sweet breads: coffee ring.  I'm actually so excited.  I hope the day I drive over to bring in my goodies I'm in a line with 100 other women...all over the age of 60:)  I realize my dream of finding an 80 year old blue ribbon champion mentor is probably slim, but you just never know.  And if the only thing I get out of this is a participation ribbon, hell, I'll wear that thing proudly.  

This week I've made a whole batch of whole wheat breads.  To be honest, they tasted mighty fine.  Next week I'll be experimenting with whole grain breads.  The difference is that the whole wheat is just with flour and the whole grains have little bits and pieces in the bread.  Things like cracked wheat or barley.  I will be submitting the rectangular loaves and not the round/egg-like ones.  

   
Today I will be making this tasty treat.  I'll post photos next week.  Until then, I will be dancing my pants off at a wedding weekend.  Happy Friday!!

A Small Date

After a week of barely seeing Ross, Friday night came around and a date was due!   We live on the second floor of orange duplex in an apartment that we love.  It's old and there may be grim on the tiles in the kitchen, only a bath tub in which to bathe, and visible slant to the floor in the living room...but it's got charm.  And, it has a porch!  Off the back door a green painted porch allows us to observe our chickens in the yard and look down at our landlord's garden to the North.  It's cozy and provides a nice little perch on the world below.  

So Ross prepared the meal and I hurried about to put together a little soiree in our porch.  Out came the card table, a nice linen tablecloth and into the yard I went to cut a flowering weed that added a sweet little touch.  I also pulled out the candelabra which is one of my favorite home items.  The candles lit and the scene was magical.   

 

Ross prepared a fish dinner we got from Organic Gardening the magazine.  It was a ginger-steamed black cod.  I was giddy the whole meal it tasted so awesome.   

Another magical summer evening in our little apartment in the orange house.  I encourage everyone to have a slow evening this week or weekend...and don't forget to light candles!

The Pastry Bible

I checked out the book The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts, by Judith Choate from the library last week.  It's a beast of a book.  When I first cracked it open I was frightened by the use of the metric system.  Grams?!  Crap.  Therefore, it sat lonely for a week and I only used it as a staple on the coffee table.  

Then earlier this week I was pulled toward it again and began reading through pages.  The directions and ingredients were fairly straightforward.  There's nothing worse than getting excited to cook or bake something and as you're pulling ingredients together realize that there's an ingredient needed that's specific to only the sub-Sahara and is only available through mail order.  Martha Stewart anyone?  Lord that lady can pack recipes full of "essential" ingredients.  I expect it from her now and always skip something in her recipes.  Needless to say, there's nothing that I've come upon in this book that requires mail ordering anything!  

So I decided to tackle brioche.  It's a morning bread as I see it.  It's main ingredient is butter...need I say more?  I always taste the dough of whatever I'm making.  I figure, if that doesn't taste good, neither will the bread.  This dough was difficult to stop "testing"!  There are dough eaters and there are not...I am a dough eater.  Let's move on. 

After all my converting of measurements, letting my dough sit in the fridge for a day, I shaped it and threw it in the oven. 

I was pleasantly pleased with it's outcome.  Buttery, slightly sweet and perfect for the start to my day!  Now this once intimidating book is full of slips of recipes that I want to try in the future. 

Radical Homemaker: Part 1 of many

A few months ago, Ross and I bought all the paper and tools to make my very own business card.  After I quit a recent job at a bistro/bakery, I decided it was time to make my own opportunities.  I wanted to stop living the decisions other people made and start making my own.  Now a few months have gone by and my cards aren't made.  I tend to do this.  Get an awesome idea, play around with it and then day by day it fades away.

What had been really bugging me was that I couldn't think of a title that I wanted on my card.  Baker?  Upholster?  Farmer?  Really I could put any of those, but I'm still learning and don't feel 100 percent about them as a title.  Then as Ross and I were driving back from my sister's house, I was reminded of a book I read this past fall, Radical Homemakers, by Shannon Hayes.  She talks about the revival of homemakers and how we need to become units of production as opposed to units of consumption.  Maybe it was the farms we were passing or the growing of corn or the lack of noise pollution in the city, but the book and all its lessons came flooding back to me.

That's it!  That's me...a radical homemaker!

She speaks on having governing principles of family, community, social justice and the overall health of the planet guide our daily lives.  And more than anything, she tells of radical homemakers being fearless.  That is where I have gone astray.  I have let fear creep it's way back into my thoughts.  I may not have an arrow that points in one specific direction for my life, but I have a general direction and I'm going after it.  I will work on being a unit of production and do all that I can to head towards that life.  I will read, educate myself, ask questions, volunteer...but most of all be fearless.