Breadmaking, Weimaraner Style

A Happy Accident

The other day I commented on my Facebook page that I end up with stuff like bacon-flavored cheese because sometimes I reach out to pick something up and my hand doesn't coordinate with  my eye. I'll see something, I'll reach for it, and somehow my hand strays slightly to something else. Which, of course, I don't notice until I get home.

But it's not all bacon-flavored cheese. Sometimes I end up with something better than I intended. And that's what happened here. My favorite grocery store, Earth Fare, has been carrying one of my favorite Rieslings, Dr Loosen, for some time now, and I've made a point of picking up a couple of bottles when I'm in there. The vintner is located in the Mosel Valley of Germany. I'll buy any Riesling sight unseen from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwar region.

I like this wine because it's not too sweet and not too dry. I can't really tell you stuff like fruits you'd taste, because I kind of suck at that, unless it's something so obvious that it can't be missed. But this Riesling is just crisp and clean. I like it with everything. Literally, everything.

But this bottle? It says "Sparkling!" That was the accident. I swung by the wine shelves to pick up a bottle or two and noticed that the top was different. "Hm, must have changed that," I thought. I didn't read the label. I just paid for it and brought it home. So I was pretty surprised to see the champagne cork. It fizzed up wonderfully and buzzed my mouth deliciously. The best of both worlds! And $13 a bottle, too. It did keep the effervescence for 2 more days after I opened it (I'm the only wine drinker), that was an added bonus.

Don't. Just...Don't.

Low-impact packaging, non-toxic ingredients. Got to be a good switch for us, right?

Wrong.

First Taylor mentioned that he has been using dryer sheets because otherwise his clothes smell.

That made me think, "Hmm...maybe it's not me. Maybe it's my clothes."

Then Bob apologized for the stinky-ness of his workout shirt one day. "All of them smell this way now," he said. "Maybe I need some new shirts. They just don't seem to get clean anymore."

I threw out half a bottle of this stuff and went back to All Free & Clear. Re-washed all our laundry in hot water.

Problem solved.

Now, I do have to say, I switched to this one just because the packaging. For a couple of years I've used Charlie's Soap (image from their website), and loved it. I bought it at Earth Fare and it used to come in drawstring bag.

But the bags went away and all there was left was this hard plastic bottle.

Words with Friends (& Strangers)

I finally decided to try Words with Friends. I kept seeing Facebook updates from friends talking about how they just had to stop watching baseball to respond to Words. (Ok, it was one friend.) I hadn't even opened the application, and didn't know it was Facebook. I thought it was strictly a phone thing. 

So I asked my sister if she played it and received an enthusiastic "YES!" from her. She doesn't play it on her phone. Strictly on FB. I downloaded the app and asked it to find me a random opponent to create a game. And so JohnnyBravo76 entered my life.

And promptly blew me out of the water. 

So I set out to find someone who might be more compatible. Yes, I love to write, yes, I love words, but I pretty much suck at games. Anything with strategy is pretty much not for me because I don't have the patience. I'm also not very good at unscrambling words. Or so I thought I wasn't. When you play Scrabble in person, you don't necessarily take the time to move all the letters around and around. Mainly because your opponents tend to sit there and stare you, tap the table, sigh...there's a certain amount of pressure. But with WwF, you can just hit the "shuffle" button over and over, and you can take all the time in the world to respond.

So I started searching through my FB friends to see if I could find some people to play with. I quickly found you should avoid anyone who hasn't played in a couple of days. They probably were just trying it out and now don't play. So I tried my sister, an old college friend, my library director buddy, and a couple others. I also went to my friend Jeannie's house, helped her download the app, and sat and played with her. 

It turns out Jeannie and I are most evenly matched. I'm not really that surprised, since she and I have always had a brain connection...completing each other's sentences, echoing each other's thoughts...and I also am pretty even with Carla, my old college buddy. 

So far I have developed one rule about WwF. I don't use cheat sites to help find words unless:

A. My opponent is a "JohnnyBravo76," and is killing you by almost or more than 100 points.

B. All bets are off if I don't my opponent at all.

Yes, I have surfed through Scrabblefinder looking for words with J, but I have stuck with the above rules and not entered my tiles and board letters to put together new words (unless it was the JohnnyBravo76 game). So I feel a little righteous. For the most part, however, I have to say I've been able to come up with fairly decent words on my own.

I sure don't want to play with my baby brother Ted, though. Any time I've played Scrabble with him, he's just totally killed me. I can't imagine the damage he'd do on WwF. 

No Shortage of Helium Here!

Today we are starting to clear out the downstairs rooms so I can paint and repair walls and woodwork. On June 20, our friend Mark will come and work with Taylor to install bamboo flooring. Mensa Boy thought now would be a good time to get rid of an old helium tank we've had sitting around for a couple of years. He thought it might be almost empty, so he filled a few balloons. After he got tired of that, he just went outside and started holding the nozzle down to empty it.

30 Years! Or is it 23?

Mensa Boy and I had our 30th anniversary on the 29th. This
year the answer to my question: "How long does it seem like it's been?" was "More like 23." he said it's because we have son who is 22 and he can't hardly remember what it was like not to have kids!
My friend Cassie and I made 100 cupcakes on Saturday and MB and I
handed them out I everyone as they left church on Sunday.

In Search of Fitness

So a year ago I quit Jazzercise for the second time. I just couldn't keep up. It was frustrating. I'd feel the energy drain away about halfway through the second song. And there I'd be...stuck for the rest of the hour, not wanting to walk out because that would cause my classmates concern.

I concentrated on yoga and walking, but it just wasn't enough.

Finally I asked Mensa Boy if he'd train me. He's been studying personal trainer programs with the goal of eventually being a personal trainer part time, or for retirement. He's fun and inspirational to work out with, and creative.

So we started at the little gym here in Indian Land. Right about that time I also decided to try running. I began following a couch-to-5k program. I bought some Brooks shoes that are intended for forefoot running and have minimal structure underneath. It was hard to start, but there was a lot of walking at the beginning with timed, not distance, runs. I ran on the treadmill for the most part. No issues with my knees or hips, I was working on the breathing. 4 weeks or so went by and then I had an issue with left foot. It felt just like it had when I experienced a stress fracture in the metatarsal a couple of years ago. So I rested it and began thinking about my options. I wasn't sure if it was the running or some of the things we did during the resistance work...step-ups, jumping, etc.

We hauled out my old Raleigh C30 hybrid bike and took it to a bike shop for rehabbing. I started to ride the stationary bike at the gym. Thursday I took my bike out for the first time and rode it 4.7 miles to the gym, worked out with Bob, and then rode home with him and the bike in the car.

Saturday I rode 6 miles and this morning 8.8. I like it. I'm using MapmyRide online to keep track of my rides. I can draw my route and it will tell me the mileage. I downloaded the app to my iphone but it doesn't work very well. It takes a lot of memory, which drags down my iphone 3gs, and it freezes up. The first ride I used it for, Thursday, it froze at .27 miles!

The only kink in the riding is my gears. I'm having trouble with the chain not hooking up completely in my 14the gear. I only use the middle 7 gears, and then I'm about to go down a hill, I switch to the hardest gear so I can pedal well as I near the bottom of the hill. The chain doesn't seem to want to switch well there and  I end up pedaling air until I either stop and slip it over, or switch around the gears until it catches. We took it back to the bike shop and they say there is nothing wrong with it. But it sure is putting a damper on my enjoyment.

We are doing strength training 3 times a week now and I can tell I'm gaining strength in my upper body. And I really haven't had too many fatigue issues. Just a day here or there.

So here is a wobbly, poorly-narrated video of my backyard garden. This is mainly for my mom. Hey MOM! I got stuff growing!

Mac & Tom

One of my favorite food blogger, Elise of Simply Recipes, has posted a recipe and story about Buttery Tomato Pasta.
I'm a bit sheepish that I haven't done the same. In our house it's called Mac n Tom and has even fewer steps than Elise's. Boil pasta, dump in tomatoes. Sprinkle in salt, sugar, pepper, butter. Done.
I grew up on Mac n Tom. My mom would make it for lunch sometimes. I remember a period when we lived in Germany when we didn't sugar. I think Mom told us it "wasn't available" at the commissary, but I suspect it was expensive or she was trying to cut down on our sugar intake. It was also the traditional meal she and Dad fed the kids on Christmas Eve before sending us off to bed to wait for Santa. They would then have lobster. I still think of Mac n Tom on Christmas Eve, though we are more likely now to have our Swedish Christmas Dinner. Thanks, Elise, for bringing up that memory!

Uh Oh. Change.

I haven't posted here in months. Like...6 months? And today I decided to write about how I guess I'm not a runner.
So I went to my blog and lo! I'm no longer signed in! No problem. Hit the "Sign In" button. And here we are are! Blogger has a whole new look! And I am totally lost.
This immediately reminds me of that old nightmare people have where they go to college and their parents  move without telling them. My parents moved when I went to college. But they told me. They came and picked me up from college to help with the move.
So we pull up in front of this little house in Farmington and I walk in.

"Where's my room?" I ask.
"Uh...ha! No room for you. Dad's gonna build one in the basement. We thought you could sleep on the porch for a bit."
"No really? We live in Minnesota. It gets like, 1,000 degrees below zero in January. Might be a bit chilly out there."
"No silly! We'll have it done then."
And they did. I slept on the porch for the first summer I was home and it was lovely. Except for when it stormed. Then Mom would come bombing in there in the middle of the night, slamming all the combination windows shut.
I'll write about the not running later.

Viburnum: Doing Its Job

Cool when stuff blooms in winter. I have lived in SC for 9 years now and I don't think I'll ever get over that. Or 65 degree days in December. Or Thunderstorms in December.
Or not having to wear 9 layers to go Christmas shopping.

This is What I Have to Say

"Bob, I absolutely refuse to buy you socks for your birthday. You will simply have to come up with other ideas. If you need socks, get them yourself. They are not a luxury item."

"Taylor. It's time. Take off the grey hoodie and put this long-sleeved henley on. You are not 7 years old anymore."

And so that's what I said after my errands this morning. 

Bob's birthday is pretty much always a problem. Years ago, when he needed tools, or had something he enjoyed that needed equipment, like cross-country skiing, I would gather money from the family and splurge on something really really great that, more often than not, was able to double as a Christmas gift. Skil saws, skis, a weight bench...that kind of thing. Now what he does is publish a list that is supposed to work for both events. And inevitably that list has 5 items on it that cost between 5 and 10 dollars each. Well? No MORE! Thank goodness I didn't draw his name for Christmas! I don't know who did, but it's THEIR problem now! 

This is the first year we've drawn. The 5 of us did, $100 limit, I got Taylor. Who wants a 20" monitor for his computer...worth more than $100 but I owe him $40 for last week's Christmas bush purchase. Yes. Bush. It's not a tree. Oh sure, when it's out there on the tree farm, growing out of the ground, shaped gloriously like a Christmas tree, it looks like a Christmas tree. But once you hack off enough lower branches, and you see that it has more than one main trunk growing out of the ground? You end up saying to yourself, "darn, but if this thing isn't really a BUSH!"

Where was I?

Taylor. He wears grey hoodies all winter. Actually, fall, winter and spring. T-shirt underneath. Not a sweatshirt. Not a zip-up hoodie. Just a pull-over hoodie. Grey. He has two shades of grey. And he doesn't wash them often enough for my taste. So I am dragging him kicking and screaming into adulthood and I am buying him other warm, long-sleeved options. He didn't fuss! But then, he's not much of a fusser. I just told him he's too old to dress the same every single day. When people don't know who they are? They describe him thus: "You know...that tall brown-haired kid with the grey hoodie?"

Yup. 

So foot has been put down. 

Bragg Liquid Aminos-a new favorite product

photo from Bragg.com

So here's a product I discovered a couple of months ago and am I glad I did! I adore soy sauce. When we order Chinese food, or I make it at home, I always use a ton of the stuff. But the sodium really throws my system out of whack. First there is the night-long thirst, then there's the swelling in my fingers. It's like eating an entire large bag of potato chips by myself. It always seems to take 48 hours for the effects to wear off.

I started noticing Bragg Liquid Aminos in recipes. They would call for soy sauce or BLA. Since this product is not sold in regular grocery stores, I'd never heard of it and couldn't find it when I went looking. But I did see it at Earth Fare. I decided to try the small spray bottle. It was not cheap...about $4 or $5. But it sure has been worth it. I believe the first time I tried it I used it in a gravy recipe. The gravy (vegetarian) was fantastic, so I branched out to stir fry and now use it to spray on Chinese take-out. I fully expected it to be an "acquired taste." I figured there would be a funky aftertaste, as is the case with so many things we use as substitutes for stuff we are used to. Not the case at all with this.

The Bragg.com website reveals that liquid aminos are not their only products. They have a range of items from vinegar to olive oil to seasonings and put out a newsletter, as well.

"You are what you eat, drink, breathe, think, say and do. Take control to live a long, vital, happy life!" Patricia Bragg

The Right to Die & Being Prepared for the End of Your Life

So lately I've been recording the Dr. Oz show and watching it at my leisure. Good stuff on there most of the time. But today I watched yesterday's episode about the Right to Die debate, and it's been walking around with me ever since.

There was a woman on the show that suffers from a terminal illness and I can't really get her out of mind. Here is a clip from her part of the show. She is bound to a bed or wheelchair all of the time. She is not able to do anything at all but speak. She wants to die because she's tired of fighting for life. She doesn't seem to be in pain. She seems to have full capacity to speak her mind.

I AM a proponent of the patient's right to ask that they be allowed or assisted to die. But I wish this woman hadn't been one of the examples of someone who would use that. When I think of someone who wants to end their own life, I think of someone that is in horrendous pain. Or someone that is reliant on feeding tubes and respirators to continue living. Or both. Not someone that can still have the capacity to finish raising her children, albeit from a bed. Not someone that can help her family with important life decisions...how to deal with relationships, how to choose a college, whether to take a job or not, or even whether to wear purple socks with a red sweater. I don't think of someone with perfectly coiffed hair and the ability to communicate clearly with others without pain.

I think of someone in Montel Williams's situation. He talks about it here. And worse. (If you haven't watched "You Don't Know Jack," you really need to.)

I certainly don't want anyone to think I believe the other woman is not suffering. Clearly she is. But to me, she still has a lot to offer right now.

That said, Dr. Oz touched on another subject that is very real. He didn't spend much time on it, but that other subject is that of preparedness. No matter who you are, no matter how young or old you are, you really need to keep your affairs in order and up-to-date. You need to have a living will and you need to be sure you have the right beneficiaries set up for your assets. Recently an acquaintance of mine passed away tragically. It was discovered after his death that he never transferred his beneficiary information on his retirement benefits to his wife. Those benefits are assigned to another family member who, it appears, does not plan to turn them over to her and their children.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE for letting these details slide. NO. EXCUSE.

Two Restaurants to Try

I'm excited about two restaurants I want to try.

The first is Fern Flavors from the Garden, which is a VEGETARIAN restaurant that has opened in Charlotte! FINALLY! Their website is not built yet, but they do have a Facebook page and they have good status updates on there. Helen Schwab of the Charlotte Observer reviewed them recently here and here. They've only been open a short time. I'm not sure when we'll try them, but I know we will.

The other restaurant is Erin's Restaurant in Rock Hill. They are not vegetarian per se, but they will cater to you if you tell them you are vegetarian or vegan. However, since I have been adding the occasional fish to my meal, I have a feeling I'll feel compelled to try the Shrimp & Grits they are mentioning on their Facebook page this weekend.

So I'm excited. But we're not going to rush out this weekend. Too much other stuff going on right now. I'll take some pics and write something after I've visited.

Gardening Junket Today

Neighbor Mary and I will go another plant-buying trip today. We haven't discussed where we'll go or even when we'll leave, but it promises to be a beautiful day.

The plants I put in a couple of weeks ago are doing well. Especially now that we've gotten some considerable rainfall this past week. The two hydrangeas started wilting about 2 days after I planted them so I had to get out there and water like crazy to pull them back. We've gotten nearly done clearing the underbrush and dead limbs from the woods, so now you can see all the way through to the back of our lot. It's cool seeing the dappled sunlight come through. You can almost imagine little critters around in there. Maybe a gnome or two...

I've been thinking about composting more and more too. I'd like to develop a plan for composting our kitchen waste. We use our garbage disposal a lot for eggshells and peelings and that's a lot of water use, too. My friend Julie says she collects it in a pail under her kitchen sink and then periodically goes out, digs a hole, and buries it. Maybe we should try that. I think a rain barrel probably should be in our future, too.

Let Me Drive to Your House and Read You the Announcements

A frequent comment I get from parents is, "I didn't know about this."

It's often said in an accusatory fashion. I like to think they might be accusing their own kids of not telling them, but really I think a lot of time they are accusing me. Or, if not me personally, they are accusing the school. Of hiding information from them? Of conspiring to keep them in the dark? Of trying to lose money by setting up costly events that won't fill up because we don't tell people about them? WHAAAT???

I don't know.

Yesterday a parent asked about an event we have coming up and wanted to know if it was too late to sign her kid up. I told her yes, it is too late, all the arrangements have been made. I'm sorry.

"I didn't find out about this until the phone message last night."

"I'm sorry."

"Why didn't I know?"

"Ma'am, I'm not really sure. We sent out emails and did phone calls. We advertised on our website and did announcements within the building."

"Well, can I be notified when you do this [event] again?"

"Certainly we will do a lot of advertising when it comes around again." (which, I'm thinking, you will ignore JUST LIKE YOU DID THIS TIME!!!!)

Gardening and Sun Salutations

The leaves are just now beginning to change. Just a tiny bit. In a few short weeks it will look like this photo on the left that I took last year up in Asheville.

So now we are in the spot of time where we want to get out into the cooler weather and do some maintenance in the back yard. This weekend I went to the Charlotte Regionals Farmers Market with  my neighbor Mary and bought some plants. I bought two fairly large hydrangeas and some heuchera and lenten roses to put around in some spots. Spent some time forking over the earth and digging up the buried soaker hoses. Some of them have holes in them now and roots have grown around them. So it's a big job digging them out. We'll lay them out and patch them and the place them again in the spring. The rain we've had the past couple of weeks has made the ground easy to work and the cooler weather has made it kind of enjoyable, even if I'm doing work I don't particularly love.

Tomorrow the yoga class at school is going to tackle their first Sun Salutation flow. I've devised a simple one that yogis around the around the world use every day...no warrior poses or lunges...just pretty much standing to forward bends, lower to the floor and then back up. I asked them last Friday if they had some requests and one said she wanted a vinyasa flow. So here we go. We've done a mini sun salutation for a couple of weeks and they definitely have enjoyed that. The group seems to like having an assignment they can carry out over and over through several minutes at their own pace. They are very good at dropping into their own zones. I suspect it's because, as teachers, they are "on" all the time. Flows are nice for them because they can just focus inward, but in a directed way.

Here is the link to the mini sun sals we've done.

And here is the link to the Surya Namaskar I've modified slightly. I've added a down dog and plank after the standing half forward fold and before the chaturanga, and changed their up-dog to a cobra pose, which I encourage them to do as a mini or full cobra. I've never cared for dropping straight straight from forward fold to chaturanga. It just seems so abrupt to me.

Currant Scones

It's been a weather day here in South Carolina and when that happens on a Sunday, I'm very likely to want to spend the day in the kitchen. I already had pinto beans started in the slow cooker, so my thoughts turned to cookies or brownies.

But then I remembered that $12 bag of xanthan gum I bought this summer when I tried making gluten-free bread. Out of that bag I had used maybe 1-2 teaspoons and it peeks at me from behind all my other little specialty bags of flours whenever I open the cupboard. "You are allowing me and my expensive contents to go to waste,"  it seems to accuse.

So I pulled out another spendy ingredient...sorghum flour... and checked the back for a recipe. (I should note here that sorghum flour is also about $12 a bag, but it's not as snotty to me when I dig around in the cupboard.)

Lo and behold I had on hand all the ingredients for these gluten-free scones. Even currants!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a food processor (Use a bigger one than mine. Mine can't hold all these ingredients, so I mixed and cut in the butter by hand in a bowl) combine:

1 1/4 C GF Sorghum Flour
1/2 C Tapioca Flour
1 1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Xanthan Gum
1/4 tsp Salt
4 Tblsp Sugar

Cut in until it resembles coarse crumbs:

4 Tbsp Butter,cut into 1/2-inch slices

In another bowl, lightly beat:

1 large egg

Add:

2/3 C low-fat plain yogurt or 1/2 C non-dairy milk (like a nut or soy milk)

Pour the yogurt mixture over the flour mixture and combine, mixing only just until all the dry ingredients are wet.

Fold in:

1/3 C Currants

Drop the mixture onto an oiled cookie sheet and push into a disk about 8-10 inches in diameter and 3/4 to 1 inch tall.

Brush the top with:

2 Tblsp Milk (cow, soy or nut)

Bake 12-20 minutes, depending upon how large and tall your disk is. Just give it a light flick with your fingernail after 15 minutes. If it still seems a little squishy, give it more time.

Remove from oven and cut into 8 triangles.

Notes: Remember this a quickbread, so you really don't want to overmix the batter. That will make it tough. Also, you want that butter to stay cold in the dough until you bake, so resist the urge to mix the dough with your hands. Work with wooden spoons and work quickly and you'll be fine.

Thanks for another great recipe, Bob's Red Mill!

Oil Pulling

Image from Meijer.com

I've come across mentions of the practice of oil pulling in the past few months and decided to give it a try.

The most recent article I read was here in Elephant Journal. I had tried it for a few days last summer with sesame oil and just couldn't stick with it. This article mentions using coconut oil and I do agree that it is a bit easier on the taste buds.

There are many articles (here, here, and here are a few) about the health benefits of the practice and I'll be the first to admit that some of the claims are rather...fantastical. But essentially the idea is that the sticky oil "pulls" the toxics and bacteria away from the surfaces in your mouth. You spit out the oil and with it? The icky junk. You are supposed to do this first thing in the morning before you eat or drink or brush your teeth so that you can get all that stuff that has accumulated in there overnight. It does seem to make some sense.

It's not for the faint-hearted, though. Recommended pulling time is 15-20 minutes, but I think any amount of time you do it will be better than not doing it at all. I'm allowing a minimum of 10 minutes in the morning and, if I can keep myself occupied with lunch packing or sorting out my attire for the day, I'll go longer.

The jar cost about $9 at Harris Teeter but it won't go to waste if I give up. It's a great massage  oil (no, it doesn't smell like coconut), or conditioner for the hair and can be cooked with at moderate temps.