Morsels

Just a quick note — made more bread (finished it last night) and it is getting better and better. Also, inspired by my SBF (serious bread friend), I have some sourdough pizza dough fermenting in the fridge. We’ll probably have that this weekend.

Anyway, I’m just writing to say how very much I love september. Tomatoes, peaches, one or two leaves skittering across the road, crickets, cool nights. And so forth. Last night I tackled my peck of peaches and now they are all very politely resting in their freezer bags in the freezer. They are a promise kept for winter when I want to cook them with vanilla, nutmeg, some cinnamon and maybe cardamom — you don’t even need pastry or ice cream to go along with really good peaches — but you might want some just to add to the fun. As for the tomatoes, I bought a case this past weekend of very nice romas and slow-roasted a bunch on Saturday. There are still plenty left. And THEY are not being polite at all. They are lurking in their basket as only impatient ingredients will do. I suppose I should blanch them and cook them down tonight. I’m sort of wishing that they would turn themselves into a sauce (do you think nanotechnologists are considering these sorts of issues?).

Finger Lakes this weekend.

Well, the bread worked more or less. Would I have liked my boules to be boulier, I mean higher? Yes… but the bread is crusty and has a nice sour taste that is not too sharp. I shall be making more and hopefully fitting it into my weekend routine. I have to admit to letting the second rising get a little attlepated by a slight distraction — I went to my neighbor’s beautiful garden and painted a pretty wretched painting. But it was a lovely day and she has the most amazing garden. Of course, she is a landscaper — she and her husband own Maple Landscaping. I was painting in front of a pond which has a pet turtle whose name I am blanking on but I promise was a very apt turtle name. This turtle comes when you call him. They had two but the other took off. My friend explained that the entire fence is turtle-proof (ie chicken-fenced) except for one gate which leads out to the front and then beyond across Lake Road and then, yes to the Great Lake.

Someone found the roaming turtle dead on the little beach the neighborhood tends together. I suppose he thought the bigger water was better. And I’m happy he made it across the road and that he actually got as far as he did. It must have been nice to see all that wonderful, wavy water. He was probably as surprised as I was when I first saw Lake Erie and discovered that you couldn’t see the other side!! He may have suffered from a little turtle heart attack. All that effort, all that desire and then everything is perhaps too wondrous to believe.

Now I’m feeling morose. Probably, actually because I’ve been reading Kennedy funeral coverage all day.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a huge batch of oatmeal/raisin/chocolate chip cookies (can you tell that Arthur is about to head off to college? Warning: Aggressive home-cooking on the horizon…)

In one of my more relaxed recent vacation moments I had the thought that I ought to bake my family bread every weekend instead of buying it at the supermarket. And, as I just posted a few days ago the result was dreadful. I literally threw the two warm loaves into the garbage. In retrospect I think the whole wheat flour was rancid? Anyway, I called my nice, talented friend David Farmer who is very SERIOUS about most cooking projects to see if he might have some sour dough starter for me???

Of course he did. Made from the skin of organic grapes. And he delivered it on Sunday afternoon with a half loaf of warm bread and a handwritten recipe that he has spent some time perfecting.  It looks quite that was simple I will grant it that but all the ingredients are in grams. So I think I need a digital scale? NO jokes please.

He said I could convert everything into regular cups and etc but he looked a little pained when he said this. I am afraid that I have wandered into a whole new very obsessed world of bread baking. It’s not the first foray I’ve had with bread.

I remember back when I was 15, deciding to save up with my best friend, Jeanne McKenzie to go to France. We very reasonably thought that baking and then selling french bread from Mastering the Art of French Cooking was an appropriate (and attainable?) way to make the money. We did make great bread and we did sell it — I think to many grateful people in the Miami U French Dept where my father taught… but, being 15, we lost our focus and moved on to something else. She and I never did get to France together. I’ve since lost touch with her. And I clearly have lost my way with bread as well.

Here’s hoping that I find it this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

Update: I wrote this mid-week and never pubbed due to various forms of disorganization and distraction (the one breeding the other). Anyway, on my second “refresh” of the dough and it’s looking/smelling sour. That’s a good thing. More later.

Fess up — I know you all have embarrassing freezer stories. You know how it starts. There’s some sort of catalyst (in my case, it is a gray, cold August day that feels more like October than it should and school starts for young Christopher tomorow). You approach the freezer cautiously but with determination, poke your head in and lo! lumps of aluminum clad frozen meat (unlabelled, despite all best intentions), tomato sauce made fresh one August afternoon TWO YEARS AGO. But I need someone out there to top this one. Waaaaay back in the lowest depths of the freezer, settled on a puddle of day-glo goo which I believe it a left-over popsicle I found a cigarillo. Yep. I know whose it is (my older son Arthur’s best friend smokes them) but, really what made him think it was a good idea to put in the freezer? I wonder if it was one of those — quick mom’s coming, throw that thing out! moments?

On an entire other subject. I decided at the tale end of my vacation (which may tell you that it was a tad too long) not to buy supermarket bread again. Nope, I am going to be baking fresh bread every weekend! So, yesterday I pulled out my trusty Tassajara Bread Book and cooked me up two of the foulest tasting whole wheat loaves I have ever tasted. I threw them out and am trying again today, using the King Arthur bread recipe on the back of the bag. Wish me luck.