This Might Be A Jag

I baked up the last of the semolina dough last night and while the two (uneven) loaves were in the oven, I mixed up another batch to leave in the fridge so I can make more bread on Sunday when I get home from my writing retreat weekend.  I stopped at the Bulk... uh, something store on my way to work yesterday because I knew I didn't have enough semolina flour left from the first batch to make the second one.  I figured it'd be cheaper there (and it was by a long shot) and they have bulk yeast and that had to be cheaper than the little 3-packs in the grocery (it was by an even longer shot).  Right next to the semolina flour in little bags they had whole wheat flour in bigger bags (still manageable, not forklift size) in three grinds: fine, medium, and coarse.  I succumbed to the fine grind, 6# for less than $4.  How could I pass that up???  See, there are a few very interesting recipes in my book that call for whole wheat flour and once I'm back in the breadmaking groove I can begin to improvise. The dough is so easy to make, just takes two shakes of a lamb's tail and I've got lovely dough rising in the square, Tupperware keeper thingy.  I use it because: 1. it's square and B: the lid doesn't fit tightly anymore and you don't want a tight lid.  According to the book.  Also according to the book you don't need to clean out the previous batch of dough before mixing up the next one (if you do it right away).  You just take a spatula and scrape the leftover bits of dough clinging to the side into the water, salt, and yeast mixture and stir it together before adding the flour(s).  Genius!  So you're kind of making sourdough over time.  It's midwinter and bitter cold, right now I could eat ALL the bread--with butter and cheese, of course, must have fats and protein to survive the winter.

I stole a little computer learning time yesterday afternoon at work to finish the thumb on Fast Mitten #2.  This is not the prettiest pair of mittens I've ever made but they'll be warm and that's what counts.  My rate of computer learning has slowed considerably.  By yesterday afternoon my brain felt like mush, like nothing new was getting in, all of the instructions the tech was giving me just kind of bounced off.  I hope what I need to learn today is simple.  Maybe we'll get a delivery of a few things to put into stock, I could learn to receive things, that might be easy.

After supper and while the bread was baking I got my BLKG homework done.  If there are any Guild-ers out there reading this that haven't gotten their homework done, go grab a ball of worsted wool (it can be something leftover from a previous project) and a pair of US5, 6 or 7 straight needles, cast on 20 stitches and knit about 6 rows of stockinette.  It won't take you more than 10 minutes and then you'll be ready to go when tonight's lesson on thrummed mittens starts.  On your mark, get set, KNIT!

January 8--Carl Fischer, Hermit in Attic.  Uncle Henry lived in Meemaw's attic.  He had piles of books, papers, and old magazines shoved under the eaves and a narrow bed by the south dormer.  On rare occasions I was invited to visit him in his aerie, as he called it.  He would drag an upended crate over for me to sit on and we would share a bottle of Coke and look at the maps in an old atlas he kept under his bed.

Time to start my car so it's not so frozen when I try to drive it away.  Last working day this week. Hooray!
--Barbara