(no subject)
I think I will try to start posting here more often. Things to post about:
- Breadmaking Adventures
- Gardening
- Music
- Random Stuff-Making
My most recent breadmaking adventure was bagels. It actually isn't as hard to make them as I expected, but I did run into a few pitfalls. The basic process is:
- Make dough
- Let it rise twice
- Shape
- Let rise briefly
- Boil
- Bake
The problem I had was mainly in shaping them: some turned out a nice bagel shape but others turned out kind of odd and flattened. The basic technique is to poke a hole in the middle of the bagel and then spin it around your finger, enlarging the hole. I thought that I got the hang of that for the second batch of bagels, but they rose too long after shaping and kind of fell down in the oven. They still ended up quite tasty though! I would definitely try making them again.
The previous adventure was baguettes, which didn't work quite as well. I tried to bake too many in the oven at the same time and impeded the air flow; I also didn't really shape the loaves evenly.
As far as gardening goes, It's starting to be spring here in Michigan, and we've got a few bulbs starting to bloom. I can't remember the names of anything we planted, but there's these exciting little purple things on the side:
and these little white things in front that are weighed down by the rain:
and I've got some tulips that are about ready to bloom!
The first things I saw to bloom were all these little blue things
There's lots of daffodils blooming around the neighborhood:
It's been kind of rainy, but everything is starting to green up, and mist + rain + green is far better than mist + rain + grey + brown.
I've been playing in the Pittsfield Open Band, a local open contra dance band. It's been good for me in a few ways: playing different kinds of music (a variety of Irish, Scottish, French Canadian, American old-timey, etc.), working with a band leader, playing for dancers. I had been thinking the main purpose would be to improve my repetoire, which it definitely has been, but I've been becoming a bestter band leader myself as a result of playing in that band, I think. It also gives me an excuse to pull out my tinwhistles more, since most of the contra stuff is in convenient keys for that! We have a gig this Saturday the 25th which I haven't really practiced for because of niquerio's concert last Saturday which overlapped with band practice. I should practice some for that tonight.
I also decided to try my hand at building some bookshelves. There's a couple spots in the house that are a little too narrow for a normal bookcase -- they are 24" whereas most bookcases are more like 27" -- so I figured I would try putting some together. I got an inexpensive circular saw and sander, some cheap 1x12 boards and a bunch of hardware, and we'll see how it turns out. I kind of expect it to turn out with no right angles and not to stand up on its own, so anything better than that will be considered success.