Adventures in... Breadmaking, Part II

A while back I posted on the Infamous No-Knead Bread recipe developed by Jim Lahey of State Street Bakery. I promised an update on how my little adventure went, and it's taken me a while to make good on that promise, but here goes.

Pursuant to the recipes's directions you need a heavy oven-safe lidded pot. As I didn't happen to have one, I made a trip down to the Williams Sonoma outlet in Wrentham, where I found the perfect ceramic pot for this recipe at a fairly reasonable price. Cast iron is the more obvious choice, but I thought my pot was cute, so I went with it. Plus the ceramic is good to go- no seasoning required. In retrospect, maybe go for the cast-iron afterall.

The recipe's directions are somewhat overly simplified. I mixed the dough together to find a soupy, sloppy mess, h0wever the recipe assured me that this was correct. What you quickly realize with the recipe is that the instructions are basically non-existent. It's about guesswork. It may have started off correct (although I still have some reservations that the proportions of liquid to solid are appropriate), but the dough quickly over-proofed. This was prone to happening as it was a fairly humid day, the dough may have been too sticky to begin with, and the temperature in my kitchen was probably higher than recommended. Lesson learned: be more careful.

I'm not giving up on this recipe. Especially with bread, practice makes perfect. A few at bats with the recipe should help me get into the swing of things. Next time I try it, and I will be trying it again soon, I'm going to be more prepared. First: I'll probably mix in some wheat flour. Second: I'm using the sage advice of others who have worked their way through this recipe. Chocolate & Zucchini has expanded upon and clarified the No-Knead bread recipe in a way that takes away much of the guesswork. Here's the link to this one: http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2006/11/le_pain_quon_ne_petrit_pas.php

Happy Baking!

Five, no TEN Epiphanies

1. Myspace can provide seemingly endless hours of good, clean fun.

2. Invest wisely and it'll pay off, but at the end of the day you can only expect to get out what you put in. Seems simple, but easy to forget. I've been pleasantly re-learning this lesson as it applies to friendship, relationships, business ventures, and finance.

3. Sometimes inspiration can be hard to find.

4. Everybody hopes to get in shape for spring.

5. Organic raisins are worth the extra expense. They are much tastier and fresher than their conventional counterpart, which means I'll actually eat and enjoy them rather than just buy them in the hopes of eating or enjoying them.

6. Champagne hangovers are the worst kind of hangovers.

7. Sometimes you just have to be serious.

8. A kiss can turn around a cranky morning.

9. Packing and moving is exhausting- not just physically, but also emotionally.

10. Driving with open windows while listening to loud, underplayed music can even make waking up early to go to work fun.

Quote of the Day

Chris Rock on whether he thinks the U.S. is ready for a black president:

It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African-American president?

Incoming: Spring

Today's high is supposed to be in the range of 55-60, which is really a thing of beauty. This weather is inspiring and fills me with optimism. This morning chirping birds gently woke me before my alarm clock(s) even had the chance to start buzzing. I hit the ground running and got to work earlier than usual. But now it is 11:00 am and I've run out of enthusiasm for the melange of emails and motions I have waiting to be drafted. As I longingly look out my window at the balmy day outside, my head is wandering into the realm of what I'd rather be doing than sitting here at the computer. Here's my list of the Top 5 Things I'd Rather Be Spending My Day Doing Today Rather Than Being Stuck in My Office:

1) Hiking. Spring means it's warm enough to hit the trails. It would be lovely to get out there and enjoy hours of fresh air. Seeing as how this really just ins't going to happen, I'll also take comfort in the idea that the trails are probably full of mud anyway.

2) Outlet shopping: Could definitely go for some retail therapy today. I don't really need anything, so that is the perfect set-up for a fruitful shopping trip.

3) Yoga: Haven't been in a while, so it would be nice to get back in the wing of things. I never feel quite as healthy as I do right after a challenging yoga class. I feel like a million bucks and like I don't want to do anything to pollute my health. This feeling usually lasts until I eat anything other than a fruit or vegetable.

4) A late lunch at Stephanie's on Newbury with my friends, also stuck at work. A perfect afternoon for a long, leisurely lunch featuring a goat cheese salad and a few glasses of wine. Maybe even followed by some window shopping at the high end shops that we would never actually be able to buy anything at.

5) Spend the afternoon alone at a coffeehouse. Tuesday can be the new Sunday. I'm about 100 pages away from finishing the new Salman Rushdie novel Shalimar the Clown. It is so engrossing I really have been having a hard time tearing myself away from it. It would be perfect to spend the afternoon sipping on an iced coffee, curled up at a coffeehouse, and just plow through the rest of the book.

Adventures In... Car Shopping

Is there anything as frustrating to shop for as a car? Maybe a bathing suit, but that's another story entirely; one that doesn't involve setting yourself up for incurring many thousands of dollars of debt, years of payments, and diminishing returns on your investment. I can't really say when I started prepping myself for this new car adventure, but it's recently been kicked into high gear due the ever-growing queue of necesssary repair work to be done on my current car.

At this point I've test driven cars to the extent I can't even count them anymore. I've been to Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, VW, and circled through the list again with different dealers across MA as well as CT. I've learned about the benefits of vertical pistons verses horizontal pistons and the overwhelming importance of having the motor directly over the center of gravity. All I know is that frankly, the more I learn about why this car is better than that one, the less I care. "Piston" might as well be chinese, because I see the salesmen's mouths moving, but the words aren't registering anymore.

When I commenced this adventure, I was not emotionally attached to my current car. I like my car, but I'm pragmatic: with 106,000 miles on my 7-year old car, it is time to move on. Every few months the check engine light comes on and I continue to personally fund the college educations of the repair guy's kids. However, each time I get behind the wheel of another potential new car, I compare it to my current car, and the results seem to favor me sticking with what I've got. In my price range I'm not going to be getting a v-6 engine, so every other car feels sluggish and non-responsive. Furthermore, none of the cars have as smooth of a ride as I have now, and they may have some of the bells and whistles that make driving fun, but they certainly don't have all the ones I'm used to. So the more car shopping I do, the less I want to actually buy a car. Car shopping has made me sentimental about my good old S80. Funny how this works.

The Secret

A few months ago my boss and I went to go see a screening of this movie recommended to us by a hypnotist she knows (a story for another day), The Secret. Since that time The Secret, and the corresponding book of the same name have gotten a lot of press. The author has been featured on Oprah and quite a few celebs have been coming out in support of the message behind The Secret.

The Secret is premised on the law of attraction, and the long of the short of it is that like attracts like. Basic homeopathic, karmic principles that you can apply to your everyday in order to realize your dreams. It may seem fruity and requires a slight suspension of disbelief, but at the same time it is well intentioned and what's the harm in trying if all it requires is positive thinking.

At any rate, since I saw this movie I can't really get it out of my head. I am somewhat prone to idealistic flights of fancy, but I can't ignore the fact that I can't ignore this movie. So I'm giving it a go. I'm trying to focus on and visualize what I want.

This is all easier said than done. It is easy for me to think about the things that I don't want, but not as easy to think about the things that I actually do want. This requires a paradigm shift. Instead of going out in the cold night and thinking "For the love of Christ I'm freezing!", this concept requires me to think "Well, it's warmer than yesterday". It's especially hard to reconcile with my slightly snarky tendencies.

The Secret recommends putting together something called a "wish board". It is basically a collage in which you put your dreams and goals. The essential thing is that you place it in a location that you will see frequently; the idea being that by keeping your goals in your face you are letting them come to you. Or something like that, I'm not all that clear on how it works. The problem is that I don't really know what I want to put on my board. Isn't that ridiculous?! I've been thinking about it for the past few days, and all I have to put on this hypothetical wish board is an open heart necklace. Where I run into trouble is that I have the things that I want now (like a necklace), and the things that I want later (like children), but I don't want them now, and it's important to be careful what you wish for... So I don't know, maybe this is a good thing, maybe this means that I'm content with what I am and what I have, or maybe it just means that I don't wish big enough. I'm still mulling it over.

Here's more information on The Secret.

RIP

Today is Anna's funeral.