Morsels

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.

Home from painting class last night and, as usual, my mind was in a swirl. It is hard to explain unless you have been in color’s thrall but there is an afterglow (I can’t think of any word more appropriate) that comes on after spending hours absorbed in the mixing and looking and laying on of the paint, stepping back. Mostly wishing for your brain (ok, my brain) to grow new synapses. But then, getting into my car and driving out of the parking lot, I was hyper-aware of the layers of shadows in the trees, the light on the lake. But not just the light on the lake, the purple, the gray, the maybe black-green.

I’ve been working on a picture of a pirogue in the river Sorgue that I took when we were in France. If I could find the picture in my photos I would post it.

Isle Sur La Sorgue

Well, obviously I managed that though not without some irritating bumps along the way. Why, is technology so mysterious?  Anyway, this is what I am painting. I remember walking along the river, boys ahead, Kinloch and Mary somewhere or other. We were all just taking in the pretty town, the market and working up an appetite. And the river was slowly coursing through, ducks barreling along, etc. I saw this boat and its neighbor door and was struck by the colors, the stillness of it all (though of course that water is never finished with its progress). Probably the owner of the boat had one color paint and that was that for the door and the boat. But to me, it still looks like a study in variations. Deliberately done.

So I have taken the image and it has now taken me on. Last night, I worked (with my teacher’s help) on the water which had stymied me. Puzzled me enough so that actually, I worked around it all night. Until at last it was time.  Now, I know water doesn’t mean blue or green but sometimes language gets entirely in the way of seeing a thing. It wasn’t until Jeff framed the water with paper, that I could pick out its grey, violet grey undertones. We mixed and I put it on the canvas and it was right. And that’s another thing…. I can ramble on here, get up in front of a group and opine, etc.. but start explaining a color mix to me, a little raw umber, a little cerulean blue, white a tiny, tiny bit of red and I am struck dumb. I literally had to repeat that aloud several times as if memorizing a phone number that I absoulutely needed (spoken like someone who grew up without cell phones where everything is so nicely stored and clicked).

So it’s not done but it’s on its way and I am looking forward so forward to tomorrow and working on it.