Bread - I Want To Bake It With You

I walked into the kitchen to grab a cup of tea,,,it is that time of year again. I am so very happy, practically giddy after the summer we've had. There on the counter, where I left it, sat my sourdough starter. It was filled to the top and screaming that it was up for it's assignment. That did not take nearly as long as I thought it would. I was expecting at least a week for it to wake up and be ready for service. So after putting the kettle on, I gathered everything I need to mix the first batch of dough. Bread is basically just flour, water, yeast and salt. But I add sugar and oil as emulsifiers. I like a crusty loaf, but the crust on a loaf of sourdough can be hard enough to make you bleed. I prefer to eat my bread without oral injury.

I measured a cup of starter and poured it into the bread bowl, I was impressed with the bubbliness it had obtained in such a short amount of time. I've named the starter Charles this year, and it is as randy as a king for sure. I then added a cup and a half of water, a tablespoon of salt, two tablespoons each of oil and sugar and a little more than four cups of flour. I used white sugar and canola oil, but any sugar and oil will do. While I was kneading the flour in I thought about using bacon grease and maple syrup for my next batch. It might make an interesting loaf of bread. I kneaded the dough until enough flour was mixed in to make a soft dough that could be lifted from the sides of the bowl. 

I covered the dough with some cling wrap and put it aside for a series of stretch and pulls. I haven't used the stretch and pull method of kneading before. I learned about it watching Lisa from Farmhouse on Boone on YouTube. She has one of the homesteader vlogs that I watch. Her videos are beautiful and her voice-overs calming. It's kind of like watching a modern version of Ma from Little House on the Prairie.

Following her instructions I did three sets of stretches, thirty minutes apart. She advises three to four sets, until the dough forms a window-pane thinness when stretched. I hadn't expected it to work. Those kinds of things so rarely do for me. But to my surprise I achieved the window-pane on the third set of stretches. Surprise doesn't fully express it, more like shocked, oh my! That worked.

After achieving the window-pane effect I gently shaped the dough into a loaf and placed it into my pan. I covered it and left it to rise. Lisa says to allow the loaf to rise for two to four hours. It has been my experience with the recipe that I use that the dough needs six to eight hours. So I kept checking the progress. At four hours since the dough was created and two and a half hours after the end of the pull and stretches, the dough was rising nicely, but I could tell that I was right. It would require at least another two hours to rise completely. Sourdough baking is a game of patience. You can't hurry it. The starter tells you when it's ready, the dough does the same.

While I waited, I made myself a meal of a baked potato, bacon, cheese, chives and four fried eggs. My grandson calls it Hobbit Breakfast, but as far as I can tell there is no actual Tolkienesk reference to the meal at all. I imagine that a parent named it that in an attempt to get my grandson to eat it. I read through several blogs. I poked around the social decline network that anything Meta has devolved into and I attempted to pick up my sticks and begin knitting again. I should have been washing clothes. but yeah, washing clothes isn't my favorite activity.

I was right about the time it takes for the dough to rise. At eight hours the dough had risen, but not impressively. I wouldn't have called it doubled in size. But I decided that it was time to bake it anyway. I am unaware of what the magic spell is that Lisa incants to make her bread rise in two hours. Does she add some secret ingredient into her dough? Mine just doesn't rise that fast. 

I heated my Dutch oven in the oven and made a slice across the top of the dough, sprinkled it with water and put it in the ovens to bake. 

The morning has been cool, with temperatures rising from the high 50's to the mid 60's. But the heat from the oven had my air conditioner working. It heated the apartment into the 70's reaching back into the hall where the thermostat resides. This apartment is nothing if it isn't efficient with heat.

After an hour in the ovens, I have a wonderful fresh loaf of bread. It rose very well. I might have scored it a little deeper to prevent that cracking of the crust, but I'm please with it.  Here is where sourdough is the real test of patience. I have to wait another twenty to thirty minutes for it to rest before cutting into it. Otherwise the middle may not be fully cooked and be gummy. But it smells amazing and I really want to break out the butter and jam right now.

This fall and winter I think I would like to expand my experience with sourdough. I have baked loaves of bread, made waffles and pancakes, but I think that I'd like to try a few more things. I am thinking about trying things like bagels and cinnamon rolls and a few different types of bread. Any suggestions? Know of any good cookbooks?

I really want to go cut into that bread!
 

Cool Down

The heat dome is gone. Temperatures remain on the warm side, but the mornings are crisp; afternoon temperatures don't hit the 90-degree mark that had me reeling; and the evenings cool down after the sun starts to set. It is so much more pleasant

I have begun walking again in the mornings. It is so much easier when the humidity level is not oppressive. I am finding that I actually can make it home without being drenched in dew. And with the cooler mornings, I can walk later, when the coffee shops are open. That makes a big difference in my motivation. I haven't actually stopped in yet, but just knowing I can if I chose spurns me on. I simply love autumn and I am happy to see it again. 

I was typing here about opening the blackout curtains, and why I wasn't putting the eucalyptus curtains back up when I had a change of heart. I put the blackout curtains up for the summer because the afternoon sun blasts heat through the living room. But the eucalyptus curtains are my favorite. I wasn't going to put them up because of the move and having to take them down again in a few months. It really doesn't take all that much effort to change the curtains and the eucalyptus ones make me happy, so why not? I can be happy, even if it is only for a few months. The eucalyptus curtains are hanging and the blackout curtains are packed away.

Since the weather is cooler, I can start using the oven again without fear of going bankrupt. So I got the sourdough starter out of the refrigerator and have it waking up on the counter. It will take it a few days of feeding and acclimation to stabilize before I can start using it. I am looking forward to baking bread again. It will be nice to have a fresh loaf.

My son is trying to get his starter going too. He bought a starter on Etsy that is supposed to be from a 900 year old strain of yeast. So far, he has made two attempts but has had to trash both due to pink mold. I'm not an expert on how it works, but I have my doubts about the strain of yeast being 900 years old. Even if there is a bowl of starter that has been growing continuously for that long, the yeast changes and takes on the characteristics of the environment that it is in. Or at least that is my theory. Like I said, I am no expert on the behavior of yeast. I'm not telling him that. Why burst his bubble? But sometimes he gets caught up on things like that. 

In general, things seem much better now that the heat is gone. I am still getting over a few health issues, some that have been severe. The phlebitis has all but resolved. I will still be required to move in the new year, but that is seeming doable, not desirable, but doable.

I 💖fall...

Finally Broken

The morning started hot and muggy, just like most mornings for the past 2 months. It stayed that way through noon, but then the rain started. The thunderstorm was impressive. 

The rain sent the tail-gaiters hanging around downtown rushing into local businesses, any shelter they could find. The Blackhawk flyover for the game was on stand-by to be cancelled. They've been practicing for days. But the skies cleared before the game. The flyover took place. The raptors were released and did their traditional swoop of the stadium. The rain cooled the air by 10 degrees. The game was more comfortable than the game-day morning.  

It will get warm again tomorrow morning, but not as warm as it has been. By Thursday the temperature will be down to the seasonal norm. I don't know if it's because it's game day or because it finally isn't so hot. But even here  the sense of doom has lightened just a bit. It is finally cooling off.

Updating

 And just like that, the reading lists are back. It's good to have that feature again. Hopefully this will be an end of the Blogger woes for a while. 

I have not done much over the last few days but baby my arm. The clinic told me that it would take 2-6 weeks for the phlebitis to clear, and I heard 2 weeks. By the end of the first week, I was more than ready to have this over with. Now, 2 weeks into it, my arm is much better. The swelling is gone. Mostly the pain is gone, though it is still tender to the touch. The veins are still hard and ropey, and I'm not sure that will ever change. I might just have to live with it. But as long as the pain and swelling, and minor danger is gone, I will call that a win.

Today has been hot, though not as humid as it has been for the past few months. It really does make a difference. It used to annoy me when I lived in Oklahoma and people would point out that the 100+ degree heat was okay because it was a dry heat. I would point out that a blow dryer was a dry heat. Now I'm having to admit that there is a difference. I am being told that we will begin to cool down after tomorrow and that by a week from Sunday the highs will only be in the 70's. There is hope that the heat dome might finally be moving off to sea. That will be so welcome.

I contacted the property managers at the apartments that I hope to live in soon. They are eager to have me tour and apply for it. This is so different that the response that I got last year when I wanted to move in here. I actually rented this place sight unseen, no pictures, not even a floor plan. Tim and I age going to see it on Tuesday. I will make appointments to see a couple of other places too, just to cover my bases. But just for the location alone, this is the one apartment that I hope to get. Keeping my fingers crossed. 

There is a big part of me that wonders why I am wasting the gas to go see the place, especially now that gas is so expensive. I moved in here sight unseen, how bad can it be, right? At least with this place I have a few pictures taken of corners and shower stalls. But a more logical part of me takes over and says that the picture of the kitchen was as unrevealing as it could possibly have been and still been identifiable as the kitchen. And they weren't forthcoming with me when I asked about square footage or the placement of the washer/dryer hook-ups. I do need to make sure my furniture will fit in this space. Not that my furniture is over-large or that I have an over abundance of it. 

Right now, I just kind of feel like the picture at the top, just trying to find a crack in the sidewalk that I can thrive in.

 

Can I Have Some Cheese With This Whine?

It is still hot; not just hot, but that muggy clingy kind of hot. Any relief that we have had from it has been both inadequate and very short lived. The talking head weather prognosticators on YouTube keep swearing that fall is coming. But in the same breath they will point out that it is not coming for the Tennessee Valley and Gulf Coast. The life of the heat dome that has covered us since the early part of June has been extended well beyond the October line in the sand and the limits of my patience. Even I am tired of hearing my whining about it, and the advice that if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all plays in my head as I type these words. But how many cat pictures can I post of this blog?

We were supposed to have a meeting to discuss the developments that have taken place concerning the purchase of the apartments and the upcoming demolition. But the meeting was called off at the last minute. Supposedly it was to allow the speakers more time to prepare. That reason sounds a bit like "my dog ate the speakers homework" to me. With no meeting to attend, I decided it was a good time to get my laundry done. While I was in the laundry room I met a couple of my neighbors that I haven't met before. Adrian is a teacher at the middle school and Bill works on a construction crew. They told me that a lot of my neighbors are not very aware of the plans for our homes, and many of the ones that are aware don't believe that it will happen. Bill and Adrian only knew of the rumors that have been flying around Facebook regarding it. I told them of the postponed meeting and invited them to the new meeting giving them the time and place. Then Bill said maybe we will get those $5000 checks before everyone has to move. Without thinking I said I was expecting mine to show up about the same time the DOGE and tariff checks arrive. The look on Bills face told me how thoughtless my comment was. He really is expecting that check. When you lack what is necessary to deal with the reality of a situation, delusion offers a strange comfort. Am I that bitch who stomps on peoples fingers as they are clinging to the side of a cliff? I fear for my neighbors.

The next day we (the tenants of the apartments) received an email from the property management company reminding us that we were still bound by the lease agreement. If we chose to leave before our leases expire we would still be liable for the rent due and lose our deposits. Damn! They are all in it for themselves. Not only are they willing to make 200 or more people homeless, they don't want those people to leave until it suits their purposes. Their greed exceeds all of the needs of the people who live here.

It isn't good new for me. I have found the apartment that I want. The more I research it, the more convinced that I want to be living in that apartment. I will be royally pissed if I miss out on that apartment due to the greed of the owners of the apartments that I currently live in. I wonder if the new apartment leasing agent will allow me to put a deposit down on it this early. My lease doesn't expire for four months. One to two months are the expected time to hold apartments. I suppose I could ask if they'd be willing to hold an apartment that long. The worst is that they could say no and I am no better or worse off than I am now. 

In other things to whine about, Blogger is still not loading reading lists. It is an annoying bother, but it got me to cull my blogs I follow list. I used the manage feature to look at them all and deleted those who have not posted in more than two years. I deleted a whole lot of blogs and it made me sad. Back in the day we spent a lot of time on each other's blogs. 

If Blogger was the only app or website that was acting up, that would be enough. But I needed to pay my bills and a few of those apps were having problems. I like to have my bills paid by the first of the month. But here it is the middle of the month and I was still having problems getting into the app to pay on. I knew the due date was near so I called the service number to get help. They strongly wanted me to pay the bill online or go into a brick and mortar store to pay it. But after I explained to three different people that the app was down and the nearest store is in another state they finally agreed to allow me to pay it over the phone. I kept thinking, "geez, do you want the money or not?" Paying a bill should not be made that difficult. 

Last whine of the day, I promise. I am at the point of exhaustion with the phlebitis in my arm. Like a cold that lingers, it is better, but the phlebitis is not gone. I am tired of the schedule of medication, of having to elevate my arm, of the warm compresses; but mostly I'm tired of the pain. I just want this to be over. I promise myself every night that it will be better when I wake up, then I am disappointed when it isn't as better as I'd like it to be.

So that's it, all my whines while the reading list is down and not many people are around to be bothered by them. I try to distract myself by binge watching Survivor. But that makes me uneasy. I wonder if it isn't a statement of how low civilization has gone. 

Boring Stuff

Since Blogger isn't updating reading lists, I thought I'd take this opportunity to blog about the boring stuff. Don't you hate it when people start telling you about the dreams they had. I do. I have often wondered how therapists don't loose their minds listening to people drone on and on. 

Well, I had a  dream and it was so unremarkable that I didn't remember it until last night when I decided to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich. I picked up the bread out of my bread bowl and just the slimmest portion of the dream caught my attention. I dreamt that I was going to make my sister a grilled cheese sandwich because she really only eats bread and cheese. But when I opened the bag of bread, it had molded and I didn't have any bread to make her sandwich with. That is all of the dream that I remember. Nothing more. But it had me wondering all day why my brain chose to come up with that. If dreams are supposed to mean something psychologically, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Seriously, if I was a counselor and had to listen to this kind of drip all day...And why the hell did my brain suddenly bring the dream forward today after having buried it. It should have kept it buried. Just a though...or maybe a dream.

If you found this blog without your reading list, my apologies. Maybe I should have posted pictures of kittens.

9/11

It's September 11, one of those days that I can remember exactly what I did all day, even 25 years later. I remember what I read that morning. I remember what I was wearing.  I saw the CEO of a Fortune 50 company cry; we all cried. I remember the two teenaged boys standing on the bridge waving large American flags as I drove home that evening. The anger and despair brought us together.

This morning a different kind of despair has overtaken where I live. People here swing between being dejected and angry. I saw my neighbor sitting on his balcony. His head was bowed low. He's elderly, and not well. But he helps the woman living next door to him get her children down the stairs and into her car every morning. She has infant twins, a toddler and a four year old. His help is vital to her; he is her village.

In Washington, a town would deal with their "homeless problem" by tearing down the tents of the destitute, destroy all their belongings and tell them to move on the next town. Then the next town would do the same and chase them back where they came from. The same thing is being done here, but you don't have to be homeless to be the problem. The town doesn't want all those poor people hanging around. So tear down their homes and make them move on to the next town. What happens when the next town decides that it doesn't like the "eyesore" of poverty?  Do they tear down their homes too?  Washington didn't solve their homeless population by chasing the homeless around the Sound. It just made the homeless more poor, more desperate, less stable. That is what will happen here. 

We swing between despair and anger, but this is making us notice our neighbors. It is bringing us together. 

 

Thursday

Yesterday was productive. I did all the laundry. I deep cleaned my living room. I went through the drawers and closets and got them organized and ready for the move. There wasn't much to get rid of. I have only been here for 10 months. It took me forever to feel at home here. This place has always felt temporary to me, like a dorm room or an extended stay AirB&B one would settle into during a long business trip. I wonder if that wasn't a sense of foreboding. I've done my best to make it comfortable. Now I wonder if that isn't going to work against me when I move. I worry that my furniture won't fit the new space, that I won't be able to organize my things to work as well as they do here. 

I get obsessive when I am in transition. I will look into hotel rooms, plane or train tickets, routes, anything and everything I can control as soon as I know that I am travelling. When I am moving, I look into apartments, neighborhoods, even down to the availability of sidewalks. As if somehow my planning will allow me to control the unknown. 

I have been cyber-stalking the apartment complex that I hope to move into, Yesterday they listed another unit up for rent. That makes three and one has been listed for over a year. Normally that would be a red flag for me, but most of the apartments in that area that are listed have been for a long time. Google and AI say that it's a low crime area. I tell myself that even if it's the hood, the hood has a library, coffee shops, antique shops, grocery stores and churches in walking distance. I can't allow myself to be afraid of people. Most people aren't out to hurt me. Besides, as far as it goes in this town, the apartments that I'm living in are the hood. It's a nice hood, but as hood as it gets here. 

My decision has been made. I will be moving as soon as I can to north Alabama. I guess it's time to start packing.

Heatwave Continues

I am well over the heat. I find myself checking the weather app every morning hoping to see if a break in the heat will come soon. I do it with the same fervency that I search the news to find out if he is dead yet. It is 6:00 pm and it is still over 90 degrees and the humidity! I've been in cooler saunas. 

I talked with the property manager to try to find out some information that might inform my relocating decision. I was told that there isn't an active contract on the property. There was only a possibility for a sale. but the property needed to be rezoned before that could happen. Since the rezoning happened, there hasn't been an offer made on the property. As of now the property owner is requiring that the lease agreements be respected. New leases are being granted and lease extensions will go forward with an addendum saying that the lease will be void in the event of a sell with 60 days written notice. But since that conversation surveyors have been on the property. In the mean time several of my neighbors have found apartments elsewhere only to find out that they are being held to the terms of their existing leases. If they choose to leave early, they are still responsible for the rent that is due. I have found a few acceptable apartments in the area that I would like to live in. The one that I really would like has been listed for a year, and the others have been uninhabited for quite a while. I feel I can safely wait to make any decisions. I have started to look into moving companies and I am disgusted. They are all such scams and no matter which one I use it's going to be a whole lot of money I shouldn't have to spend. Frustrating. 

And to add to my growing lack of well-being and speaking of money that I shouldn't have to spend, I have developed phlebitis in my right arm. It is in a surface vein, as opposed to a deep one, which would be worse. But I've just blown through my savings and have been sent home with a lot of blood thinners which increases my fatigue factor by many times. So I'm sitting here with a bowl full of rainbow sherbet while I'm waiting for my dinner to cook. Nothing like having desert before dinner. 

Visitors

My son and his family came to visit me on Saturday to celebrate my birthday a week late. They brought presents and cake and took me to lunch. It was great getting time to visit with them all, especially my grandson. 

Jack seems as if he's come into his own now and seems to have found himself again. He is studying to become a paramedic. He says that it isn't what he wants to do as a lifelong career, it is just something that he is doing to make himself employable. But he talks about his classes and clinicals enthusiastically. and there is a lightness to him that has been missing for a long time. Likewise, Tim seems to be doing well. Married life becomes him. He is healthier than I have seen him in many years. He appears to be younger and less burdened than he has been. His laughter was genuine and not cut with the same cynicism that used to be there. It was good to seen them both thriving. Sadly, I do not know Emily and Nathan well enough to observe any differences, but I hope that Emily's mother is seeing the same difference in them. 

 We ended up eating at IHOP because there was something going on at the university and all the restaurants downtown were very crowded. Actually, IHOP was crowded in it's own right. But we were able to get a table without a wait and the food was very good. I decided to get chicken and waffles. When I remarked that the waffles were so much better than the ones I make, Jack told me that he thought my waffles were very good, He has just earned himself waffles on request. Still, the waffles at IHOP are very good. 

After lunch we came back to my apartment for gifts and cake. They bought me two really nice books full of knitting patterns that are well beyond my ability level. I am going to attempt a few of the simpler  patterns anyway. I am fairly sure that even the most basic ones from either book will be a challenge. I am flattered that they thought that my work is on an equal level to the patterns in the books. 

We had two small cakes; a carrot cake and a red velvet cake. Both were Emily's family's recipes. They are a family of bakers and carrot cake is their go to cake for every occasion. I was glad that they left the remainders with me. I finished them off for lunch today. I do love cake. 

I did not take any pictures of the celebration. Emily's family spend every occasion snapping pictures and it annoys Emily. She says that nobody sits in the moment and just enjoys it. So I feel constrained not to pull out my phone and snap away while we are together. But she is right. It is better to live the moment than to try to create a photo essay of what it should have been. I might snap a photo or two on holidays though, just to have a few for memories sake.

We discussed my upcoming move and I think I have convinced them that it might be worth it to make the trip up to see me every once in a while. I have decided to move to the small north Alabama town I had planned to move to before I came here. I have found an apartment there I think I can be happy with. It is in the historic district of the town and close to everything. The library is across the street. There are shops and restaurants and churches within a few blocks. The town square and the park where festivals are held is around the block. And I have family in the area. Tomorrow I will call my current leasing company to find out if they are open to me terminating my lease now, or if I will have to wait until February to move. I'll see how it goes.