Extremely Sunday...
Oct. 18th, 2009 10:37 pmIt turns out my estimate for today's work was similarly flawed, but I managed to get it all done anyway. I may just be able to squeeze in some extra words tonight, so as to have something of the long-term project to show the project coordinator tomorrow morning.
* * * Meanwhile, on the food front, I whipped up a variation of the wheat loaf that I've been baking since starting this homemade-bread jag. It's a recipe from the artisan bread book, and basically it replaces 1-1/2 cups of wheat flour with the same amount of corn meal.
The result is a slightly different loaf that Galina says she prefers to the stuff that's been coming out of the oven so far. I like it, too. It doesn't have the color or taste of the good old Southern corn bread most of us are familiar with (Natalie brought some traditional corn bread by last week that was absolutely marvelous, but honestly, only as a dessert; it was that sweet!), but this broa has got... I don't know... character!
On the kombucha front, the kombucha "mother" looks robust, the end product seems just right in terms of sweetness and tartness, and I've pretty much standardized the recipe. However, I've decided to insert a second week-long step in the process to allow room-temperature kombucha - without "mother," though a small specimen develops over a few days even without one - to develop some fizz inside a plastic screw-top glass bottle (cold kombucha doesn't seem active enough to generate gas). To aid the process, I've added a teaspoon of sugar per quart to serve as raw material for gas generation, and have to make sure I check the pressure in one of the bottles after a couple of days, so as not to allow excessive pressure to develop.
* * * I've been kicking around ideas for the LJ Idol week 0 essay for the past few days, and the first idea I came up with just didn't "click." Eventually, I came up with a second alternative, which also didn't work out, so I spent some time brainstorming what could be done with the theme of "empty gesture," only to end up with an embarrassment of ideas, but still no clear direction in which to go.
I gave this some more thought while walking Shiloh this morning, except this time, I narrowed down the search parameters, and became more specific in what kind of thing I was looking for.
Suddenly, as if on demand, a lot of stuff came together out of the blue.
Weird.
Now, I just need to find the time to actually write the piece!
Cheers...
The result is a slightly different loaf that Galina says she prefers to the stuff that's been coming out of the oven so far. I like it, too. It doesn't have the color or taste of the good old Southern corn bread most of us are familiar with (Natalie brought some traditional corn bread by last week that was absolutely marvelous, but honestly, only as a dessert; it was that sweet!), but this broa has got... I don't know... character!
On the kombucha front, the kombucha "mother" looks robust, the end product seems just right in terms of sweetness and tartness, and I've pretty much standardized the recipe. However, I've decided to insert a second week-long step in the process to allow room-temperature kombucha - without "mother," though a small specimen develops over a few days even without one - to develop some fizz inside a plastic screw-top glass bottle (cold kombucha doesn't seem active enough to generate gas). To aid the process, I've added a teaspoon of sugar per quart to serve as raw material for gas generation, and have to make sure I check the pressure in one of the bottles after a couple of days, so as not to allow excessive pressure to develop.
I gave this some more thought while walking Shiloh this morning, except this time, I narrowed down the search parameters, and became more specific in what kind of thing I was looking for.
Suddenly, as if on demand, a lot of stuff came together out of the blue.
Weird.
Now, I just need to find the time to actually write the piece!
Cheers...