Sweet Yet Sour

Sourdough Start

Sunday, December 30th, 2007 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

This is a picture of my sourdough start. It lives in a ceramic pot in my fridge. I say “it lives”, because I consider it a living thing. It’s almost like having a pet. Let me explain…

Sourdough start is a lot like yeast, it has bacteria in it that helps bread to rise. It is generally used in place of yeast, although I do have several recipes that include both sourdough start and yeast.

This particular sourdough start was given to me by my mother. It was entrusted to me only after I had proven that I was responsible enough to properly care for the start. So I received the start after my cat Simon was diagnosed with feline diabetes and had to be given insulin and pills twice a day. It was then that I received the precious start. (That was almost 7 years ago, and both Simon and the start are doing just fine.)

This particular sourdough start has been handed down in my family for generations and is said to have come across America on the Oregon Trail with one of my ancestors. So the basis of the start is old. I received about a cup of the start from my mother, the way that it was passed on to her, and I use and care for the start.

With the sourdough start I received a packet of recipes and some instructions called, “The Care and Feeding of Sourdough Start”. Seriously, it’s a pain-in-the-ass bread making pet. The start must be used and “fed” at least every 10 days or its power will diminish and I will have to beg my mother for more. So far, it hasn’t come to that, but I have to say that every once in a while I go over the 10 day limit.

Here’s an example of what can be done with sourdough start:

These are sourdough English Muffins, which I made yesterday, much to the delight of my husband. They’re really great. The recipe that I have calls for 1 cup of sourdough start for the muffins. So, I take out a cup of start from my ceramic pot and use it in the muffins, and then to “feed” the start, I put back in 1 cup of flour and a little less than 1 cup of milk. The start then gets mixed well and put back into the fridge for another time.

It’s actually very versatile stuff. I have recipes for sourdough pancakes, chocolate cake, English muffins, potato bread, sandwich bread, etc.

It is possible to make your own sourdough start; I found a recipe for it in a Frugal Gourmet book once. But really, I am quite lucky to have my own family’s passed down start; it feels nice to know that I have something that has been used by many generations of my family.

If you would like to make your own, let me know and I can find the recipe for making the start, but I would not reecommend it for anyone but a serious baker. It does really need to be cared for properly and takes a fair amount of dedication. (I remember once that my mother was requested to send a bit of hers to a friend on the east coast; it was quite complicated and involved dry ice and overnight shipping.)

Anyway, this sourdough start is my other pet, besides the greyhound and the two cats. I feed and care for it and it helps me make great bread and other stuff. In fact, it may have even landed me my husband. Mike adores the English muffins and the potato bread I can make with it, so he may have married me in part because he’s a bread fiend and I have sourdough start…

Weekend Party

Monday, December 17th, 2007 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

Mike and I headed up to Nate and Laura’s yesterday for their annual Christmas Party.  It was a beautiful drive, with all the snow, and Mike’s Element did just fine on the snow covered road up to the house.  (On the way down the snowy road he tried a few a manuevers on the snow, I think to see if I would car sick on him, but otherwise, he’s a good driver.)

I took up some Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles, the recipe for which I have put up on the RRC website. I finally figured out how to get my truffles to be nice round balls instead of little oblong objects that could be mistaken for moose poop.  They seemed to go over well with the party crowd.

It was a nice party, the house looks great all decorated for Christmas, and I’m really glad that Nate and Laura have the party every year, since there are people that come to the party that we don’t normally see throughout the year. 

We took up a few of Mike’s photos that Nate and Laura wanted to hang on their walls.  Hopefully we generated some interest in his photos with people that Mike might actually consider charging.  We laid all of the photos out in the office and there were a few people who wanted the address to his photography website (www.mikemunhall.com/photography). I tried my best to sell his photos, but I’m just not enough of a people person to ever really be in sales, but I do really well saying “I really like that one”.

Anyway, despite the fact that there were lots of nice people there, the conversation is a little boring when you’re pregnant.  Here’s how almost all of the conversations went:

Other: “Congratulations! When are you due?”

Me: “Thanks. April 21st.”

Other: “Do you know what it is?”

Me: “Yes.”

Other: “What is it?”

Me: “We’re not telling anyone.”

Other: “Why? Can’t you tell me?”

And from there, the conversation pretty much ends.  People really want to know the sex of the baby and are a little frustrated when they don’t get to know.  I’m going to start telling people that we don’t know, just to save myself the looks of “Why aren’t you telling me?” that I am getting.   

Frankly, Mike and I decided that we did want to know for ourselves, but that there were enough people who already (before we even got pregnant) had ideas as to what the baby should be named, that we are going to keep the sex to ourselves.  If we told those people with opinions what the sex is, we would be setting ourselves up for having to say “no” to a lot of suggestions from people who really don’t have any business suggesting the name of a child that they are not going to raise themselves. 

The other uncomfortable part about going to a party when you’re slightly pregnant (at this point I have a slight bump) is that people stare at your belly a lot during conversation.  I’ve never had much up top; the boob fairy skipped my house when I was a teenager, so this thing where people stare at anything but your head during the conversation is a little new to me.  It makes me want to hook up some sort of motor or something so that I can hit a button in my pocket and a little fake baby arm will flail underneath my shirt.  Oh that sounds like fun…

Top 10 Desert Island Discs

Thursday, December 13th, 2007 | The Daily Special | 3 Comments

When we lived in London and didn’t have a t.v., my sister and I would listen BBC radio a lot.  One of our favorite BBC shows was “Desert Island Discs”.  The jist of the show was that they would have a celebrity come on the show and talk about their 10 most favorite CDs that they would want to have on them on a desert island and why.  It was 1994, so at the time it was not possible to say “I would just bring my iPod”.

The show always got me thinking about what my top 10 desert island CDs would be and if I could even limit myself to just 10.  These days I would just bring my iPod, but if I were limited to only put 10 CDs on there, what would they be?  This is a hard one; I like a huge range of music and frankly, I get bored after a while with most things.  I listen to an album obsessively for a while and then I get sick of it and move on to something else.

Anyway, for the moment, these are my 10 desert island discs (in no particular order).  What are yours? (I’ve tagged some of you at the end.)

( As I recall from the show, multi-disc sets were counted as one):

1. Aaron Copeland conducts Copeland.  I love Copeland, and could not get by without him or “Appalachian Spring”.  “Simple Gifts” makes me want to cry (or dance) sometimes, and I feel the same way about “Letter from Home” and “Quiet City”. 

2. Joni Mitchell – Hits and Misses.  I love a good Joni tune, she makes you think and has a beautiful voice. I love both her early stuff and her new music.  The change in her voice from the 1960’s to now is kind of sad (too much smoking) and yet fascinating.  I need an album that has everything from ”Both Sides Now”, “Case of You” to “Come In From the Cold” and this set covers all the bases.

3. Pretty in Pink Movie Soundtrack – It’s a cheesy 80’s movie, but I can’t help myself on this one because it has so many great tunes and artists.  “Wouldn’t it be good?”, “Please please please let me get what I want”, “Shell Shock” and of course “Pretty in Pink” (I’m a closet Psychedelic Furs fan).

4. Essential Bach – I was raised in a home where we listened to a lot of classical music, opera, and jazz.  Some of it stuck with me and I could not live without Suite No. 3, “Sleepers Awake” and all of the Brandberg Concertos.  Yep, I’m a geek, but I love Bach; he was a great composer and no one can deny it after they hear his music.

5. Puccini’s Greatest Arias – Puccini writes a damn good aria; they can be both saddening and beautiful at the same time.  “Nessun Dorma”, “O Mio Babbino Caro” and “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” are not to be missed.  I’m actually not a huge opera fan; I was so little that I slept through most of the ones that I was taken to when I was little. But Puccini is something else entirely and so romantic and beautiful that even non-opera fans would like his music.

6. Beastie Boys – Sold Gold Hits – These compilation albums really work for me; I get all the good stuff without all of the extra filler crap that sometimes goes on albums.  You too have to admit that you love a good round of “Sure Shot” or that you will crank up the car radio when you hear “So What’cha Want” like you’re back in high school and that “cool” means really loud car speakers…

7. The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out – My mother loves Dave Brubeck and passed her love on to me.  “Take Five” was revolutionary at the time and bears out through time as a great classic of the West Coast jazz movement.  This album also includes some other favorites of mine, “Blue Rondo a la Turk” and “Three to Get Ready”.

8. Bill Cosby – Wonderfulness. – This is not a music album, but I’m setting the rules here and I say that I can have this on my list.  I grew up listening to this Bill Cosby album and another of his albums “I Started Out as a Child”.  Both are hilarious and were not so adult that we could not understand them when we were children; they really contain a lot of kid humor.  The best cuts on the album are “Chicken Heart” and “Tonsils” and they are both about funny things from a child’s perspective.

9. Bodeans – The Best of the Bodeans: Slash and Burn – Yet another compilation album that covers all my favorites.  I started out college at a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin.  I discovered in my freshman year that I was surrounded by midwesterners (mostly Cheeseheads and Iowans) that loved this band called the “Bodeans”.  (It is necessary here to say your “o” with the proper Wisconsin accent; ask me some time and I can go into full Wisconsiner and tell you all about the mall in Sheboygan.)  We spent so much time my freshman year with our doors open listening to my neighbor’s Bodeans albums that I began to love the Bodeans too.  It’s great music and will always remind me of all of us yelling out the lyrics to “Still the Night” and “Paradise” from our dorm rooms.

10. Garden State Movie Soundtrack – I’m down to my last one and I’m panicking because I feel like I really can’t limit myself to 10, but I’m going to stick with it and pick another album that has multiple artists.  The Garden State soundtrack has a really good mix of music and artists; Coldplay, The Shins, Zero 7, Frou Frou and Thievery Corporation to name just a few.  This should keep me happy for a while.

I know I’m missing some others of my favorites, Nina Simone, Nora Jones, NIN, Shawn Colvin, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, but I could obsess about this forever; I’ll just bring my iPod…

So Mike, Laura, Nate, Rena and Tori, you’re tagged, what are your top 10 desert island discs?

Peppermint Ice Cream

Thursday, December 13th, 2007 | The Daily Special | 1 Comment

Hallelujah! Peppermint ice cream season is upon us!  One of the many things that I love about the holiday season is that peppermint ice cream begins showing up on store shelves.  I have every intention of gobbling up several gallons of this stuff in the next few weeks to save up for the rest of the year when there is no peppermint ice cream. 

Although why this is a seasonal ice cream is beyond me.  Peppermint ice cream should always be up on the shelf, right next to Tin Roof Sundae, which I can rarely find these days as well.  What happens to the really good flavors of ice cream that we had when we were little and there was no Ben & Jerry’s?

Here’s the great thing about peppermint ice cream, if you get the right kind it is peppermint flavored ice cream with little bits of peppermint mixed in with the ice cream. It makes the whole thing extra pepperminty and this part of the ice cream has special meaning to me; it brings back happy memories of my childhood. 

Here’s the deal, my sister and I are both a little OCD, and one of the many ways that you can tell that is by the way that she and I would eat our peppermint ice cream when we were small.  When we were children we would eat our peppermint ice cream sitting at the kitchen counter, with a little blue plate next to each of our bowls.  On each of our plates we would place the bits of peppermint we found in our ice cream, sorted by color (red, green and white).  When we finished our bowls we would count to see who had the most of each color. 

It’s sick I know, but my sister and I were pretty competitive about our candy when we were little, and this was just another extension of our obsession.  (At Easter my sister would weigh our candy to see who got the most.)

Anyway, even though it was a little weird, I remember those times quite happily; sitting at the kitchen counter with my sister and praying for the most peppermint bits.  Maybe I’ll take some peppermint ice cream over to my sister’s tonight and see who wins…