Month: February 2020

Bread etc.

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So many things flit about in my flea brain; few, if any, worthy of discussion. I get busying around, more like nit picking to the casual observer and next thing you know another day shot to hell lol well, not totally. The place sure is clean. I’m enjoying my recent foray into bread making; I apparently have a viable sourdough starter but being me, can’t bear to throw away the discard so many wonderful carby fermented products are being created, along with the size of my waist.

Fabulous sourdough cornbread, focaccia, artisan no-knead loaves and herby samich breads. So many recipes and opinions on the interweb. I do rely heavily on King Arthur Flour and the folks that have kindly shared Tartine recipes. I downloaded a lovely e-book , Artisan Sourdough Made Simple by Emilie Raffa. Every recipe seems like a new craft project.

Mr. Einstein stated “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” so that suggests that I’m not insane as I want the same results when I perform my little rituals over and over (when I think no-one’s looking); they calm me and allow me to go forth and do well.

Conversely, the bigger more productive part of my life can’t abide repetition. I used to do a lot of craft work; people would tell me I should sell some of my wares but the thought of reproducing them was awful. The last assembly-line project I completed was creating 25 centerpieces for my son’s wedding reception – a labor of love that won’t be repeated. Almost killed me. Luckily my later-in-life career change to the health care industry found me in a place where I could experience something new every hour.

As long as I don’t tire of the recipe acquisition from print or online to my personal digital file I’ll continue to enjoy cooking but for now, I’m lovin’ the breads!

I ordered some bags of flour from Target this week so I could get my order up to the minimum amount for free delivery (not everything ships free with the RedCard); when my husband brought the large, heavy box in I noticed a trail of white following him – one of the bags of flour had burst, covering the whole order and a fair amount of my dining room floor in flour. What an effing mess.

    hosting – the blog

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    very boring subject but since I’ve just wasted 4 hours of my life trying to understand the nuances, i’ll just take a minute to whine.  back in the day i started this blog with a free WP site; i stopped posting due to lack of mental content, time whatever.  in the ensuing years i’ve had a jillion more experiences, physically and mentally and realized that writing was a therapeutic tool i had used many times in the past. give me a yellow legal pad, a beer(s) and a bad day and off i go.  sometimes i could crank out page after page but the end game was a bunch of vitriol and other scrawled gibberish that i would ball up and toss.  this process did, however, sometimes give the issue perspective and me the ability to move forward, if only for a baby step.

    these rants were directed at my father (i left out the nasty adjectives), bad bosses, situations with life and kids and husbands that sometimes almost paralyzed me.

    these days i have become very relative (having seen quite a bit of the shit storm of life but also so much of the goodness) so i tend to see the different sides (except for the trump supporters because i know what they’re about).  i was blessed with the gift or curse of keen observation.  on one hand i do have mom eyes in the back of my head but on the flip side i see things that really gross me out.

    nobody’s going to read this anyway but i still make sure there are no typos in my text.  hence, the decision to stay put with wordpress.com..  earlier i discontinued the relationship and requested a refund as i thought i was going to switch to wordpress.org.  the .com site offers free hosting, i like my simple design and interface and if somebody contacts me and says they want to pay me a bunch of money to land their ad on my page i might consider a switch.  but, as i’ve stated in previous posts, i personally hate all the crap bouncing around the page and how it loses my place as it shifts as videos of people stirring stuff in bowls try to load.  i hooked up for a little minute with Bluehost but it got so screwy trying to transfer my trivial stuff that i cancelled that as well.  thank goodness for live chat, i’ll never see these poor people.  i would hate that job (help desk) although, in reality, i probably lived it between my career in healthcare and my private life lol.

    I’d love to share some lifestyle tips – shortcuts, diy stuff (we’re a family of makers) and my massive recipe file but since i don’t want to pay separately for hosting, you’ll just have to ask me a question.

    ta

    a good day(s)

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    wonderful, supportive club in Louisville

    this good day began with Gilda’s yoga; wonderful, skilled instructors, many new peeps in today’s class ( thanks, cancer) and a strenuous chair or floor workout.

    picked up the husband, he’s always excited to join me on my field trips because they might include a meal out. Haircut first at his salon; the gals were talking about their beginnings – doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you end up reminiscing about the great or shitty managers, characters you worked with and situations that made or broke you and maybe caused you to chart a different course. I rarely go to the salon, get my trims in the backyard but it’s a cold, dreary January day and I was looking pretty shaggy. I see why folks faithfully return to their stylists – it’s not just the do, it’s the atmosphere of care and camaraderie that’s comforting. Off to the Spectrum store to dump our remaining components and finally cancel the service. We now are amongst the somewhat limited income group and cable tv is another thing that gets the ax to help balance the budget. Long line there but a helpful perky rep greeted us and sent us to the UPS store where we dumped the stuff and went on our way to Trader Joe’s for kale gnocchi, cruciferous crunch, a lovely sweet potato and my favorite crackers. A short stop at Kroger for a lemon and a bag of pintos for Super Bowl chile which I just realized I left in the car. Hope the lemon isn’t frozen. Onward to Whole Foods for bulk dark rye, good flour (all for my breads) and brown rice krispy cereal for Tahini Brown Rice Treats. And lunch.

    we like small bites of different things. the best for me was the lentil balls, I got a pic of the ingredients to try to copy. i did, however, really like the cranberry chicken breast and man’s mac n’ cheese. Dangerous crappy wonderful noodly cheesy stuff.

    the good day proceeded to go a bit south, we’ve switched to ROKU + Philo streaming. 3 units already working great but man’s system downstairs is McGuyver’d with shit tons of wires and speakers and remotes. new unit didn’t allow the booming sound he so loves.

    i set up the web pages for him to research and, bless his heart, he found a solution (i hope!!!) a specific unit that allows one to pair it with their sound crap. yay. ebay came through with a viable option but the remote won’t pair so waiting to hear from the seller. A moment of panic, rumors that ROKU was dropping FOX Sports or vice versa – tomorrow is the Super Bowl. at this writing, it’s still available; wouldn’t want to deal with having to set up streaming on all the various devices so we could see the commercials. actually, we’re all rooting for the Chiefs. actually we’re just in it for the food. i’m still using up parts of my hoard, promised myself i’d try to use what i have for the menu. so far so good, only had to buy fresh veggies. menu will be veggie pizza and carrot-in-a-blanket sounds gross but yummy marinade and sauce(using up refrigerated crescent rolls why did i buy these?), the obligatory black eye pea dip nothing but butter, cheese, green chiles, onion and a few peas, harissa wings, fresh veggies + hummus, spicy veg chile, cornbread and tiramisu brownie trifle (how could I have leftover brownies in the freezer?). beer.

    Ta

    pop-ups

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    dang

    Don’t you just hate these? Especially the entry type that appear a second or two after you’ve entered a site. Even if I wanted what they were offering, I’d never click anything besides the x as a matter of principal. So intrusive; when I go to a site I immediately (and apparently stupidly) begin typing my search, which is interrupted when the pop-up appears. I lose my place, and occasionally my train of thought. Why would you think I would want to subscribe to whatever it is you’re promoting if I haven’t even seen it yet?

    To happily digress, today’s email cluster brought Smitten Kitchen’s weekly newsletter – I’ve followed Deb Perelman for such a long time; she’s a wonderful writer and photographer, notwithstanding an amazing curator and creator of recipes. I can’t bitch about the size of my 9 x 11 kitchen when she manages in hers; I’ve never had counter space no matter the size of the room. My issue these days is the lack of storage for my absurdly massive collection of cooking vessels and tools. we were able to retrofit roll out shelves in the main area but the coat closet in the den, the basement and attic are homes for the bulk of the inventory including my hoard of food products.

    Although my aged bod has failings and limitations, I’m blessed with good hips, knees and the balance to be able to haul my cast iron down the treacherous stairs lined with my ferments and bread making supplies.

    I’d better stop getting annoyed about the pop-ups, the blood pressure is volatile in spite of diet, exercise and meds.

    Ta