Here’s a question for all my readers: what’s the one day that Americans will make the most homemade food and create the most dirty dishes of any day in the year? Wait for it…Thanksgiving! Good, the second questions is: what would be the most inconvenient day for the dishwasher to break?
You guessed it. Throughout the preparations yesterday we ran the dishwasher only to find hot dirty dishes still sitting in there. After dinner when we began bringing mountains of plates and flatware into the kitchen, I decided to go peek in the crawlspace to see if water was pouring out of the floor under the dishwasher. Why yes, yes, it was. I think I must’ve jinxed myself by writing about how much I loved the crawlspace. While everyone else got to eat pie and relax in the dining room, I got to squat in the mud in the crawlspace and attempt to diagnose and fix the dishwasher. The previous owner must’ve fancied himself a bit of a handyman. Uh huh. A handyman with an anti-establishment streak. Where the rest of the world plumbs a dishwasher into the kitchen sink so if there’s a backup, you can clean it through the sink, Mr. Anti-Establishment bucks the trend! He hooks up the dishwasher straight to the waste line! Want to baffle repairmen and vex future homeowners?
After an hour when I managed to unclog the line and reattach everything, I was ready for a celebratory jig. POW! That’s when fate struck a cruel blow. Down in the crawlspace, I shouted for my wife to switch on the machine. Voila! No water backing up from the waste line. Except there was still water pouring out from under the machine. Hang on, what’s this exploded looking piece of plastic? Turns out that dishwashers, bear with me here, clean food off dishes. Amazing! And that food will sometimes get clogged up in a waste line. And why does the rest of the world hook up dishwashers to the kitchen sink with an air gap? If there’s a clogged line, the water pressure won’t explode some plastic doohickey in the dishwasher. But if you’re Mr. Anti-Establishment and you plumb the dishwasher straight into the waste line, when it clogs, it’s like Bugs Bunny putting his finger in the end of Elmer Fudd’s gun: the pressure builds up and BANG! The rifle barrel opens like a banana peel.
So. We’ll be joining the Black Friday throngs in search of a new dishwasher. And we’ll be calling a Pro-Establishment plumber to set up our dishwasher correctly. And I will reiterate how much I love going into the beautiful and cozy crawlspace, in the hopes of never having to go down there again.
11 loaves, 5 varieties.
Because of all my preparation and scheduling, last night’s bake actually
went pretty smoothly. All the breads
went into the ovens one after another, and I managed to get to bed at a decent
hour. When I’ve taken a very long run,
finished a huge school or work project, or some massive home improvement screw-up
project, I often get a twinge of fear that as I’m finishing, it’s just a dream
and I’ll wake up and be back at the beginning again. I got that feeling during Bread Week, with so
many doughs and dishes to do. Today I’ve
just two sourdough loaves to bake and a dozen rolls then I’m done! (Note for the above picture: when I set these out on the breakfast table,
Baby Harbat was overjoyed and really worked hard not to take some of the
bread. What willpower!)
I forgot to mention earlier this week that the highlight of my mold remediation project involved spelunking in our crawlspace. I wanted to confirm there was no mold or moisture in the floor under the sink cabinets, so I had to climb into the space under the house. Our bathroom is on the far end of the house from the small access door, so I had to crouch, crawl, and finally shimmy on my stomach through rocky dead soil, under gas and water lines, through cobwebs, and around ducts. I don’t have claustrophobia per se, but down there I thought, “I can see it now, how I could work myself into a panic.” The thing that gets me is wedge-shaped spaces, where the ceiling above is dropping while the ground rises up. Once on a cave-rafting trip in New Zealand I had to crawl under a very low-hanging shelf of rock. Once you commit to that you think, “If I freak out and want to get out fast, I’m going to have to drop to my knees and crawl out.” These are the things I was thinking as I was slithering on my back and seeing the beady eyes of spiders reflected in my wavering flashlight beam. Besides the tightness of the space, it was the smell of the dirt that bothered me the most. If you’ve uncovered something dusty from an attic, years gone and forgotten, it will have an inorganic smell of neglect, death. The soil in the crawlspace hasn’t seen animal or plant life for 60 years, and smells acrid and terrible, as I imagine soil on Mars might smell. It is elemental and infinite, and I could imagine that soil getting in my skin, hair, ears, then clogging up my mouth and enveloping me whole into the dead rocky darkness for the rest of time.
I may have set a new crawling speed record getting out of the crawlspace that day.
PS: The loaf at the top of the picture formed a huge bubble that I had to pop during the bake, thus the crust shaped like draped fabric.
One of my secret pleasures is listening to trance/electronic music. Of all the stations I’ve created on Pandora, the one based on Popol Vuh’s Mantra 1 is one of my favorites. Maybe that’s why I like the Symphony of Science videos—they have great music and compelling messages. This is my favorite of the three made:
This is a concept that could’ve fallen flat: some dude with a computer, keyboard, and autotune. But I just like listening to these tracks over and over. I should add that the creative side of me wishes I could do that. And the kid side of me just spilled his Hawaiian Punch and is demanding more Skittles.
But what about Bread Week, you ask? Well. Last night I made four batches of cranberry walnut brioche, two loaves of Scottish oat bread, one sourdough olive, and one sourdough starter. It’s all shoehorned into the fridge and will be baked tonight. I’ve also still to make two loaves of potato rosemary, 2 cinnamon swirls, and a double batch of sourdough. And though I was really tired by 11 when I finished up the last of the dishes, I was quite relaxed. I think my favorite dough to work is the sourdough. By the third or fourth minute of kneading it begins to smooth out, like oil tossed on stormy seas. By the seventh minute it’s become warm satin in your hands, seductively elastic and pliable.
I did accomplish one other thing last night: I learned the importance of docking pizza dough. This means you perform kitchen acupuncture on it, poking holes in the crust so it doesn’t do this:
That was taken halfway through the bake, and the bubbles only got bigger, like it had been stung by hornets. I’ve now learned the incredible elasticity of my high-gluten flour. I think the next batch will have to incorporate a little more all-purpose, since it’s taking me 15 minutes to stretch out, toss, roll, and cajole this dough into a thin round crust. I am getting pretty good tossing the dough up into the air like a real paisan, and only sprayed flour in my eyes twice while doing it!
Tonight my oven will be full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes. I cut some new clay tiles for the shelves and inaugurated them last night by spilling toppings from the aforementioned pizza all over them, where they instantly burned and stuck. Hooray for Uncle F%$#-Up!
Tell ya what, kids, there’s nothing like periodically reaching your boiling point to gain a better appreciation of the calm times in life. Here’s the scene: Friday afternoon at a local testing center. I’ve been taking a series of professional licensure tests (seven total) so I need to cram my head full of stuff and go to a building filled with computer labs and security cameras so I can sit in a cubicle for 4 hours and regurgitate all the information to the satisfaction of a national testing board. In all the tip books and study guides, the final note is, “On the day of the test, relax, give yourself plenty of time to get to the center, and avoid additional stress.” I gave myself extra time to get to the center, triple-checked the date and test time, parked in the right spot, took a deep breath, and walked up to the check-in desk and opened my wallet.
No driver’s license.
To take these tests, you have to present a photo ID. The worrywart half of my brain said to me that very morning, “Take your passport. Just in case.” To which my practical half replied, “Shut up, you! You didn’t need it last time!”
It took me 40 minutes to race home, grab my ID, and haul ay-ess-ess back. I arrive 2 minutes before the grace period for check-in was up. Wonderful, wonderful start to the 4-hour test!
Now, I think I can sometimes utilize what the kids these days call “common sense”. So what did I do to relax over the weekend? I tackled the mold remediation problem in our bedroom and bathroom. For much of the weekend I was on my hands and knees, wearing a facemask, and scraping mildewed lead paint out of cabinet. By Sunday afternoon it was all removed, bleach soaked, and the holes patched up with new plaster.
But wait! The real de-stressing came on Sunday night, when Baby Harbat was in bed, my wife was off to the bookstore, and I had the quiet house alone to myself. I poured a pint of Blue Moon and set about making bread and starters for Bread Week. Oddly, standing in the kitchen and mixing up dough is incredibly soothing. Or maybe I was dehydrated and the wheat beer was kicking in strong. Either way, I’ve found that my hobby really can be stress relieving.
Wednesday night when I’ve baked a houseful of breads and rolls and am utterly exhausted, I’d like someone to read this blog post back to me then laugh in my face. Stress-relieving! Getta loada this guy!
Bread Week is shaping up (pun intended) to be a real challenge. So far I’ve got orders for 9 loaves of bread and 1 dozen rolls. Six of those are different varieties. But by far the most popular is the cranberry walnut brioche braid, with 4 orders. Tuesday and Wednesday the oven is going to be working nonstop, and I will have gone through over 2 dozen eggs and 2 pounds of butter just on the brioche. These are the times I wish I had the larger KitchenAid mixer, a separate fridge for retarding dough, and a much bigger bench. Oh, and an assistant and a baby sitter and an extra 12 hours in each day. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is my hobby. And I’m actually really looking forward to all these beautiful breads next week. As for Casa Soutowood, we may be ordering pizza or having PB&J for dinner those two nights.
Now onto something really important: sitting on the couch and watching TV. This is something we’ve been doing a lot after dinner recently, since we just upgraded our cable from 4 basic channels, 2 of which included static and home shopping, to roughly 14,000. We hadn’t planned on doing this, but a nice salesman came to our door a few weeks ago pitching a data/tv package that was really enticing. So we signed up for it and I called our current provider to cancel. The day before the switchover, the current company calls up and makes me an offer I couldn’t refuse. No, I didn’t wake up with a horse head in my bed. It was a lamprey head. (See? Isn’t it fun to say?) We accepted the offer which is a tripling of our internet speed, a ton of new channels, all for the same price we’re paying now. Which begs the question, “Couldn’t they have done that in the first place?” Of course the rejected suitor called up all hangdog and begging. It was pathetic, but I told him that it’s all about the bottom line. And in six months we’ll do this all over again and see who will give us the best detail.
[gasp] Wait. I just got it. Now I know what the popular girl in school feels like picking a prom date. EEEEEEEEEEEEEK! That’s right, underlings! FIGHT FOR MY AFFECTION! FIGHT, MONKEYS!
Okay, that’s out of my system. So we've ended up watching BBC America, DIY Network, and a whole host of new shows and channels we’ve been missing out on. And what do you think we ended up with, having hundreds of channels at our disposal? It was a show featuring Martha Stewart’s daughter sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the couch, a catty New Jersey gal pal on the other couch, with a mountain of muffins on a coffee table between them. And the show is the two of them watching clips of Martha Stewart’s show and bitching about it. Wow. What a fantastic show. The daughter should be doubly ashamed because not only is she solely riding on her mother’s coattails, but she’s doing it by breaking down her mother’s achievements. I watched horrified for a minute or two, then gagged, reeled, and staggered from the room. When I came back later, my wife told me that Martha apparently produced and bankrolled the show. Hey great, even worse! It’s like seeing a couple making out on a park bench, then the guy leans back and says, “I love you Mom.” Great God, I don’t want to know the family dynamics there, though it’s fairly obvious that a therapist could have a lifetime job working with those two.
Happy Friday!
Congratulations to Hilari, the winner of our first bread contest! Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions. I have honorable mentions for the most delicious sounding recipes: Tim and Samanthropos. Tim’s chocolate pumpernickel chestnut with salt crust sounds like an intoxicating and rich seasonal bread (though I may follow Seth’s suggestion and add in some Guinness). Samanthropos’ ginger orange brioche with candied ginger is my next favorite suggestion—it might be an ideal holiday bread with a twist. Hmm…maybe I’ll make it as a twist.
So thanks to all and watch this space for Bread Week next week, wherein I’ll attempt to make the most bread I’ve ever made, and the most different varieties, all before Thanksgiving and hopefully without lighting my hair on fire.
PS – Hilari, send me a private message with contact info and choice for your bread. Congrats!
In the interest of getting the contest prize out to the winner before Thanksgiving, I’m going to be ending the contest early. Everyone leave a comment on this post by tonight at midnight PST (so you East Coasters get an extra 3 hours). I’ll then pick a random winner, but if the winner is my sister, she will be excluded because she gets enough free bread already. To remind readers, the prize is a loaf of bread of your choosing from the menu, sent priority mail to your house in time for Thanksgiving. While all the breads are good, I highly recommend the sourdough, as it will last longer than other breads and is a great multi-purpose bread.
The only baking yesterday was another brioche braid. I’m getting good at these but man, they do grow do massive proportions in the oven. They start as demure braids and end as huge brown dreadlocks. As they spring in the oven, I am reminded of this:
Now post yer comments, ye lubbers!
Thanksgiving is a time of food, business in the kitchen, and post-meal comas. Every year my wife and I overextend ourselves by attempting at least a half dozen untried and complicated recipes, so by the time the meal rolls around, we are exhausted and eat our food in a zombie daze. Once Baby Harbat was born, well…you can imagine the fatigue of a busy kitchen and a munchkin underfoot. Every year I say, “I’m not going crazy this year. Let’s keep it simple.” And every year my wife assigns me three or four brand new dishes artfully photographed in a glossy magazine and prepared by a team of experts in a professional uncluttered kitchen.
This year, besides my usual tasks, I’m going to be making breads for all my customers, and at least one for our own dinner. I am actually looking forward to it, especially since I can make some stuff ahead of time, and try out new bread recipes for us. Based on the great suggestions coming in so far for the contest, I’m leaning towards a Guinness pumpernickel, if for no other reason than that I get to drink the remainder that isn’t used for the bread. Which means the other 3 cans in the 4-pack.
Last night I modified my wheat sandwich recipe with more whole wheat flour, and some organic oats. It came out even better than I could’ve hoped, with a sweet nutty flavor and satisfying crust. I think this bread would be perfect with leftover turkey, a slice of avocado, and some garlic aioli. I'm going to call it Scottish Oat Bread, and will swap it out on the menu with the regular wheat sandwich. Okay, it’s time for me to get some lunch.
By ignoring all rules of grammar and the basics of the English language, I can make my blog post title sound cool and urban. If I was a marketing wonk, I’d say my blog title skews young, hitting key hip-hop and illiterate demographics. Radical!
But seriously, pizza IS where it’s at. I finally took a stab at making pizza. And by stab I mean lazy swing. Since I had the no-knead rustic bread dough snoozing away in the fridge, I decided to get it up and to work. Since it wasn’t kneaded I was worried about the extensibility and elasticity, but it stretched out really well into a thin sheet in the middle. I was worried about ripping it so I didn’t stretch it out as much as I could. Because this was a lazy attempt, I just put some shredded cheese, olive oil, shallots, black pepper, and oregano. I turned the oven into a blast furnace, but chickened out by the time it got to 600. Here it is on the way up.
I baked the pizza for about 8 minutes, and it came out, well…see for yourself.
I had to call my wife in to see it. Not only was the crust super delicious with great chew and crispy edges, but the whole process took about fifteen minutes for prep and 45 for the oven to heat up. Now I’m super psyched about ‘za, y’all! [warning: target demographic gagging in horror] I mean, I am very enthusiastic about making my own pizza.
My next batch of no-knead will be part-whole-wheat with some olive oil. If I can keep a batch of pizza dough ready in the fridge all week, it’ll be a snap to make our own pizza, which totally kicks the A-ess-ess of any store-bought pizza. As part of my healthy food kick, I stopped buying our traditional Red Baron frozen pizza and instead tried the Safeway brand organic pizza. Two expensive and tiny little cardboard discs later, I’m on to homemade pizza for good.
Finally, please remember to leave a comment on the bread contest entry to be eligible to win a free loaf of bread. Whether you have a killer idea for a new bread, or just an insatiable appetite for carbs, drop a line and you’re entered in the contest. I’ll wrap it up this Friday, or earlier if it looks like entries are winding down. Thanks for reading!
Hi everyone! Great responses so far and my head is spinning with the possibilities. In the interest of making it fair for everyone, and to keep the delicious bread nominations rolling in, I'm modifying the rules slightly. [doges thrown tomato] I know, I know.
So. The new rules are that ANYONE who writes in a comment to either nominate a bread or support someone else's is eligible to win the prize. So, if you can't think up a good bread to compete with such stellar nominations as "Smurf" (I'm thinking a blueberry challah with a dollop of whipped cream on top), just write in a comment to give seconds to one you've read and you are eligible to win the prize. When the competition is over next Friday I will:
1. Select a winner from all those who left a comment.
2. Select a winning bread from the nominated entries.
3. Finally get around to sanding and repainting that section of the bedroom wall that I've been avoiding looking at for the last month.
Okay, that last part was for me, but I do best with real deadlines. Now keep those great ideas rolling in, and look over the menu to pick out a bread you'd like shipped to you if you are the lucky winner. If you are not a winner this time, fear not, I suspect another competition is not too far away.
All together now: BREAD! BREAD! BREAD!
