Baby's first Challah.

As congress killed the economic package, and then dismissed for Rosh Hashana, it seemed only appropriate to make my first attempt at Challah Bread... bread baking being a good skill to have when the American economy collapses and we all return to a primitive bartering system as the Dollar becomes more useful as kindle than currancy.


I took the bread making class at the Yuppy Food Store last week. Primarily because of the four breads being discussed, two were Challah and Cinnamon Rolls... and yeah... can't pass that up.

However - the recipe we did for Challah doesn't make it the way I like it best... so I'll need to play with the recipe as I make more. Tonight however, was just to prove to myself that I could, in fact, make Challah bread in our house.

Adding all the liquids to the starter, with the flour on the left...

I intended to essentially* double the recipe, except then I accidently added to much water - so then, I quadruppled the recipe... four loaves. Lots of flour.

*I say essentially, because you don't just double everything and go to town, not everything gets doubled... when you're baking.


Time for the big bowl...


D took some action shots of me kneeding the dough, prior to it's first Rise.


Oh my gosh - so much dough - so much stiff dough that is hard to kneed.



After the first Rising. Which took longer than it should have, due to a less than ideal temperature in the kitchen. It was find after I put it in a puddle of sunlight by the door for an extra hour.


Time to shape.


Cut and rolled into equal lengths.

Got to squash the top ends together to get started.

Braiding.

And you finish off by pushing the three ends together, then tucking the top and bottom underneath the braid.

Three good lookin' loaves - starting their 2nd Rise.


4th Loaf in a pie plate.


2 hours later.

Having risen again, the third loaf had to be moved to it's own pan. And so it was the first to go into the over.

Above it goes in, below it comes out!

Within not even two minutes, D had already stolen a chunk.



D trying to catch the Steam coming off the chunks... not sure how he thought he'd do that.


The Pie One - alright, but not perfection.

Last two. Perfectly golden - not too dark.
All done.
The prettiest two.

Pretty.

More of the flowers from the Farmer's Market a couple weeks ago. They're all dead now.

Next to the door.

I pulled some seeds from a butternut squash I bought from the store and turned into soup. The seeds grew well, starting in Arizona during the monsoon rains. They really like high temps and TONS of water. Which is a challenge here... they've been flowering though.

Another flower - the squash are next to a street-side window - so you see the potted plants, plus the walkway outside, one story before...

Yay - flowers.

Quote of the Day.

Me to D - "You'd just have to supervise the goats so you could make cheese from their milk."


(after a month of thinking about working in restaurants, my age, farms, why I'm learning to bake bread, and super-gluing back together a one inch long rubber bison we got at a children's toy store for 50 cents, several weeks ago, that D had zip-tied to his handle bars as a talisman).

It's in there somewhere.

Where I put together my townie...

Outside.

Inside.

The bunker (handle bars and brakes, primarily, inside)

The work space -


Waiting to be cabled...


She's a Schwinn Mesa Runner (with a little beige coyote emblem next to the name on the top tube). And was originally purchased from Mill Valley Cyclery in California (according to a little sticker near the bottom bracket :). Maybe I'll have a photo of her all finished up, later.


D had to "adjust" the dropout spacing to fit the wheels we managed to find.

The Frame, fork, bottom bracket, crank and arms were all together, the rest we found, assembled and adjusted. Wait till you see the fenders I jury-rigged... it involved a hack saw and some very irritating noises...

Codes.

[Edit: so what I'm trying to say here, is that there are a lot of different ways to identify a place, geographically, climatically, politically, historically, currently, bureaucratically, and numerically, besides others. Thinking about the places I've lived numerically is interesting. And just one of the many levels on which I can define my place in the world. It's odd to me.]

It just occurred to me that I'd never lived somewhere with a zip code with a 7 in it.

But actually that was wrong - I just hadn't really internalized our zip from Ivins Utah, as we only lived there two months, and knowing we wouldn't be there long term we never had anything mailed there, so I never wrote down the address...

Missoula is the first time we've had a 9 though. All others are accounted for (in order of their use)-

50265

84532

50112

84738

45013

86314

59802

Ya know when you go to check your credit score each year and they ask you funny questions from your credit history to ensure you are who you say you are - but they're questions like

"Which of the following counties have you lived in, in the past five years?"

And there's always a "None of the above" option??? Yeah - I always find those questions take longer to figure out than they probably should... I should start a file of old addresses or something, cause I'm starting to forget them...

Life.

^ The yuppy food store (where I'll be taking a class in two weeks which will teach me all about yeast and how to make both Challah bread AND cinnamon rolls!!!) has the only jam I've ever liked - Roasted Garlic Onlion Jam from Stonewall Kitchen.

^ I used part of a Birthday gift card to REI to get some clipless pedals for PomPom (I'd been using some old ones of D's)... just in time to get excited about Guitar Ted's TI v 5 chit chat, and to read about Matt having broken his second set of pedals that are the same style (though I believe his might be Ti and mine aren't that schmancy and therefore, hopefully, stronger, sorry Matt :)

^ I almost didn't get them, cause they're blue, and PomPom is Purple with Red and blue just doesn't go, but I guess she could use a little Obama love, so yay for blue!!! Also - it came with a sticker that totally works with my water bottle's color theme...

...come on now - do you all really think I'm that vapid???

The following is a child's drawing of a person on a unicycle being chased by a squirrel on a bicycle, while a rocket launches in the background. I predict therapy in the child's future.

Palin interviewed by Sean Hannity.

My favorite question from the first night - for all those who thought he showed her too much "deference" -

Sean - "For those who maybe... think, why shouldn't the rich pay more. My question to you is the converse, why does everyone benefit if the rich pay less... in taxes, why is that good for the economy?"

Sarah - "That's, that's a great question! And everybody does benefit... that's how jobs are created and that's how we're going to grow our economy."


Yay!!! Way to ask the tough ones Sean!!! I feel all better about a Palin administration now!!!

The first???

I've been making comments to D along these lines for quite a while now, but haven't yet seen it in print till Today -

is the BBC really the first one to realize the commonalities??? Or just the first I've seen to comment on them???

Either way - I heart the BBC. And Aaron Sorkin.

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

I have always loved Tina Faye...

Plant Life. Market Day.

^ A little something D brought home for me from his recent travels. They sell for $7-8/pound at the farmer's market, but who wants to pay for them when they grow wild??? There are no commercial cultivations of them, in the world. Because of their root structure they are incredibly difficult to transplant successfully. I've been dying to have some, to plant, so if any of mine are 1 in 1,000 they'll produce nice, tasty reproductions of themselves in 3 or so years.

Huckleberries!!!

^ Farmer's Market apples from last week, going into Apple Crisp!

^ My Farmer's Market indulgence! They were the prettiest flowers in the whole market, D even agreed.

^ The complete Farmer's Market Bounty. (Leeks and Potatoes for soup. Pears. Cantelope and "Damn Hot" peppers for D, pretty flowers for me. Relatively light load.)

Statues in the Park

D swims up river.

Indifferent fins.

Happy faces.

In context and almost to the river.