Must I begin each blog with a reference to how long it's been since I last wrote? On the one hand, I feel compelled to 'fess up, in the interests of I'm-not-sure. On the other ... who cares besides me? I have not managed to blog every week, but I've made bread almost every week since starting this blog (getting on for six months now.)
It struck me, anyway, that perhaps the idea of writing a long essay-in-blog each week, somehow tied to the theme of making bread, was a bit ambitious. Or boring, take your pick. (I know which I'd choose.) The hard part about blogging is separating the mundane from the mundane-but-interesting.
Last week's bread sort of doesn't count since I made bread but not really: I was out at my parents' house to clean the basement, but ... somehow ... I ended up using Mom's KitchenAid to make bread while Mom and Dave did the hard work of cleaning out the basement. (Drat, and my allergies and I were so looking forward to getting all dirty and cobwebby in the basement.) The bread got done, though; an oatmeal dough, which was a pig of a job, even with mechanical aid, but which creates huge, delicious loaves. Speaking of the KitchenAid ... I was curious to see how much I'd like it, especially with a very stiff dough like the oatmeal one. It did take a lot of the sheer physical grunt-work out of the bread-making, but it was so damned fiddly to add eight cups of flour that it ended up not saving any time at all. I'd rather wrestle with dough and try to develop my puny biceps than pick dough off the Kitchen Aid every time I add a half-cup of flour.
In fact, I finished the dough off by hand (thank you, Mom and Dad's granite counters - a joy to knead on) and resorted to jumping up and down each time I folded and turned the dough. After about three jumps (accompanied by female-tennis-player style grunts - you know what I'm talking about) the corgis decided to get in on the act, and celebrated each leap with a volley of barking. It must sounded like judgement day had arrived:
Me: Eeeeennnnggggghhhh!
(THUMP)
Corgies: Arp! Arp! Arp! ARP! ARP! ARP! ARP!ARP!ARP!ARP!
(THUMP)
Corgies: Arp! Arp! Arp! ARP! ARP! ARP! ARP!ARP!ARP!ARP!
Me: Nnnnnneeeeeeee!
(THUMP)
Corgies: Arp! Arp! Arp! ARP! ARP! ARP! ARP!ARP!ARP!ARP!
(THUMP)
Me: Rrrrrrrrrrraaahhhhhh!
(THUMP)
Corgies: Arp! Arp! Arp! ARP! ARP! ARP! ARP!ARP!ARP!ARP!
Repeat ad nauseum, or until Mom comes up from the basement to ask what the hell is going on. The visuals were probably pretty good - almost as good as the time I broke a socket wrench by hopping up and down on it while rotating my car tires myself.
With the excitement of the weekend behind me, then, I am in my office watching the sun set (almost) across some mountains. (It feels a little strange not to have a thousand deadlines to make for tomorrow morning, but I could get used to it.) It's fall in New England, so the trees are extremely beautiful, especially in Central Mass where my office park is. The trees in Somerville are a little more muted; maybe it's the concrete or the bus smoot or the hot steam from laundromats, or just the lack of a whole damn bunch of trees all massed together and shedding their leaves with scarlet abandon.
I just wish fall didn't precede eight months of cold. Never mind; I chose to move back here from more temperate zones. And since it is fall and getting dark, I should go home to the leftover jambalaya and boyfriend who await me.
