Sourdough Update

Our faithful readership has, I am sure, been sitting white knuckled waiting in anticipation for news on Arthur’s sourdough project.  Alex too has looked on in great interest and constantly worried about what happens when she leaves Arthur alone for a few hours.  You will be happy to know that both man and yeast are doing quite well. 

Arthur had been hoping to see evidence of activity about 2 days from the beginning of the experiment.  It took about 4 days to see signs of microbe life.  The first evidences of life appeared as a small thin layer of foam on the surface of the flour-juice combination.  We stirred once again the next morning and large bubbles appeared on the surface.  When lifting the plastic wrap to stir the concoction it smelled of freshly baked bread (kind of).  Who would have thought that the wonderful smell that I have loved for so long was actually “yeast farts”?

Eventually the flour and liquid would settle out.  I'm fairly sure the liquid layer was basically straight hooch, which apparently indicates the yeast had pretty much used up their food storage.  We would finally be able to get to some bread making.

I "fed" my yeast some more flour and enough water to maintain the consistency and gave it 24 hours. Then it was time for typical bread making, with a 24 hour rise time thrown in.  Commercial bread yeast obviously has been bred to decrease rise times, so my sourdough took a lot longer.  The advantage sourdough is supposed to have is in the variety of microbes active; the hope is this will result in a greater variety of flavors, the most apparent being a strain of yeast that produces lactic acid and is responsible for making sourdough sour.

Anyway, the bread was a great success.  I had nice hole size in my bread, very comparable to what I would have obtained with baker's yeast.  Using just flour, sugar, and salt, the flavor was far from bland.  It was all I could hope for.

Since then, I have made sourdough biscuits, and while tasty, I probably didn't use good baking soda and got a poor rise.  We'll see what the future holds.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

r.

Gourmet Cooking

Friday afternoon at work I was discussing weekend plans with a patient.  She asked what I was doing that evening.  It just happened that one of my friends was hosting a Pinterest Party.  My patient was a member of an older generation so I had to describe the wonders of Pinterest to her-- Betty Crocker, Good Housekeeping, and the Farmers' Almanac all rolled into one resource, along with more frivolous items such as crafts and home decor, fashion ideas, and random workout suggestions.  I described that at a Pinterest Party a group gathers to actually complete some of the items that they have "pinned" in their virtual world.  In the past we have done sewing projects, homemade gifts for Christmas, and painted quotes on canvases.  Tonight our plan was to make some of the recipes that look delicious but are too much work to actually be practical to cook most of the time.  She thought this sounded like a wonderful idea and for once I think some one was a little jealous of my social life.

My friend Hillary hosts one of the gatherings every other month and it serves as a good time to catch up with everyone as well.  Rachel and Felicia were both able to come for the evening as well.  For appetizers we had fresh guacamole and hummus with carrots and sliced peppers.  We made bruschetta and crostinis.  My job was to grill the crostinis on the George Foreman-- this is gourmet I can handle.  The bruschetta was excellent.  I'm usually not a huge fan of straight up tomatoes but these were delightful.  The cream cheese spread may have helped because after all everything tastes better with cream cheese.  Our main entree was stuffed chicken.  This involved beating chicken breasts to smithereens which was a wonderful way to release some aggression for a few of us after a long week.  We stuffed the chicken with guac and cheese, bruschetta, or feta cheese and pesto.  Our side dish was twice baked potatoes.  My job was to scoop out the potatoes.  This tasked reminded me of making dugout canoes although it was decided that most of my "potato boats" wouldn't be sea worthy.  As a person whose goal is to spend less that 15 minutes of prep time on dinner each night most of these dishes were fairly time consuming but working with a group of friends and trying new and exciting "food adventures" made it a lot of fun.

The crown jewel of the evening was Rachel's homemade angel food cake.  I watched her at her craft-- sifting and sifting again to ensure the cake to be light and fluffy, making sure to get every detail just right.  When she presented the final product it was a lovely piece of art-- bright white and "it's so fluffy I'm gonna die".  We topped it off with fresh strawberries and freshly whipped cream.  Heavenly.

Our craft project for the evening was doing watercolors.  Over the past few months I have been learning the art of watercolor and have been using watercolors to make greeting cards.  I gave a few quick tips to remember to make watercolors fun and not so frustrating since I have had plenty of frustration with this medium recently.  It was fun to see how quickly everyone caught on and how we each have our unique tastes.  The beauty of getting together to work on a craft is that we can work on something while talking.  Most of the time we lose track of time which results in my husband calling to see if I am ever going to come home.  I actually left right on time this time and even brought him a slice of angel food cake as a piece offering for leaving him at home by himself.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

Bees and Trees

Our exciting weekend activity this past weekend was attending a county extension seminar on beekeeping and raising fruit trees.  I must admit I have been pretty excited about this event.  Driving out we weren't so sure how many people would also be interested about these topics but we turned the corner and saw that the parking in the field was filling up with a group of around 30 people gathered.  It is always reassuring that we aren't the only crazy ones out there.

The first item of business was donning the beekeeping veils and checking out the hives.  At first it was a little strange to stand around with bees flying this way and that.  It was a cool day and they had smoked the bees both of which calmed the activity in the hive.  A frame was pulled from the hive and was covered with a living mass of bees.  We could examine the honey comb, brood, and worker bees hurrying about.  We also got a chance to see a queen bee since they had ordered a new one for a new hive and the queen had just arrived in the mail.  As with any new skill or hobby there is a whole new language of terms to learn to discuss-- drones, queens, workers, supers, frames, Africization, brood, etc.

The next speakers talked about diseases that may occur with bee hives-- mites, viruses, colony collapse disorder.  I must say I have never before been so interested in an entomology presentation.  There was discussion about the increase in disease over the past 30 years in bees.  Some might be due to pesticide use but also bees from different parts of the world accidentally or intentionally being transported to the US.  Honeybees aren't native to the US and most bee stock is European in background.  However Asian and African strains are beginning to show up and introducing different diseases.  Another presenter shared the process of how to put the hive boxes together to get started and other general tips to get started.  Beekeeping sounds like a hobby that might take a little bit of skill and knowledge but doesn't require a ton of time if you don't want it to be so involved which is pretty attractive to us.

The last demonstration was from one of the county extension agents on planting and caring for fruit trees.  I have heard this gentleman speak about horticulture topics many times over the years since I was a kid in 4-H.  Arthur has previously talked about the beauty of craftsmanship and I have the same appreciation for someone who is an expert in the field sharing a wealth of knowledge.  In a computer age we do have the benefit of using tools like Google to find information but this doesn't replace asking an expert directly.  For instance, one of the attendees made a comment about a tree that had some bark split during the winter.  The expert knew what type of tree they had planted, what mistakes they had made a few years ago while planting the tree-- turning it into the wind rather than keeping it in the same orientation as at the nursery, and a simple fix to solve the problem all in a 2 minute response.  I had a similar experience with a patient a few months ago.  He had owned a greenhouse and nursery for 40 years so we were discussing gardening.  I made a comment about using grow lights in the basement for spinach, lettuce, and kale and that I couldn't seem to get the spinach to grow after replanting a few times.  His response-- it won't grow because it has to be at about 48F to germinate (our basement is cool but thankfully not that cool) so no matter how hard I try it isn't going to happen.  That was kind of a "well duh" moment for me but I am sure I would have made that mistake a few more times before giving up in frustration.  Experts just have invaluable experience that can save us all from making those mistakes ourselves.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-13/bee-in-an-apple-blossom/7085178

While right now bees and fruit trees are not in our immediate plans since we have our hands full with our worms and a blueberry plant, maybe someday we too will achieve the dream of a backyard apiary.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

Weekend getaway... to Nebraska

When my co-workers saw that I had a blank schedule for Friday they started asking questions about where I was going on vacation this time.  They give me a hard time because I do spend some of my downtime at work planning vacations and adventures.  I also hadn't missed work for several months so it is out of the usual for me to take any time off.  When questioned about my destination a few seemed disappointed with my answer... Nebraska, our new favorite vacation spot.  Ever since we took a weekend trip to Nebraska last fall Arthur and I have been excited to go back.  This time we planned a trip to the zoo in Omaha with his family.  Arthur can't seem to get enough of the Omaha Zoo.

We took off fairly early on Friday morning since we wanted to make sure we had time for everything on our schedule.  After a few hours of driving Arthur commented about how a self-driving car would be awesome but if he wasn't driving he would be paying attention to his surrounding or appreciating the day.  It was a beautiful spring morning with flora in various stages of bloom driving through rolling farm country.  We were tuned into Nebraska Public Radio which was relatively pleasant despite it being the spring pledge drive.  Our first stop was Nebraska City and the Lewis and Clark museum.  The museum was on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River where Lewis and Clark camp on their trip.  The museum had a lot of information about the plants and animals they found and documented for the first time ever. How in the world do you describe a prairie dog, badger, or bison.  It also shared some about the daily tasks- navigating and making maps, recording in journals, how they ate or handled medical needs.  It always astonishes me that 31 men cross the country that was basically unknown for 2 years covering 8000 miles and only one man lost his life-- to a ruptured appendix which would have been fatal even with the best medical care possible at that time.  The museum had a few trails to wander about on so we went down the bluff to the overlook of the Missouri.  Let's face, we really don't have any concept of rivers in Kansas.  Even most of the biggest rivers in Kansas don't have water in them a certain times of the year. After enjoying a few of the other trails we headed off to lunch.

Lunch was the main event for our day.  Ever since last fall when we had brunch at the Lied Lodge Arthur and I have been thinking about the meal, especially the smoked salmon.  While salmon wasn't on the lunch menu we both really enjoyed our chicken sandwiches.  The dining room was quiet and elegant with classical music softly playing-- making us feel pretty fancy and genteel.  As we were enjoying the fine dining experience it started to rain and hail just a little bit.  This was going to put a damper on our plans of hiking the trails around the Arbor Day farm.  We sat by the huge fire place for a while waiting to see if it would clear up and Arthur may have dosed off in the comfy leather chairs.

The weather continued to look iffy so we ventured on to Ashland, home of Mahoney State Park, which was our stop for the night.  On our drive I had read about all the wonderful things to do in Ashland, most of which are outdoors in this small community, in the Nebraska Tourism Guide-- I can't pass up a map or a tour guide.  One of the listings was for an art gallery with a museum of taxidermy wildlife and waterfalls.  This sounded intriguing.  It was an art gallery for a local artist and another man had donated his hunting collection to be on display.  It was like a miniature Cabela's diorama complete with caribou, moose, polar and grizzly bear, a jackalope, and baby alligator.  We chatted with the ladies working at the gallery and found out there were several other galleries on the two block Main Street.  I found out one of the artists did watercolors which I was interested since I'm trying my hand at watercolors these days (more on that later).  He was in the gallery working on a project and he talked to us for quite a while.  He is a former art teacher and decided to open a gallery here since it is half way between Lincoln and Omaha.  He gave me several tips about getting started with watercolors and told us about some of the techniques he had used to create the works hanging around the shop.  Even though we didn't plan on poor weather the side trip to the art galleries was a highlight for me.

Later in the afternoon the skies cleared up so we headed to the state park.  We were staying in the lodge for the night but decided to take a hike to the observation tower before settling in.  The state park is on the banks of the Platte River (yet another sizable river) with the tower overlooking the river and the surrounding valley.  Truthfully we didn't take in much of the view for the 70 foot tower because the wind was causing it to sway enough we stayed pretty close to the railing.  On our hike around the park we kept running into a herd of 6 deer.  Later that evening they hung out just outside our balcony.  After the hike Arthur settled in to an evening of NBA basketball and was as happy as a clam.  His parents, sister, and brother-in-law rolled in later that evening after their drive across the state.

Saturday morning we rose and got ready for the day.  We started off right with the breakfast buffet at the lodge dining room.  It it the spot-- especially the bacon and apple crisp.  The gang loaded up in the minivan and it was off to the zoo.  This zoo is really one of the best in the country and we wandered around it for 6 hours admiring the variety of animals.  Some of our favorites were the penguins, otters, sea lions, giraffes, sloths, jelly fish, and kookaburras.  My favorite animal on this trip was the frogsmouth, a bird from Australia that had the grumpiest glare on it's face.  This picture is close but doesn't quite capture the disdain in the bird's expression at the zoo.

https://frankeeg.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/025-tawny-frogmouth.jpg

After the full zoo tour it was time for a steak house.  We headed back out of Omaha to a restaurant, Round the Bend, I had found that was a few miles off I-80 in the middle of nowhere.  We pulled up about 4:45pm and the parking lot was already full.  Luckily we were able to be seated right away.  Arthur had a sirloin and reports that it is the best steak he has had in his life.  Once again he was a happy camper after being well feed.  It was a fun dinner to share with Arthur's family before we had to go our separate ways.  We thoroughly savored our drive home as the sun was setting driving through rural Nebraska and Kansas.  Yet again we tuned into public radio for The Prairie Home Companion and an hour of Irish folk music.  It is a wonderful feeling to take pleasure in the journey and not just the destination.  Overall we had a fantastic weekend in Nebraska and can't wait to go back because each time we run across new things to explore that we just don't have time for.  I also think there may be more Fridays off in my future because even a short vacation is relaxing (maybe even more so that our regular vacations that leave us worn out with blisters and sore muscles).  Omnia Vincit Amor.
 

Raccoons

A few weeks ago we wrote about how we have implemented a no-screen time an hour before we head to bed.  We broke our own rule the other night.  But it was well worth it.  We spent about an hour watching funny videos of raccoons on YouTube.  Arthur was laughing to the point of tears.  With the first video with the cotton candy we didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Still several days later just the mention of a raccoon will cause us to break out in a fit of laughter.  Here's a few of our favorites.  Omnia Vincit Amor..

1000 days

It's official.  We have been married for 1000 wonderful days.  This means at least 1000 kisses, 1000 I love you's, 1000 peals of laughter, 1000 shared meals, 1000 miles of evening walks, 1000 answers to the question what did you learn today, 1000 good night's, etc.  Traditionally, we tend to measure things such as marriage in terms of years.  But marriage is a day in and day out relationship.  Each day may have specific challenges and joys and choices.  And it is things done on a daily basis, not annually, that act as the cement to hold the marriage together and make it stronger.

Us standing in front of some major milestones (or limestones if a few letters are switched)

Reaching the milestone of 1000 days is significant but for us it holds even more meaning.  Some cold night in February while I was working on blogs about the years we spent dating I googled how many days it had been since our wedding.  (This may be why we use years to commemorate events instead of days- much easier to count years prior to the Google age.)  It had been something like 947 days.  Out of curiosity I calculated 1000 days and just started laughing when I saw the date.  I immediately went to the top of the stair to yell down at Arthur in the basement-- this is how we share important info.  I had him guess the date.  His first guess was April 15 (I think he had be working on our taxes that day.)  Then the light bulb went off, "It's April 1, isn't it?"  Not only does April 1 mark 1000 days of marriage but it is also the anniversary of our first date 6 years ago.  Some may say it is coincidence but we view it more as a "God wink"-- the April Fools joke is on us.  Omnia Vincit Amor.