Bread at last...
Yesterday's panic was "losing" a large chunk of revisions already done, just as I was ready to insert it into the main manuscript. And thinking I'd lost one of my thumb drives while we were out of the house at the office supply, friend's office, grocery store...all that. All thoughts of doing bread vanished. However, I finally found it, so today got up ready to do bread and revisions. The bread got done.
Doing bread in someone else's house with someone else's tools (bowls, spoons, measuring cups, etc) is always an adventure. ("You mean you don't have a whatsit? You use a whoozit?" while thinking "A whoozit! How can you do this with a whoozit?" Answer: you learn a new skill.) Company had arrived and a lot of chatter was going on at the part of the breadmaking where I should have mixed in the walnuts, pine nuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. So I forgot them. So I put them in during kneading, the same way I've added salt when I've forgotten it--divide the stuff to be added into fourths, flatten out the dough, sprinkle a fourth of the stuff on, roll up jelly-roll style, turn 90 degrees, flatten again, add the next fourth, etc.
Long story short--edible bread. REALLY edible bread.
Revisions got somewhat sidetracked due to some other things, including a new promotional item that Laura Underwood came up with and I really like--business-card-sized prints of bookcovers, in little plastic sleeves. Alexis and I are going bookstore-diving this evening (well, actually, we're heading out to sign shelf stock, shop for books, and probably eat, drink, and be merry. I am having fun seeing how many people notice (and then either stare or quickly look away from) the big bruise on my left arm (from a sword...) It's not a bad one...but it's noticeable-- right now a dull olive green with purplish mottling.
I may try to get by a hardware or home building supply store to pick up a couple of essential breadmaking items my hosts don't have (the six-inch drywall float that is so very useful in scraping a counter clean without scratching it, and dividing a big heap of dough into loaf-sized amounts...about the same shape as the expensive ones in the upscale kitchen departments, but a tiny fraction of the cost. And works better...unlike the pretty wood and metal ones, it won't rot, rust, scratch your counter, or cut you.)
Bread. I really, really like making bread sometimes.
Doing bread in someone else's house with someone else's tools (bowls, spoons, measuring cups, etc) is always an adventure. ("You mean you don't have a whatsit? You use a whoozit?" while thinking "A whoozit! How can you do this with a whoozit?" Answer: you learn a new skill.) Company had arrived and a lot of chatter was going on at the part of the breadmaking where I should have mixed in the walnuts, pine nuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. So I forgot them. So I put them in during kneading, the same way I've added salt when I've forgotten it--divide the stuff to be added into fourths, flatten out the dough, sprinkle a fourth of the stuff on, roll up jelly-roll style, turn 90 degrees, flatten again, add the next fourth, etc.
Long story short--edible bread. REALLY edible bread.
Revisions got somewhat sidetracked due to some other things, including a new promotional item that Laura Underwood came up with and I really like--business-card-sized prints of bookcovers, in little plastic sleeves. Alexis and I are going bookstore-diving this evening (well, actually, we're heading out to sign shelf stock, shop for books, and probably eat, drink, and be merry. I am having fun seeing how many people notice (and then either stare or quickly look away from) the big bruise on my left arm (from a sword...) It's not a bad one...but it's noticeable-- right now a dull olive green with purplish mottling.
I may try to get by a hardware or home building supply store to pick up a couple of essential breadmaking items my hosts don't have (the six-inch drywall float that is so very useful in scraping a counter clean without scratching it, and dividing a big heap of dough into loaf-sized amounts...about the same shape as the expensive ones in the upscale kitchen departments, but a tiny fraction of the cost. And works better...unlike the pretty wood and metal ones, it won't rot, rust, scratch your counter, or cut you.)
Bread. I really, really like making bread sometimes.