January’s half gone!

Yesterday we left some of you in suspense about our bread in the oven. The best way to describe the outcome, after the Better Half [BH] and I taste tested the results, is to say we’ve found a different rye bread recipe that looks promising. That’s probably what I’ll try next.

Baking with rye flour is very different than with wheat. I hadn’t realized how much rye dough lacks oven spring. I think I over misted the dough and the crust turned out excessively crusty. So the end result was overly dense and moist with too firm a crust and a taste I found more okay than did the BH. My most significant “learning experience" in more than a decade of baking artisan bread reminds me of the ancient saying “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” That leaves me with six downs and seven ups to go.

Although we’ve passed the below zero high temperatures, single digit highs are barely better. When gassing the Jeep today, I sat in the vehicle instead of cleaning the windshield. We’ll tackle the cleaning chores next week when the temperatures are forecast to climb above freezing and we may get some rain mixed with snow. Does it seem to you it’s almost like someone has broken the climate?

winter evening: red bird

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday evening, after sunset, I got a glimpse of two cardinals perching in the trees behind the house. Since we’ve seen nary a sign of such birds for weeks, I was heartened by the sighting. It may be one of the  few good things to come out of our current cold spell.

Red Bird

By Mary Oliver

Red bird came all winter

Firing up the landscape

As nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,

Those dun-colored darlings,

So hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds,

I know he has many children,

Not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason-

Perhaps because the winter is so long

And the sky so black-blue,

Or perhaps because the heart narrows

As often as it opens-

I am grateful

That red bird comes all winter

Firing up the landscape

As nothing else can do.

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