Updates

First a poem by Mary Oliver:

Farm Country

I have sharpened my knives, I have
Put on the heavy apron.

Maybe you think life is chicken soup, served
In blue willow-pattern bowls.

I have put on my boots and opened
The kitchen door and stepped out

Into the sunshine. I have crossed the lawn.
I have entered

The hen house.

Second - if you are a reader of this blog you know that I like having projects to work on in my spare time. One of my recent projects has been to purge as much of our "stuff" as possible so that SB and I can fit more comfortably in our little apartment. Although it has not been SB's favorite weekend activity, he has been a trooper and gone through everything with me. As a result, we recently got rid of a huge armchair, 3 bags of clothes, 4 bags of books, 1 bag of DVDs, among other things. And the difference is HUGE. Love it.

Lastly, on a related note - I have yet another new project! This one is unique and particularly exciting. A Board member at my organization asked me to co-write a chapter of a textbook with him! It is essentially a big literature review; he is pulling the articles, I'm reading them and doing most of the writing, and I'll be the first author on it. The project is unpaid and outside of my full-time job, but I'm loving it. Feels like being back in school. And hopefully in the end I'll see my name in print!

Success!

I baked one of the two loaves last night, and the other this morning. They both turned out much better than I expected - they were downright delicious! The exterior is crisp, crunchy, chewy. The crumb is moist and mildly sour like a classic sourdough. It tastes so different than a bread made with active dry yeast - and the baking method (20 minutes in covered dutch oven, then 20 minutes uncovered) produces such a gorgeous exterior! With butter it is heavenly. Like real bread - from a bakery!

loaf #1 in cast-iron dutch oven - you can see that
I scored a square pattern on the top of the dough, but not very
deeply so only  a thin square rose above the rest of the bread

loaf #1, the crumb

loaf #2 cooling - I scored the square more deeply this time,
and for whatever reason this loaf was a bit more flexible
than the first and expanded a bit more

The Great Bread Experiment of 2015

For Christmas, SB got me this book:

Like so many people in modern, first world, middle-class society, I have a strong romanticism for work that I can do myself, from scratch, with my hands. It slows down and puts back into perspective precious moments in life that can otherwise string into a never-ending stress-fest in the name of productivity. 

In particular, I've always wanted to become a great baker of breads; I mean, what is more beautiful and fragrant than a smooth round of bread dough? Over the past few years I've probably made a dozen loaves of bread. They generally turn out okay, but have never been a delicious treat - more an experiment that we eat mostly because of the effort put in - not because of the great texture or flavor.

Upon thinking lately about what matters to me in my life, it has (to my own surprise) become a fantasy of mine to work part-time in a bakery. Waking up before dawn and spending a few solitary hours in the quiet of morning making bread... it sounds good anyway. I mentioned this to SB and he spurred me to press forward toward this vision by starting with Tartine as my guide. So... here I go! If nothing else I hope to learn to make good bread for us to savor each week.

Over the past two weeks I've cultivated my first wild yeast starter. Today is the day that I use it to make my first two country loaves. As I write this they are rising for the second time today - I've been tending to the dough off and on for at least 6-8 hours by now, and a few more to go before the bake. I'm sure that these first two loaves won't be phenomenal because it is my first effort, but still... I can't wait to take my first bite!

the starter that I "fed" daily and fermented in a cupboard

fresh dough

formed dough (1 of 2)

Picture of first baked loaf to come soon... 

Wild

Yesterday SB and I saw the movie WILD. We had both read and loved the book, and the movie was just as moving. I felt like I was actually holding back tears for most of the film because there is such deep sorrow and beauty in so many of the moments.

The story is of a woman with extreme circumstances - from intense trauma to overwhelming love - but I think that she is so relatable because we all struggle with who we've been, who we are, and who we want to be in the world. For me the movie captured so much of what it is to be human. I would add that throughout the movie I was thinking of how rarely women are portrayed with such complexity in popular culture. It was refreshingly realistic to watch a movie about a woman like Cheryl Strayed.

As she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail she asks herself: 
“What if I forgave myself? What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”


The movie also reminded me of this poem.


5AM in the Pinewoods
by Mary Oliver

I'd seen
their hoofprints in the deep
needles and knew
they ended the long night

under the pines, walking
like two mute
and beautiful women toward
the deeper woods, so I

got up in the dark and
went there. They came
slowly down the hill
and looked at me sitting under

the blue trees, shyly
they stepped
closer and stared
from under their thick lashes and even

nibbled some damp
tassels of weeds. This
is not a poem about a dream,
though it could be.

This is a poem about the world
that is ours, or could be.
Finally
one of them— I swear it!—

would have come to my arms.
But the other
stamped sharp hoof in the
pine needles like

the tap of sanity,
and they went off together through
the trees. When I woke
I was alone,

I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.