Mmm, Baking Bread

There's nothing like the smell of bread baking, is there?  I realized this morning that the dough in the fridge was at the end of its endurance for sitting around waiting to be baked (2 weeks) so I formed a couple loaves, let them rise while the oven heated, and popped them in.  Look how pretty they turned out!  I intended them to be round but the dough is so moist and evidently I didn't use quite enough cornmeal on the pizza peel so they didn't slide off easily and got oval-ed on the way onto the (still broken) baking stone.  (Does anyone know of a food-safe glue I could use to turn the three pieces back into one?) (btw, the wet on the peel is from the cornstarch wash I brush on to make the sesame seeds stick, not moisture leaching out of the dough)

After supper I got the fronts of the Red Marl sweater up to (and, I confess, a bit over) 2" so I get to start the neck and shoulder decreases.  Maybe today at work, maybe tonight on the couch.  I did manage to get the snow blower and lawn mower traded while the cauliflower/chickpeas/green olives with garlic roasted.  (Oh my, it was so good, even Durwood liked it and he's not such a fan of cooked olives as I am.)  Then I broiled a Sesame & Lime marinated tuna steak for us to share, and we split a big, sweet, navel orange after our meal.  The poor people ate rich last night, I'm telling you.  We love all the fish on sale during Lent so we try to stock up since we're determined to eat fish at least once a week.  I'm hoping to campaign for Durwood to make another crab pie next week.  No only is it To. Die. For. but then we get fish twice that week.

This morning there was a smear of cloud posed behind the still-leafless maple tree out back.  I thought it looked dramatic and interesting.  The rhubarb leaves get visibly bigger every day.  Maybe 10 more days before PIE.  

April 16--Steve Uzzell, Log Yard.

Cords and cords lay
under autumn skies
tinted orange by the setting sun--
firewood for winter nights,
boards for building houses,
pulp for reams of paper,
all potential hidden
in a pile
of logs.
~~~~~

It's so nice and sunny today, supposed to warm into the 60s, so I'm wearing a skirt to work, baring my fish-belly white legs to the air for the first time since, oh, October.  If you come to the dive shop bring your sunglasses, the glare should be blinding.  Time to Cheerio and scram.
--Barbara