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.

Victory reprised -

From an interview the BBC did with General Patreaus -

"He said he did not know that he would ever use the word "victory": "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan."

Avo.

At the begining of August, right after we got our Montana apartment.

Transplanting it from the long, shallow pot, to a nice big round one.

A few days after the transplant, looking like there were no detrimental effects.

A few days ago - she's quite the happy thing, she is. Plus, a second one that's still in the first pot, is almost at the stage of this one in the first photo of this post - so probably a bit over a month behind this guy... so from the 11 avocado pits I orginially put into water, I believe I'll have two very successful plants!

From a little while ago.

We got ice cream at Big Dipper and then went down to the river to sit and eat it.

Till this little guy came over. D who had his feet in the water, jumped up and practically fell over to get away from it.

It startled when he jumped and went and settled on a rock near by.

Later, he swam away.

The end.

D thinks -

she doesn't have the ego for the job...

McCain's Speech...

did anyone else feel like he didn't have a very strong command over the audience???

Seemed like he got somewhat annoyed with them a couple times when they couldn't quiet down when he was trying to get into a flow in his speech, and then there were other times when he wanted a reaction and it took like half a second for the audience to catch up, and then there was an almost unnatural burst of cheers or boos once they realized he was pausing for them (as if a staff member grabbed a cattle prod and poked half the delegated all at once...).

Also - there was an echo in the hall that emphasized the smaller size of the audience and lent a slight amateurish sound to the speech which Obama definitely didn't have in his outdoor venue

(although, I will add, I found Obama's columns backdrop pretty stupid, I mean seriously... really... nobody could do better than replicating the feel of the portico that goes from the White House to the West Wing??? Nobody realized that was a bit too forced???).

Quick Commentary.

If words aren't important... if they're just a blanket Obama uses to cover up his lack of experience and substance and Action... then why does it matter so much, as Ms Palin pointed out last night, that Barak Obama can make an entire speech about our current military involvement without using the word "Victory" once, unless in reference to his own campaign??? As they themselves contend, just because you use a word, doesn't mean you can make it happen (((cough - abstinence only - cough))).


And - having just read (from the library) the collected speeches of Woodrow Wilson to congress and the American people directly leading up to our involvement in WWI, I'd like to point out that even back then, he was emphasizing the need to not create a Winner and a Loser - that to create a lasting peace and not just an end to the conflict at hand, we had to have, not a victory where one side felt beat up and abused, but a cessation of violence where all parties could then immediately gather at a table as equals to continue a dialogue that would prevent a future outburst of violence (when that didn't happen after WWI we got WWII - you think today's terrorism is bad, think of it as WWI and ponder what a Terrorist WWII would look like).

People are throwing around the term Victory a lot - but nobody wants to define what that means... is it Victory to squash Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Taliban??? Or is it Victory to create a world where nations peacefully coexist, despite obvious differences, for generations???

Because trying to squash the extremists groups that are in existence right now, without validating the underlying feelings of the communities that support such organizations, are just going to breed new ones - it doesn't solve anything and it doesn't stop terrorism or violence against innocents around the world...

so - what is Victory, because depending on how you define it, I might not want your Victory.


P.S. While undoubtably Ms Palin can Deliver a speech well, I found her speech last night to be a bit puerile and heavy on thin terns of phrase... also - you can tell when she's trying too hard and putting on the polish a little thick... it was funny because I kept hearing how "authentic" she was, etc, while I found her to be quite the opposite. In subtle ways you could tell where she really meant what she said and when she was focusing more on the showmanship than the meaning.

I think its telling that they keep comparing Ms Palin to Barak Obama, and not to her counterpart, Mr Biden. First, because she'd lose in the comparison, and second, because they're trying to say, without saying it, that while she pales in comparison to Mr McCain as a presidential candidate, she's at least as good as Mr Obama and therefore she really is presidential material (if something were to happen, ya know).

I think the Obama campaign needs to put her back in her place on the bottom of the ticket and make her go up against Mr Biden. I think that's an important step in showing the Obama ticket is stronger as a unit that McCain/Palin.

My main issue - at this point, with Palin.

Yeah - so her 17 year old daughter is having a baby, probably because Ms Palin taught her daughter abstinence only, which is the educational model Ms Palin supported in Alaska... now that we're over that, can we discuss the way she told the world about it???

The McCain campaign has said they knew about Bristol's pregnancy when they chose her mother and the only reason Sarah Palin chose to share it on Monday was to refute the "liberal blogger" rumors that Trig was actually Bristol's child.

So - that makes Sarah Palin not only an incredibly selfish mother, but also an easily manipulatable and thin skinned politician. Are we really suppose to believe that she sacrificed her 17 year old daughter (who must already be going through a lot mentally and physically) to the American Media (and every Anne Coulter wanna-be sitting at home), just so half a dozen people on the web would stop challenging her word that Trig was her child??? Trig's too young to even know what's going on - and if he's really her child there should be a couple pages of medical records that could quickly set everything straight...

I mean really???

You don't react to those sorts of rumors, and particularly not in a way that subjects your daughter (someone she should want to be protecting with a thick cloak of privacy right about now) to a lot of negative commentary.

I mean the other issue is when she thought she was going to tell us... when the baby popped out??? I think a big sign that Ms Palin isn't ready for the rigours of national politics, is that she didn't tell anyone in the state of Alaska she was preggers with Trig till she was 2 months away from delivery... and I realize, for a woman her age, the likihood of a miscarriage and other complications were a lot higher, but that's the sort of thing that would never fly on the national stage, those are the sorts of things that you have to talk about with people - not because it's going to effect anything, just simply because major life events, even of a personal nature, have to get shared when you're a politician so that people don't think you're hiding stuff (or trying to call your daughter's baby your own...). The only reason those rumors could so easily gain so much ground is because of the odd way she delt with her pregnancy with Trig.

If she was going to tell us about Bristol's pregnancy, she should have done it when she made her initial speach, she walked on stage with her family and introduced them, except she should have said something like this -

"My son Track is not here, he's off training for deployment to Iraq in September. This is my youngest daughter Piper, and next, Willow, and our eldest daughter Bristol. She's holding our youngest child Trig - I've had her helping me with Trig quite a bit, to set a good example for her and help her learn as much as possible about dealing with new-borns, as she's expecting her first child in December. And speaking of new additions to our family, I'd like you to meet my soon-to-be son-in-law Levi, who's here tonight in the audience, to support Bristol and their baby. While I know my Bristol will be growing up even faster than we ever imagined, my husband Todd and I know the importance of giving them our full love and support while they start their new family together. We know the difference a strong and caring family makes in the lives of children and how hard families, not just ours, all over this country are dealing, right now, with challenges they never throught they would have to face, and that's why I'm so proud to run for Vice President of this grest country, because I believe I am the right person to work with John McCain to help struggling families across our nation prosper and grow stronger! (continue random nomination drivel here...)"


Bam - nothing more to be said. And nobody could run around with that.

However - I do appreciate how well it worked this way, where the conservative women rallied around her in the face of little investigation stuff, and declared their love for her, so that when she released the info about her daughter, all they could do was say that it doesn't change anything and any one who speaks ill of the girl or her mother is heartless and liberal... whereas if they'd had the info about the daughter to start with they might have been a bit less eager to take Sarah into their fold.

So it's sort of a toss up - but I really can't believe she let it all slip this way just to refute a couple bloggers... if that's really the truth behind their decision to release the information, Ms Palin is a pretty heartless mother and unthoughtful politician.


We won't even get into the fact that Sarah and Todd Palin referred to their daughter's "choice" to keep the baby and marry the father, and unless I hear a little more information about how it all went down, I'm not inclined to believe that Miss Bristol Palin had one tiny bit of choice when it came to what was going to happen to her baby or herself and her future. Maybe Levi proposed to her before they ever told either sets of parents, maybe they're totally in love and got pregnant on purpose, maybe - but until we get more details, that's a pretty hard situation to believe.

And if the right is all about loving, caring families, which is what I presume "Family Values" is all about, then why are they so eager and excited to force young mothers into marrying the fathers of their children... is that really the way to start a loving and caring family... that seems like just about the worst reason in the world to get married (getting preggers) - and I can't believe anyone who supports strong families would support such a step. (Yeah, I realize that Sarah and Todd Palin had Track a mere 8 months after they eloped, so Bristol's just following family tradition, albeit a few years early... and Sarah and Todd and many other people who got married in similar manners had very long marriages, so I shouldn't knock all shot-gun weddings... but...really).

Quotation Compendium.

Yesterday -

D - You don't like to have fun.
M - Yes I do.
D - No you don't.
M - I do too!


Today -

D - There's no more sunlight, you used it all.

(in our apartment for me to plant thing in).

Hmmmm....

The Bitterroot Valley is in the same Hardiness Zone as Southern Iowa, something seems wrong about that, considering it was in the 90's last week in Iowa, and in the 50's here...

then again, Hardiness Zones don't take into consideration the length of the growing period...

Quote of the Day.

From The Anchorage Daily News, and repeated in the Juneau Empire, from March of this year, by Sarah Palin -

"I recognize that any of the buzz surrounds the fact that I happen to fit a demographic that is appealing to the ticket right now," Palin said. "That's the reality. Again, I happen to fit a demographic at a time that the Republican Party needs to get with it and change and progress and allow others to be a part of public service. It's gender, it's age, it's kind of the maverick being from the outside. It's a combination of things."