bearing blog

Sourdough.

A few weeks ago, I sent away to a little company in Washington state -- GEM Cultures.

Yesterday the postman rang and there was the little box on my porch, containing (hooray!) a couple of ice packs an instruction booklet, and a little vial of live, active rye-flour sourdough starter.  

I fed it carefully that evening, and again this morning, and then, after some fretting about how to proceed, I decided to bake the first loaf of bread by simply substituting some of the sourdough batter for some of the water and flour in my "normal" loaf.  In other words, I still put the same amount of jarred yeast and sugar into it.

Gorgeous!  

It didn't taste particularly sour, or particularly sweet.  It was just a wonderfully-textured sandwich bread, with none of the crumbliness that often characterizes my bread machine breads.   Here is my recipe.

• 1 cup fresh whole-wheat starter batter
• 1/2 cup water (boiled to remove chlorine)
• 2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp molasses
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 2 Tbsp coconut oil
• 2 Tbsp dry milk
• 2 scant tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp gluten
• 1 and 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

... baked using the 20-minute extended rise option.

The loaf seemed to rise pretty high; I think next time I might remove the jarred yeast and sugar, which I'm told will produce a denser, sourer loaf.  I'm curious about the difference.  I also need to experiment to determine whether it's necessary to boil Minneapolis tapwater first, as the instructions told me was necessary to keep some municipal tapwater from killing the culture.

After setting aside two portions to use next time, I had enough starter left to make a batch of waffle batter.  Will report on that tomorrow morning.

News cycle prediction.

This story about a part-time Census Bureau worker found hanged in Kentucky is pretty awful.  

My prediction:  if the national mainstream media cover it much, they'll largely focus on generic "anti-government hostility" (Timothy McVeigh/Waco model) and ignore things like the huge illegal pot-growing industry in southeastern Kentucky.

Just to be clear, I am making this prediction based on expectation of "it's just flyover country" oversimplifications, not so much on expectation of left/right bias.

See if I'm wrong.

Shaken baby syndrome: bogus?

Brief but interesting article, with links, by Radley Balko on the changing medical consensus (and the lag in the legal consensus) about "shaken baby syndrome," or SBS.  Some of the points raised:

• Symptoms that prosecutors have argued are proof of SBS are now known to occur because of other causes, including falls, infections, and reactions to vaccinations.
• Doctors used to think that classic SBS symptoms presented immediately after shaking, so that the person who was with the child when it died was certain to be guilty of manslaughter or even murder.  New research shows that the symptoms may take 3 days to set in.
• New research also shows that shaking without an accompanying head injury produces less serious bleeding than was previously believed.
• "I shook the baby to try to wake him up" has been taken as evidence of guilt.

I'm interested in the lag between scientific findings and their acceptance in other circles -- legal circles being one or the most important.  Balko notes:

In other words, there are almost certainly a significant number of innocent people in prison today who were wrongly convicted of shaking a baby to death. The problem is that there are also likely a number of guilty people who, nevertheless, shouldn't have been convicted on the basis of science-based testimony we now know to be false. The task will be convincing both the courts and the public to risk freeing actual child killers in order to free the innocent people convicted with flawed medical testimony...

This whole controversy speaks to a fundamental tension between science and law. Science moves along a slow trajectory from inquiry toward certainty. While the courts have been eager to embrace new science—particularly forensic science—at the trial level, they're reluctant to revisit those cases when the science changes.

Very interesting, especially for every parent who's ever worried that taking the baby to the emergency room after a fall might get him accused of child abuse...

Closing proliferation.

My friend Adrienne sent me this link to an amusing blog post about Christian letter/email closings:

When I was in high school my parents went to a really awesome weekend retreat, and they came home with all sorts of encouraging notes from people who had also been to the retreat, and many of those notes were closed with the following words:

In Him, 

Encouraging Christian’s Name

And I’ll go ahead and admit it: I was a wee big fascinated with the “In Him” sign-off. After practicing with it awhile in notes both real and imagined, I decided that I really liked working the Christian closing into my 16 year-old correspondence. For instance:

I don’t know what in the world he thinks that he’s thinking, but he’s DEFINITELY not thinking the same thing that I’m thinking. By the way, aren’t my new Reebok high tops the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I think they are SO MAJOR.

In Him,

Soph

...

Right after David and I got married I started teaching at a Christian school, and I noticed almost immediately that “In Him” was no longer in vogue. Oh, I mean, it was FINE, and it would certainly do in a pinch, but the closings were a bit more elaborate. All I could figure was that during the first half of my 20s, when I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to Things Christian, the body of Christ got together and decided to up the holy ante in their email and letter closings...

This is not something that Catholic bloggers are immune from...

Somali cuisine.

Kind of a neat article from The Heavy Table on Somali cuisine in Minneapolis.  At least 40,000 Somali people live in Minnesota, the largest concentration in the U. S., and many are in Minneapolis.  The article, which is a profile of a local restauranteur, includes a recipe for mango curry chicken using ordinary kitchen ingredients (assuming that you, like yours truly, consider mangoes and coconut milk to be ordinary ingredients; if not, perhaps you're reading the wrong blog).

The end of the beef.

So we buy our beef by the quarter, once every year or two, and right now we're down to the last few pounds of our most recent purchase.  Occasionally I find a steak in a stray corner of the freezer, but most of what's left is hamburger.  Still, there's no putting it off much longer:   Eventually I have to cook ... 

THE TONGUE!

(cue Wilhelm scream)

(or maybe that sound from Psycho)

My approach so far is to put it in the crockpot overnight, covered with water and with an onion and a bay leaf, and then after it's been slow-cooked for that night and part of the next day, to peel it and chop it up and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge, long enough, I hope, for me to forget about the horrifying visuals.

And then after it's been there long enough, I talk myself down and put it in some kind of recipe.  Hopefully one that will help me forget, because getting drunk first isn't an option.

This evening's attempt will be tacos de lengua.  I roasted some poblano and sweet bell peppers, and I have some tomatillos and onions and some other stuff, plus the necessary tortillas and cheese and such-like.  Will let you know how it goes.

UPDATE.  The tacos turned out really good; I think this will be my permanent beef tongue recipe (although fried rice also occurred to me, and maybe that's what I'll turn the leftover taco filling into).  I loosely applied the directions in this recipe for "taco truck style" tacos de lengua.  I saved back some of the meat, plain, to make meat-n-cheese tacos for a picky kid; another picky kid ate bean-and-cheese tacos with leftover frijoles negros I had in my fridge.  

NOOOOOOO!

Manufacturers of electric cars are looking into making them noisier to provide auditory warnings to pedestrians, notes Atlantic blogger Daniel Indiviglio.  Fine.   He quotes a Nissan expert who names the flying-car noise from "Blade Runner" as an inspiration.  Fine.  But then he comes up with this:

Or instead of "noise," they could choose something closer to song. But then I can't help but think about ice cream trucks, playing their repetitive high-pitched, plucked-out tunes. Maybe one day you'll be able to personalize the sound your car makes like you do ring tones for your mobile phone.

Perish the thought.  Quickly.  Please?  I can think of nothing that would make me resent the (otherwise welcome) electric/hybrid revolution more.  Aren't car stereos bad enough?

I'm not sure I'd like this, but the picture is gorgeous.

File this under "odd and possibly disgusting but fascinating anyway:"  Chocolate Avocado Cake  at Not Quite Nigella.  Check out that photo, it is something special.

(It *is* egg-free, dairy-free, and nut free, and probably quite rich.  I'm tempted, although I think I might rather have it in the form of a cupcake.  How do people think avocados would do as an egg replacer in general?)

Remembered sweet potato pie.

Years ago Hannah and I invented a savory custard pie, spicy and flavored with sweet potatoes, after a happy accident in the kitchen.  We swore we'd make it again but somehow it took me 4 1/2 years to do it.   Here I repost and slightly adapt the recipe, just in time for the first day of autumn, which suits it nicely:

Savory Sweet Potato Pie

• 4              sweet potatoes, roasted until very soft

• 4  or 5       eggs, beaten

• 1/2  c.       cream (or milk)

• 2 T             minced onion
(or more to taste)
• 1/2  tsp     salt

• 1/4 tsp     cayenne
(or more to taste)
• 1  tsp        nutmeg (or more to taste)

• 1/2 tsp     freshly ground black pepper (or more to taste)
 
• 1                unbaked, unsweetened pie crust

Arrange pie crust in Pyrex pie plate.  Remove sweet potatoes from skins and mash well.  Stir in eggs, onion, cream, salt, and spices.   Taste to correct seasoning; the black pepper should be noticeable.  Pour into pie shell and bake at 375 F for 20 minutes or more until lightly browned.

The spices listed in the recipe are a sort of minimum; I like it with a good deal more black pepper, myself, and I could see adding curry powder or garam masala to it instead of the nutmeg. I recommend serving it with cottage cheese or plain yogurt and sliced fruit, plus a simply prepared green vegetable.  A dish of white beans is also nice on the side, if you have one.

(What the heck is wrong with my camera's focus?)

It's messing with my head: A twenty-two-weeks report.

I had that dream again -- the dream where I'm surrounded by piles and piles of food, and I have to eat it all.  It was a new version, one in which I was staying in a hotel room with no fridge, and there were bowls of udon noodles, quart jars of vegetable soup, and platters of chips and fresh salsa sitting around on every available surface.  The precise reason wasn't clear to me, but somehow in the dream I was supposed to finish it all off before the stuff spoiled in the heat.

I woke up feeling bloated.  It  took me a while of being awake before I felt I could have breakfast.

* * *

One thing I haven't written very much about, since I became pregnant, is how well I'm managing to stay away from the cliff-edge of eating disorder.  One reason I haven't written very much about it is that I'm not actually doing very well, or at least, I'm not feeling very secure and I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, or maybe I'm afraid to express it honestly.

Still, I wrote so much about my successes last year, it seems only fair to report on the hard parts, the failures, now.

Yeah, pregnancy has made it hard. 

* * *

It's not that my weight has spiralled out of control.  I put on a couple of pounds quickly very early on, and have tracked the what-you're-supposed-to-gain chart pretty closely since then -- basically, I'm following a parallel line about two pounds higher than the range I'm supposed to be in.   In other words, I've gained a bit more weight than the current standard medical model would suggest I should, but not much more, and the gap isn't getting any wider.  Rationally, I know it's just fine.

But I am having a hard time staying rational about it.

* * *

Look, I know I'm pregnant and that pregnant women are supposed to gain weight.  But somehow there is this twang of anxiety at the numbers going up and up.  I literally have to keep doing the math in my head, lik this:

I've gained 16 pounds.  Oh yuck, that sounds so horrible.  It's more than I'm supposed to have gained by twenty-two weeks.

The upper end of the range says I should only have gained a maximum of 14 pounds by now.  Why can't I get below the upper end of the range?  I must be slipping.  This is awful.

OK, calm down, even the lower end of the range is 11 pounds.  I've only gained 5 pounds more than the minimum I'm supposed to gain.  This is not a crisis...

(repeat)

My brain goes through this, unbidden, several times a day.

* * *

A lot of it is baby and bustline, both welcome filling-out of my frame.  The rest of it seems to be going on below the waist.  My collarbones and arms still have definition, but... I can't stop thinking about how my thighs feel in my jeans.  Every time I slide behind the steering wheel of my car I notice the tightness of my pants on my thighs.  Every time I feel that I make a mental note:  I should be more careful, my legs are getting fat.  And then the rational part of me corrects that:  Women are supposed to put on extra fat stores when they are growing a new baby.  Thighs are an excellent place to put them, probably the best place as it's waistline and upper-body fat that is supposed to be a marker for heart disease and early death -- better to be a pear than an apple and all that.  So quit worrying, it's all fine.  But that doesn't stop me from thinking it again when I slide out from behind the steering wheel.

* * *

Sometimes I think it's simply seeing these numbers on the scale again, numbers that were so welcome on the way down last year.  My first thought is often "I can't believe I've gotten up this high."  And then I remember I'm supposed to see that number; I'm supposed to wind up somewhere between 133 and 143, and logically I have to pass through all the numbers between here and there on the way.

* * *

There's other things too that trigger awful feelings.  The baby is starting to compress my internal organs -- I know I have a little less room in my stomach, for example, than I used to.  Smaller amounts of food make me feel fuller.  And that full sensation, that "oops I ate too much" sensation --- well, it's a bad sensation for the recovering bulimic, let's just put it that way.  I have to go away and list to myself what I had on my plate to prove to myself that I have not been overeating, to remind myself that what I had was healthful, that so much of it was vegetables and fruit, for instance.  

* * *

I keep trying to go back to my "signal breakfast," the single boiled egg and the glass of tomato juice.  And of course I keep being unsatisfied by this, because for pete's sake, I'm almost 5 months pregnant and that is not enough food for a 5-months-pregnant woman to eat after a full night's sleep, of COURSE I'm hungry again by midmorning.  But I still feel like that extra slice of buttered toast, or that cup of cottage cheese, is me "giving in" rather than feeding myself what I need.  I know better, but I am having a very hard time feeling better.

* * *

Don't worry too much about me physically. I am pretty sure I *am* eating enough, and that the food I eat is all very good and very high-value food.  I eat lots and lots of green leafy vegetables, a habit from weight loss that is well adapted to pregnancy.  I have increased my intake of meat, especially beef and oily fish.  I'm eating lots of fresh berries right now while they're still in season, and all my bread and crackers and pasta and cereal are whole grain.  I don't desire milk to drink, but I eat yogurt, cream, and cheeses daily.  I craved ice cream at the very beginning and enjoyed it thoroughly.  Other than some tiredness that seems to respond well to an herbal iron supplement, I have no symptoms of deficiency:  not a single leg cramp yet this pregnancy, no swelling except once when I was hiking at high altitude.  Very little nausea, even.  And, of course, the weight gain is right about where it should be.  

* * *

The hard part is just accepting it as a good thing, and not something to be feared.