I have now been home for 80 days. A few trips to the grocery store, and just recently Gerry and I took a mini vacation, although a very edited version of a normal vacation for us. I have been to no coffee shops, no restaurants, no retail stores, no visits with friends. Just groceries. We did go quickly into a coffee shop in Boone last week and we had our first take out meal. Its been a baffling, confusing, scary, angry, emotional time. But it has also been a time to slow down, reflect, eat good food together, read, exercise, and learn some new things.
Wesley gave me the gift of bookmaking for Mother's Day and we have been making books. She has made books to draw in, I have made books for things I collect. Leaves, feathers, ticket stubs, pieces of paper, poems, cards..... it has been fun to sit together and glue and cut paper and paint and talk.
Recently, blogger Michele Hastings posted a video on her FB of Paulus Berenshon
I forgot how much I used to love reading about him as a potter. He talked about making paste paper, so Wes and I explored that, so much fun! and we used these papers for our books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vry9_AycQPM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1f-E0ud3RWE_M-ZUJh0hVcwo5W6fjvvuYu3L8-rVdsjvrblZXYlPrhV4s
I also got a bread making book for Mother's Day: Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. I have been reading this book since I got it, trying to understand the process of bread making clearly enough to attempt a good loaf. Finally after a week of feeding my levain, it was ready and I mixed up a recipe from the book.
The oven was preheated to 475 degrees, I did not know it even went that high! I preheated my Lodge cast iron dutch oven, tucked the dough in and closed the lid. The heat, the learning process, the waiting..... all reminded me of pottery, especially my gas kiln, turning up the burners, waiting for it to cool before I could open it. The butterflies, not knowing what I would find when the lid opened.... and then the elation when the bread was perfectly baked, it had that desired hollow thump, crisp crust and spongy interior. I did it!
It tasted amazing! I have baked bread for years, always disappointed in the results. Often under baked with a slightly soggy middle, or over baked and tough, or just a blah tasting bread. I knew there had to be a way to get a good loaf. Of course there is, you put in the time, like most everything that is made well.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been putting a little food aside here and there, not hoarding exactly, but preparing for a "just in case". We are growing a LOT of vegetables this year, more than we ever have, I bought a freezer, though now I think I should have gotten a bigger one. And I bought a pressure canner this week. Like many people my age, I bet, my mom put the fear of God in me about pressure cooking. When I was a kid, she tried once to can tomatoes with a primitive pressure cooker pot. She didn't do something properly, something blew up, tomatoes shot all over the kitchen. My dad had to repaint the kitchen ceiling, and she never canned again. Nor did I try.
I have canned tomatoes in the summer in a water bath, but that's about it, except for last year's crop of muscadine grapes (we still have jars of jelly from that). I wanted to get serious this year, bean soup, vegetable soup, tomato sauce, salsa..... and so today began many days to come of canning for the fall/winter. I can't wait to open the first jar of vegetable soup on a cold winter night!!
I have been cooking so much. Gerry gave me a master class with Alice Waters that I absolutely loved and we have had meals from her menus. I have picked challenging recipes in many of my cookbooks, sometimes a great success, sometimes a not so good result. Today, I mixed up a rye/wheat bread and will bake that in the morning. Wesley has learned the coptic stitch for bookmaking and I have a book that needs binding, so another thing to learn. The dishwasher is full of quart size ball jars waiting for soups to can. The squash are coming in like there won't be a tomorrow. We counted TWENTY tomatoes on one of our plants. There is a 100 ft row of those plants! We are looking at a very busy summer ahead!
The virus lingers in the background. Al Sharpton's voice still lingers in my mind (did you see his eulogy for George Floyd? It blew me away!) the images of the cities on fire with anger and grief and all the people just plain fed up are in my dreams at night. There is the constant frustration every.single.day. of that stupid president in the white house and the incomprehensible behavior he and the rest of his supporters continue to bring to our lives. It just makes me burrow in to my house, cook, grow food, and keep my hands busy.
Always busy hands, that is what has alway soothed me, even as a child in a very dysfunctional family. Just the making, it is necessary.
What are you making?
3 comments:
It's heartening to see all the people who are starting or expanding gardens this year. How awesome you are also learning to pressure can, make books, and awesome bread. I've been doing plenty of cooking, and canned my first ever cabbage yesterday, as we had more than I knew to do with. I'm hoping it will be something we want to eat. I've not seen the eulogy, and will check that out. Thanks.
Hey Laurie, we have always had some sort of garden but we went big this year, did things right and it is paying off. So happy to finally have the space to do things right and do things I have always wanted to try!
I am so glad you made paste paper! It's still on my to do list. Right now I am making paper for books with gel printing. Art supplies and work in progress has taken over the island seating that separates my kitchen and den. I don't care because we aren't having company any time soon.
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