The day began with choosing what bread to bake. Cheese and Onion. This bread has convinced me that anything could be turned into bread. You basically make a cheese sauce with onion, thyme and marjoram, and then you add yeast and flour to it and voila! Bread! I do not use a bread machine. I’ve never learned how. I don’t own one. I want to be able to have fresh bread even when the power goes out. So kneading the bread by hand, getting the feel for the elasticity, this is a step towards self-sufficiency for me. The rhythm of kneading bread, the smell of the yeast bubbling, the texture and the consistency under my hands. This is what I enjoy about making bread. It always amazes me how I can leave a bowl of dough on the counter, forget about it for an hour, come back and it is pushing it’s way right out of the bowl! It’s like magic everytime. I exclaim, I praise the powers of yeast, I admire the balloon. Then I punch it down. The fwiff of the air escaping is one of my favourite sounds.

Making bread this way has been passed down to me from my mother. The smell of yeast bubbling in the little cup, adding a pinch of sugar to give the little yeast bugs something to munch on, the texture and taste of good bread dough. This has all been given to me over a very ripe childhood. This has not been given to most people. Many people do not even know what ingredients go into bread. I recently watched a TED Talk by Jamie Oliver about Obesity. He declares a convincing argument that much of food education can start in the homes. It starts by parents passing down to their children ways to cook food, ways to nurish themselves. I have been so fortunate that this has been true of my life.

What recipes do you have that were given to you by a different generation? Any that you would like to share?

I am blessed enough to actually be in possession of my mother’s recipe box. It is stuffed full with so many recipes, hers and now mine, that it doesn’t even close anymore. To me, this is truly an inheritance.

Do you ever take stock of how much you make from scratch? It’s amazing the nutritional value you will add to your food, if you make more of it from scratch. I’ll try to keep a talley this week of how much we make from scratch and what processed foods we still consider staple.

Some mornings when I was young, I would wake to hear the tell-tale noises of bread making.

I would pad out to the kitchen table in my pajamas and watch my mom knead out the bread dough.  The flour  formed little clouds, the old table creaked as she pulled and pushed the dough, folded, then pulled and pushed the dough again. I would gather the excess flour and push it together to create a hill. If I pushed it together really tall, I created what I called a “B.C. Ferry.” (A boat, not a fairy.) It was a special time in the morning with my mom.

This morning, after I finished my Power Squadron homework (a boating course I’m taking), I decided today was a cozy day to make bread. I took out my favourite bread book; Williams-Sonoma “Bread.” To me, a really good cookbook is one that has really nice pictures. The delicious photographs entice you to try whatever it is that they suggest. This is a really good cookbook.

My favourite bread out of this book is “Challah,” A Jewish braided egg bread. Alas, I am out of eggs. So I decided upon Old-Fashioned White Bread.

I decide what type of bread I’m making a few different ways. This one was chosen by what I had in the cupboard. I know, making white bread is as unfashionable as toe-socks these days. But I still wear toe-socks and I still bake white bread every now and then. And, Marc just made whole-wheat sourdough so we needed some variety on our counter.

Let me paint you this picture properly.

It is raining torrentially outside. It has been raining for two days. The raindrops are fat and falling thickly. The cats didn’t even last long outside.

Tracy Chapman is crooning.

The wood stove is bellying a healthy heat.

I’m in my coziest clothes and the dishes are done.

The bread is now rising on the counter.

Could I get much happier?

Happy Rainy Monday!

When Marc and I lived in Victoria, we were reading about sourdough bread. A friend of mine, Karina, and I decided to try this fermented bread because we were fascinated by having a living organism in our fridge that we had to remember to feed and nurture.

I let her go first in the experiment and then followed enthusiastically. I created Horatio. I decided to name my sourdough culture something heroic to give it strength to survive. I mixed in a cup of water and a cup of unbleached flour and let it sit out in a warm place for a couple days. It fermented and the basement suite started to smell like beer and yeast. It was rather homey, but a little gross.

I baked a couple loaves with good ol’ Horatio. But then I didn’t clean out his little home very well one time, and a war started between him, the intentional culture and a culture very much uninvited, the Green Mold! So Horatio surrendered and was flushed down the toilet.

Recently, we were given another sourdough culture, which has been going for quite some time. It has travelled internationally, across the southerly border, and is living quite contentedly in our fridge.

Meet Horatio II.

Usually he is not this big but he was added to in preparation for baking a loaf. This is Marc’s first loaf of bread he’s baked. He did a fantastic job. It is moist, chewy, sour and perfect for cinnamon toast.

The only ingredients in this loaf is flour, water and salt. It is definitely a cost-effective approach to food.

Bon Appetite!

Labour day was started in Canada in 1880. It was started when the Typographical Union went on strike, refusing to work a 58 hour work week. They compromised when the companies said that they could work a 54 hour work week instead.

It is tradition after Labour Day weekend to wear white.

Does hoisting a white sail count?

Despite weather conditions being less than ideal, we cast off and tried stretching our sails out for the first time.

My lovely husband asked me, as I doned the green life jacket, “Did you choose the most decrepit life jacket on purpose?”

….Maybe…

We didn’t go too far, as the weather man was calling for gale force winds, patches of fog, possible lightening and rain. Could it get more pessimistic? But no thanks to the weather man, we had a great little toodle about in the bay.

Now that the sailor in me is appeased for the day, I’m off to bake challah and talk movies at the film group I accidentally joined.

Happy Labour Day!

Nothing’s better than home-made pizza. Of course this is a matter of opinion. But really, having pizza come out of the oven that you made, crust, tomato sauce, cheese and all. This dream has not become my reality yet… But I still have hope.

To compensate, we make our own crust, our own cheese and we get to pick our toppings without having to be charged $2.95 for each additional ingredient. No thank you!

Pizza making has become a combined effort in the house. Marc cuts the veggies, cooks the meat if necessary and I work on the crust. It works wonderfully. Then we’re both eagerly checking on dinner to ensure we capture the perfect moment when the crust has browned, the cheese has melted and the sauce bubbles up on the corners.

We love pizza. And no, we don’t deliver.