Category Archives: Food

Monday

I worked all weekend. Saturday morning we went out and about for a bit, but I worked in the afternoon, chasing the end of an idea for the new YA novel and setting things up for the MS review. Yesterday was eight hours of freelance MS review, and I’ll be finished it by the end of today. Then I can turn to changing the hearthcraft book as per orders.

It’s Victoria Day and a holiday here in Canada, so HRH is home. I’m thankful because it gives me a day to work and I don’t have to pay a caregiver. The weather is rainy and cold, which is unfortunate. HRH and the boy went off to the EcoMuseum this morning but I’ve just had a call telling me that it’s pouring out there so they’re heading to an indoor playground instead. I made pretzels this morning and have already finished my second one. I need to have quick and easy food available to me in the mornings, and the granola bars I make to see me through the week disappear in a day or so, eaten as snacks. There’s a new loaf of bread rising too. Over the weekend HRH reset the vegetable bed, tilled our compost into it, and planted peas, corn, carrots, and onions. I forgot about getting seed potatoes, so maybe next year. There’s corn and sunflowers strewn along the side of the house too. We’ll see what happens. All my herbs are coming back, and we’re going to get peppers and lettuce and maybe some cucumbers. We always end up with one or two leftover tomato plants from other people, and I’m the only one who eats them in the house so there’s no point in planting our own.

One year ago today was the live dual-band gig. The year off has been good. I do miss playing, but I only miss the parts where it was going well. I don’t think anyone misses the time eaten up by rehearsals and travelling to rehearsals and home practice. Even if we’d been in the headspace to keep going, various health issues, work commitments, and plain old timetable incompatibility on everyone’s part would have forced us to go on hiatus anyhow. All those things logically preclude a reunion at this time. I am very much looking forward to being at Invisible’s upcoming show and not having to worry about conserving my voice or energy for our own performance.

Unless something miraculous happens (like an anonymous money order for fifteen hundred dollars arriving in my mailbox) I’m not going to have the new 7/8 cello in time for the Canada Day concert. I’m disappointed, but I’ll live. I suspect it will have been sold by the time I can buy it this summer, so I may not have one at all until this fall. I wonder if a home trial of this one is even worth it. I’m glum about it, because it was pretty much the one thing keeping me upbeat about things this past month.

Right. To work.

Sigh

When uninspired, do research on the last project that interested you.

Which was frustrating on its own, because what I was researching didn’t appear to exist. Until I made myself step outside the train of thought, think tangentially, followed a different route, and discovered that it isn’t called what I logically expected it to be called.

Argh.

Also figured out that I’m going to have to set this book in Canada. Not a bad thing; just that unlike most of my other books, the idea for this one set itself in the US from the get-go. I can’t find enough information about the topic to comfortably set it in the States, though, so Canada it is.

Also, there is no chocolate in the house. This is ungood.

Beltane Bake Day AKA Beltane Bakefest 2008!

For Beltane Bake Day 2008, I chose to bake challah.

It felt slightly heretical making whole wheat challah, but making bread with only white flour feels wrong now.

1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 egg white
1 tablespoon milk

I put the first set of ingredients in the bread machine on the dough cycle (the mixing, kneading, and first rise) then removed it when the cycle was over. I divided it into three, rolled each section into a rope, and braided it. I put it on the baking sheet, covered it, let it rise for half an hour, brushed it with the egg white/milk mixture, and baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F. When it came out I brushed it with butter too. (Obviously you could do this traditionally as well, proofing the yeast and mixing everything by hand.) I might use a bit more yeast next time.

This was dinner for me. Two huge slabs of it, dripping with butter. It was also breakfast, and will probably be lunch. A thick slice heats up nicely in the microwave at nineish seconds.

I’ve really been enjoying everyone’s pictures and posts about their baking! Haven’t baked yet? You have till Saturday at midnight. No idea what I’m talking about? Check out the original post!

Beltane Bake Day!

I am late; I said I’d make this formal announcement last week. Well, last week was swallowed by post-book missing brain, small child, and angsting about a job interview. However, that’s all over now. On to the fun stuff!

It has come to my attention that there are a bunch of people around who like to bake. Breads, bread products, quick breads, yeast breads, sourdough, cakes, sweet loaves, more cakes, pies, tarts… you name it, someone bakes it. And every time we talk about it on-line, everyone else gets the baking bug.

So! On the heels of this realisation I have cobbled together a new holiday celebrating both the arrival of spring and the glory of baking! Ladies and gentlemen, I declare this coming May Day the first annual Beltane Bake Day!

Now technically speaking May Day, AKA Beltane (Beltaine, Bealtinne, Latha Bealltainn, Walpurgis Night, etc.) is the first of May, traditionally beginning at sundown on April 30 and carrying forward to sundown on May 1. This year it happens to fall on a Thursday, and so I am declaring the Beltane Bake Day a THREE-DAY HOLIDAY! Yes, it will begin on May 1 (however you want to determine when it begins) and end at midnight on May 3. This gives everyone a chance to bake with a relaxed schedule whether they work full-time outside the home or otherwise.

The rules:

1. Bake something.

2. Your baked item must be from scratch. No mixes, unless they are an ingredient in a multi-ingredient recipe. (Using a pudding mix in a cake recipe, for example.)

3. Brag about it in your on-line journal. This is your opportunity to wax poetic about your love of baking, and/or the specific product you have baked, and/or the process and your experience baking it. If it falls flat, share your woes with the rest of us and we will console you.

4. Brownie points to those who post a picture! (Seriously, what other kind of points belong in a baking holiday?) If you don’t have a camera, describe it as best you can. Or borrow one from a friend, bribing them with a taste of your baked item!

5. Because bragging inevitably engenders envy, people will likely ask for your recipe, so you can post it as well. Unless it’s a closely guarded secret, in which case you can gleefully withhold it and taunt us all.

That’s all there is to it! This event is simply to give us all a reason to bake something and talk about it, sharing it in the only way we can with people scattered all over the continents. Your baked item can be as simple or as fancy as you like.

I propose that we use this post as a home base, so to speak: when you’ve participated and posted about it in your journal, leave a note here with a link to your post so others can find it. Feel free to repost this link in your own journals to share the event with as many people as you like.

You have three days in which to plot, plan, and prepare. Have fun!

Five Things

1. Jteethy has a job! Woo-hoo!

2. Sun! Sun! The snow of yesterday is pretty much gone! (Only a metre or so of the winter stuff left to go now…)

3. A weekend that feels like a weekend so far, and will only get better with a visit from Ceri and Scott this afternoon, a flying visit with the inlaws while we get ready to go out and they start minding the boy, and then the concert tonight.

4. Fresh bread, Dijon mustard, fresh slices of grilled Angus roast beef, and Swiss cheese.

5. A really wonderful night of sleep after a decent dress rehearsal.

Yay!

I’m feeling excellent. Last night’s orchestra rehearsal was terrific (the shifting/intonation issues I’m having in the Faure aside). I woke up in a good mood this morning, and Sparky didn’t dawdle as much as usual getting out of the house. The sun has come/is coming out (between snow squalls, but they’re brief and not sticking, thank goodness). I picked up a warm loaf of bakery bread, along with some delicious roast beef and Swiss cheese, and have now had not one but two sandwiches of the awesome category.

But the best thing so far today is that I finally got my hair cut. Three inches gone, baby! Yes! My hair is swingy and barely brushes my shoulders. I love it. I’ve worked up (down?) to this by degrees. Last year was a couple of inches off the mid-back cascade of tresses to a mid/low shoulder blade length, and just a hint of layers. Today started out as two and a half inches, then after studying it we took an extra half inch off, and made the layers a bit more pronounced.

I am feeling really fabulous. It’s a nice change.

Now I’m going to go make myself a caramel latte (don’t get excited, it’s from a packet), handle some correspondence, and then attack those proofs!

A Morning — The ‘Good’ Is Debateable

My mp3 player died last night.

Yes, the refurbished one I got exactly two months ago. No, it’s no longer under warranty. I have no idea why it died; it worked perfectly well the night before, and would not turn on yesterday. And no, it’s not the batteries. I’m not going to be able to replace it for at least a week.

I had a very bad night. Listening to music via headphones helps me fall asleep, and it’s been invaluable. Also, I am understandably cranky because it died after only sixty days of use.

Rawr. And I forgot to pack Sparky’s heavy mitts and snow pants before he left for grandma’s house today. And I forgot to replace the spare clean top and pants in his bag. When I take him somewhere, my mind is working the right way and I remember everything. If HRH takes him, it’s like my mind disengages from the packing mode and won’t access the preparation subroutines beyond making sure he has his drink, his slippers, and his toys.

I used the breadmaker to mix and knead a batch of dough for sweet buns and forgot about it, so the machine tried to bake it before I got to it to turn off the cycle and take it out to shape it and leave it for a second rise.

And it’s dark out. Rawr and grr.

But when the cats knocked over my hurricane lamp that was on the altar, neither the chimney nor the base shattered. I put the half-baked loaf in the oven to finish baking, so there will be sweet bread, at least; maybe I’ll make cinnamon toast tomorrow for breakfast and just not mention to Sparky that it was supposed to be sweet buns.