Bread, Wine, Salt

I sent the first two chapters of my novel off to a respected author who wrote me back, told me my writing was beautiful but boring and those two chapters might need to be cut entirely.  The book I thought was almost ready for publication needs its nose cut off.  Even though I knew in my heart she was right, I was knocked sideways. I cried a little. I posted a flounce on Facebook, declared I would put the whole thing in a box and forget about it. I felt that way for fifteen entire minutes before I blew my nose, squared my shoulders and went to read chapter three of my novel. It turned out that chapter three could be an excellent chapter one with only minor corrections. In December I went back to yoga class after a long absence. I went with excellent intentions. And then in January we had weather-related school delays and I had a nasty head-cold and I was out of class for three weeks.  I had to drag myself there this morning, not because I didn't want to get back ...

I had to assemble enough food to hold a toddler through lunch.  It had to keep at room temperature and all fit inside one container since I am the queen of losing container parts. The wrap on the top is whole wheat with avocado inside, and the foil packet on the bottom is a peanut butter and jelly wrap which I kept isolated because I didn't know what the allergy situation was at the sitter's house today. The container is a Ziploc from Target.  I like these a lot. I present it here as part of " What's For Lunch" Wednesday. "  It's pretty typical of what goes into a packed lunch for the small folks around here, though if I were going to show you a truly typical lunch there would be mini-ravioli and mixed veggies in there.  Maybe next week.  If you have to feed small kids, or if you have to feed yourself lunch on a regular basis I recommend checking out the adorable lunches over there.  Some of them are super-simple and much, much cuter than mine.

I bought Uprisings , my first whole-grain baking book off the book-rack at a Fresh Fields grocery store in 1999. It was early in my bread-making career and I wanted a truly whole-wheat bread that made a good sandwich loaf. Golden Wheat Bread wasn't quite that loaf. But I loved it anyway. It was dense and chewy but not too heavy. The whole wheat flavor was good, but not overpowering. It makes really, really excellent toast. I also loved the book, and still do. It's a great resource for baking with whole grains and less-processed sugars. The handwritten and illustrated pages are charming and the recipes are consistently good. Like the banana sandwich bread , this starts with a sponge. The original recipe calls for barley malt syrup, but if you don't have an appropriately crunchy health food store near you, you can substitute with half the amount of honey. For the sponge: 2 teaspoons active dry yeast 2 2/3 cups lukewarm water 3 cups whole wheat flour ½ cup barley malt s...

Sometimes astonishing things happen. The chocolate chips and hazelnuts are even better in your oatmeal cookies than you imagined they'd be. (That's 1 cup chocolate chips, ½ cup chopped raw hazelnuts, if you'd like to try it at home, and I recommend you do. You may never buy a Pepperidge Farm cookie again.) An old friend you'd written off calls out of the blue to say she's in the area and can she stop by for 20 minutes. A new(ish) friend says something really lovely about you about you for no reason. You out your blog on your facebook page and no one points at you and shouts “You're one of those blog blogging blogger people? Why on earth would anyone read that?” Your blog stats tell you that you have a reader in Canada even though you don't know anyone in Canada. (Seriously, neighbor to the North, please say hello, because I love you the most of all of my anonymous readers.) So in honor of astonishing things, I give you a picture-less, but astonishing...

Adapted from the Tassajara Bread Book. “Bread makes itself, by your kindness, with your help, with imagination streaming through you, with dough under hand, you are bread-making itself, which is why bread-making is so fulfilling and rewarding.” I was determined not to be two years behind in the delivery of bread to the mom with the new baby. So this morning, as I sorted out my day to get ready to make dinner for them, I cracked open my copy of Tassajara and settled on this yeasted banana bread. There's a lot going on here, and the banana flavor gets lost. I think you could leave out the orange zest and the cinnamon and have a perfectly yummy loaf of bread, but you could also leave them in and have a perfectly yummy loaf of bread. This is an almost whole wheat loaf, so it uses the sponge method. The ingredients are divided into two parts, the first for the sponge, a batter which allows the yeast to make your heavy whole wheat flour into a light and fluffy lo...

I am bad at follow-through.  I have excellent intentions about a lot of things: my prayer life, my exercise regimen, my writing, and most definitely my intake of fresh vegetables.  Thus, the state of my crisper drawer is usually quite sad.  I had a bunch of beautiful rainbow chard that needed to be used quickly and I had no brains left in my head, so last night for dinner we had the rainbow chard version of clean out the crisper tart.  Olive oil whole wheat crust with rainbow chard and Romano cheese The key is the crust, a super simple whole wheat olive oil concoction I found at Chocolate and Zucchini .  I've used it multiple times and it has never failed me.  Are you afraid of pie crust?  I've never made a proper pie crust in my life and will shamelessly admit that I buy them in a box in the refrigerator case, but this crust is so easy even I can make it, which means you can make it, too.   Now, the elegant Clothilde makes her tarts...