Pictures!

I am in the middle of writing or editing about seven documents and have no energy for writing anything else. But I do have some pictures to share. Olivia sent me a batch from her visit a few weeks ago, and I just did a practice session with the new camera while Jake was brushing Rocky out on the balcony. Here's a picture of the new camera, taken with the old camera and vice versa. They are taken in my dark office space, sitting on top of interview notes I need to transcribe and last week's to do list. As you can see, I'm going from idiot-proof beginner level to advanced intermediate in one step.

For whatever reason, I just can't focus well with the new camera and can't figure out why. The settings are not well programmed and I need to use the viewfinder instead of the screen, so I think I need to bring it to a camera shop to see if they can set it up for me and start from there. Compared to Olivia's pictures--here's her shot of butter dipped dinner rolls we baked for Easter dinner--I definitely have a ways to go. Hers are sharp even though they are taken in really low light and, I think, without flash. I have no idea how that works.

The rolls are straight from the Bread Bible. They freeze really well but don't keep long on the counter, so I have started making double batches and keeping some on hand in the freezer. We're trying to make our way through the contents of the freezer this month before heading to NYC for the summer, so there are a lot of dinner rolls in my future over the next few weeks. They're all white flour, and my attempts at whole wheat versions have been only so-so. With about 20% wheat flour is passable, but the all white version is definitely better both taste and texture-wise.

And here's we are at UW.

It was of course overcast the whole time she was here, but the cherry blossoms were blooming and all the undergrads were out doing their thing, so she got a pretty good impression of the place.

But as a hint of what may be possible with the new camera, here's a pretty decent Rocky action shot taken with the new camera. I have no idea how it happened.


A pug update: Rock's eye is much better. Still a red and buggier than usual, but definitely getting better. There is enough improvement that he is no longer in the lampshade collar and we don't feel guilty putting him through the drama of a big brushing.

I think Jake enjoys it as much as Rocky hates it.

April cheesecake challenge

It's time for the monthly Daring Bakers challenge. It's a cheesecake, and the "challenge" is to change it up and customize a basic recipe (below).

It also gave me an opportunity to use the new camera that Jake got me for my birthday! I have a complicated relationship with it: I've been complaining incessantly about my crappy camera, and Jake got me a really nice one--which is great. But it is big, and has all these lenses and is more complicated than I know how to deal with. I hate having a new thing to learn, but have to admit it takes pictures mine never could. Like this one of the cake cooking in a water bath in the oven. And here's the finished cake. As you will note, I have some work to do with the camera.

I like that it looks sort of like a fried egg, which is fitting, because it has a hell of a lot of eggs in it. There is chocolate and caramel drizzled on top, which is overkill but delicious. I have taken many, many pictures of cheesecake tonight in an effort to figure out how to use the f-ing camera without picking up the giant manual.

My stab at customizing was a banana sour cream cheesecake with a Nilla Wafer crust. I was kind of thinking about the banana pudding recipe on the Nilla Wafers box. I had bananas and a bunch of home-raised eggs in the fridge from Jake's cousin's best friend. Renee was Rocky's first vet when we moved out here and she has 30 chickens, an emu and a horse. And a dog. Her eggs have blue shells and very yellow yolks.

So I consulted with the Cake Bible and went from there. I swapped out the heavy cream for the banana, and added 8 oz sour cream for as much cream cheese. I used six egg yolks instead of three whole eggs. And the crust is just crushed Nilla Wafers and melted butter, without any added sugar, pressed in the pan and pre-baked for 10 minutes before adding the cake batter. The water bath is a pain in the ass in a springform because you have to use all this tinfoil and water seeps in anyway. But I also made some mini-muffins and loaf pan sized cakes using silicone pans which turned out great without sticking at all. Here's a mini, as I was eating it and experimenting with and without the flash, and trying this manual focus business. Turns out flash can be bad and focusing is hard.

I did the crust on Sunday, baked the cakes on Monday, and then decorated the big one tonight while watching The Biggest Loser. So while the announcer was talking about how these folks lost 600 pounds this season, I was melting chocolate with heavy cream and drizzling it on a ridiculously rich custard cheesecake. But it's good! Really creamy and actually kind of light (tasting, at least). Unfortunately, Jake is in DC until tomorrow and I'm not going to work tomorrow and I have no socializing planned for the next couple of days--so I have cheesecake for 10 in my fridge and no takers at the moment.

I needed a baking project, though. I'm feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff that needs to get done in the next month before we go to NYC for the summer. My job wants me to do some pretty involved projects while I am gone and to take on more work and hours when I get back. I am resisting. But I'm finding myself back in that uncomfortable, if familiar, territory of being overextended and placing the dissertation work on the back burner. I am thisclose to really getting the thing done -- one paper just needs to be written, and the data is rolling in for the second. Not that there isn't lots of work to be done, of course there is (and I was just reminded by my advisor that I never handed in the final revisions on my proposal) but I'm starting to be able to see the end. And am actually close to where I should be based on when I started.

The up side is that all the work on my plate is good stuff and on point with my research. The Housing Authority wants recommendations for how to change some fundamental aspects of the program. But it's a big ask and I feel like I'd be starting from scratch, with little support. So first things first, and this summer needs to be all about the dissertation and the wedding. And I need to figure out how to turn that into a short mantra so that I can repeat it to myself on the treadmill or in yoga or whenever I start to entertain ideas of taking on more projects.

Recipe below:

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Broken phone!

I forgot to mention: my phone, which has been on it's last legs for about three or four months now, has also taken a turn for the worse ... I can receive calls but the screen is now blank, so I can't read or send text messages, see saved phone numbers, or tell when I have missed a call. I do know when I receive a text message, though, I just can't tell who it's from or what they want to be telling me. Functioning phone this week, hopefully. So the home phone and email are a better bet that the cell for now.

Poor Rocky!

Poor Rocky is having pretty nasty eye problems this week and weekend -- maybe an ulcer in his right eye that isn't clearing up yet. I took him to the Vet on Wed., who gave me eye drops and told me to take him in ASAP if it got worse. It did, so I took him to the vet ER last night. This picture is us leaving. They gave him a second set of eye drops, saying the first set could be making it worse (great.) but this morning he looks pretty miserable. He hates the lampshade thing, and is completely confused by it. He basically just sits and whines, or bumps into things with it if he tries to move around. But if I take it off he starts pawing at the bum eye. Walking him was pretty comical, if also sad -- he can't sniff stuff to then pee on it, so he sort of bumps it with the lampshade and then looks at me quizzically. I finally took it off so he could take care of business.

So about $400 down so far, and no closer to his eye looking better or knowing what's up with it. And no luck getting work done this weekend. I'm trying distract myself from the pug for a couple of hours until I can decide if it is getting worse and if I should drag him to the vet again. I'm not sure what else they can do until it gets so bad that they'd have to do something involving incisions (poor pug!). Jake's cousin is coming over for a bit, and I have some articles to read to revise one of my dissertation committee member's papers. And I have something I'm supposed to bake for the Daring Bakers monthly challenge thing ... so plenty to do between bouts of staring into Rocky's yucky right eye.

Hello!

I can't believe it's been nearly three weeks since I've posted anything. This have been busy: there was a wedding in Houston; Jake's sister Bree came to visit, and then my niece Olivia visited (which was great). It was my birthday. Then there was work -- I found out I got a grant I applied for, which I am excited about. More on that soon. Playing catch-up at work took over this past week.

Olivia and Bree will hopefully send some pictures from their visit soon -- including some that they snuck while I was trying on wedding dresses at a fancy-pants place. Bree really got the ball rolling on the dress thing -- she researched wedding dress places and made me a few appointments, and then the two of them played peanut gallery as I tried a few on. New words: ruching; organza; French bustle. I tried on dresses that were worth more than my car.

The wedding in Houston was lovely, and if possible I will shamelessly steal ideas from it--including if at all possible the photo booth idea that these pictures came from. We had a lot of fun with that photo booth. We also found a Kettle Korn machine in the Sky Mall catalogue that will probably be making the wedding trip. It'll be my contribution to Dairymen's.

But my real obsession since the Leila and TJ wedding are these amazing rosewater pastries that Lelia said were Persian baklava, along with some shortbready-type cookies that were much lighter (albeit definitely heavy on butter and sugar) and may be made with rice or chickpea flour. I have spent several minutes that I will never get back google image-ing "Persian rosewater cookies" with no luck finding an exact match. Here's a really bad picture of some that Leila and her mom sent me home with.

But I did find a Persian bakery in Seattle that I'll check it out as soon as I am over the work catch-up hump, and have recovered from the sugar high I have from Olivia's visit. We made bread and brownies, Jake got me birthday cupcakes, his cousins gave easter/b-day candy and my boss gave me really good chocolate .... i need a break. And I have to get some wedding crap off my list. People are being very generous with offers to help -- Amy, my cousin Gaby in Guayaquil, Jake's sister. I will enlist them.

But the dress thing is apparently time-sensitive. I have tried on dresses ranging from $300 to $5000, at a consignment store, a wedding dress outlet store, the fancy-pants boutique and a tailor/designer who custom makes a dress from a sketch he draws for you. The message from all--the former ballerina-turned high-end gown seller, the mom with the masters in public administration who wanted her own business and hours, the business that helps brides have more eco-friendly weddings -- was "get on it ASAP." Okay okay okay. I'm on it. This cake lady named Joyce in Wisconsin is making similar noises about ordering a cake. Ok.

XO

Spinach pasta!

This month's Daring Baker challenge, my second, was pretty intense: homemade spinach lasagna, with bechamel and meat sauces. Lots more work than I was prepared for, but in the end it was really very good. Because it is just the bechamel and some parmesan in place of heavy ricotta or mozzarella, it was a lot lighter than your typical lasagna. I added an extra egg to the pasta recipe--two eggs was just not enough moisture to absorb all the flour, even with the blanched spinach.

I made the same sauce I always do as opposed to the one DB provided (grind three or four meats together yourself?), and I added an extra egg to the pasta dough. Two eggs was just not enough to hold it together. A fourth probably wouldn't have been a bad idea. It's a nice project if you have a couple of people to help out, but I doubt I'll take this one on again. It's labor intensive even for me. I'm beat. I'm glad to have done it, though--this Daring Bakers business is definitely teaching me about cooking. And is a nice escape from work, which is getting out of hand at the moment.

(Very long) recipes for the pasta and bechamel, and directions for cooking the lasagna, are below. I used the red sauce I always make, so left out the DB's (very long, grind four types of meat yourself) version. The directions are for hand-rolling, which seems insane, but I used a pasta maker. Oddly, the only kitchen appliance Jake owns is a pasta machine.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

All recipes below from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)

(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)
Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time

Assembling the Ingredients:
Have all the sauces, rewarmed gently over a medium heat, and the pasta at hand. Have a large perforated skimmer and a large bowl of cold water next to the stove. Spread a double thickness of paper towels over a large counter space. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Oil or butter a 3 quart (approx 3 litre) shallow baking dish.

Cooking the Pasta:
Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 2 minutes. If you are using dried pasta, cook about 4 minutes, taste, and cook longer if necessary. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on the paper towels. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Assembling the Lasagne:
Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of about four overlapping sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 3 or 4 spoonfuls) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the ragu. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel and about 1/3 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.

Baking and Serving the Lasagne:
Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center (test by inserting a knife – if it comes out very warm, the dish is ready). Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.

#1 Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)

Preparation: 45 minutes

Makes enough for 6 to 8 first course servings or 4 to 6 main course servings, equivalent to 1 pound (450g) dried boxed pasta.

• 2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)
• 10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
• 3&1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour (organic stone ground preferred)

Working by Hand:

Equipment

A roomy work surface, 24 to 30 inches deep by 30 to 36 inches (60cm to 77cm deep by 60cm to 92cm). Any smooth surface will do, but marble cools dough slightly, making it less flexible than desired.

A pastry scraper and a small wooden spoon for blending the dough.

A wooden dowel-style rolling pin. In Italy, pasta makers use one about 35 inches long and 2 inches thick (89cm long and 5cm thick). The shorter American-style pin with handles at either end can be used, but the longer it is, the easier it is to roll the pasta.
Note: although it is not traditional, Enza has successfully made pasta with a marble rolling pin, and this can be substituted for the wooden pin, if you have one.

Plastic wrap to wrap the resting dough and to cover rolled-out pasta waiting to be filled. It protects the pasta from drying out too quickly.

A sharp chef’s knife for cutting pasta sheets.

Cloth-covered chair backs, broom handles, or specially designed pasta racks found in cookware shops for draping the pasta.

Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.

Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Stretching and Thinning:
If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more.

Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.

Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). Note: Enza says that transparency is a crucial element of lasagne pasta and the dough should be rolled as thinly as possible. She says this is why her housekeeper has such strong arms!

Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag.

#2 Bechamel

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour, organic stone ground preferred
2&2/3 cups (approx 570ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.

Friends at work

Turns out that while I am here snacking compulsively and worrying about stuff, my friends are doing some pretty impressive things.

Jake took off for Alaska yesterday (where an exploding volcano was canceling flights) to visit his friend Chad Lindner who just finished the Iditarod and won rookie of the year--his dad Sonny dog sled race. He came in 30thLindner, who is a well-known in the "musher" world, came in 11th. It is a pretty impressive feat. Here's Chad with his team, and the dogs who led him in. I think they're called Mulder and Eli. Chad finished in 12 days, 4 hours, 21 minutes, and 50 seconds, with 13 dogs.



I kind of imagined the sled as a Santa's sled type thing: plush seat covered with animal pelts and a place to stash your thermos. In fact, you stand on runners that are narrow like skis, and have to sort of run alongside when you get knocked off and jump back on. This site has some Iditarod 101-type information if you're interested.

Also in the news is my friend Aimee Molloy, whose book Jantsen's Gift (with Pam Cope) is coming out in April and has gotten some great early press. The book is about the Cope family's work helping children in Vietnam, Cambodia and Ghana--which they found themselves drawn into after the sudden death of Pam's teenage son.

You can learn more about it here -- it's a Reader's Digest "must read"--and pre-order on Amazon. It's a pretty amazing story worth checking out, for sure.

Big Climb(ed)!

Done!

Race and post-race brunch are officially over. We all finished strong, and while I didn't break the 11 minute mark that I was hoping to hit -- I shaved about a minute and a half off my time and finished in 11:16.70! I'm 15th among the women so far (people are racing through the day, so results can change)!

This made me really happy until I just saw that I missed the top ten women finishers by like TWO SECONDS. TWO SECONDS! The stairway is narrow and had I been more aggressive passing folks (damn kids!), things could have been different. Here are the results if you're interested. It's all fun and games until you miss top ten by two seconds.

The famous Henry Wigglesworth, who is always top five and runs it multiple times, was running it seven times this year. Barefoot. With rubber gloves for improved railing grip. We saw him after his third and fifth, and he was fine--and his times were between 8 and ten minutes or so.

In all honestly, I am pretty psyched. We all did great -- Madelyn and Brenda in the 13 range, and Court at 19. All really impressive. It looks like our team is at about 50th place--but they don't differentiate between women and men's teams, and very few teams are all women. So it isn't really a great measure.

They--plus Brenda's husband John, who was our pit crew--just left after a nice brunch, so I'm on a sugar/coffee/mimosa high and my narrow brush with top 10-ness can't bring me down. I am having another mimosa just to make sure.

Brunch was the vegetable casserole last made at Laura's baby shower that is always a hit, and my first stab at sticky cinnamon buns care of Alton Brown.

When I was in DC, my Aunt Sally reminded me that she sent me the Congressional Club Cookbook from 1961, which included recipes from legislator's wives ... my grandfather on my mom's side was a congressman from Cook County, Illinois, and my grandmother Katherine (or "Mrs. Edward R. Finnegan, Wife of Representative" according to the book) submitted some recipes -- including a "dessert pancake" that I was hoping to try out today. It will have to wait for next time, but looks great. She was into sweets, if the cookbook is any indication: S'mores and an ice cream sundae and the dessert pancake were her contributions to the book.

Anyway -- good times. I'm going to go have another mimosa and strategize stairwell passing techniques for '10. XO

Hello!

It has been forever since I posted anything. Excuses are: First, I caught some nasty bug that knocked the wind out of me; second, I have now officially collected over 100 survey responses (!); third, if I didn't pay attention to some wedding planning Jake was going to revoke the offer; fourth, I managed to get a grant application out for a follow-up study to the dissertation survey; and fifth, I was in DC for a few days for a conference (that Amy tagged along for and turned into a great time). Here we are looking skeptical of the stimulus plan with the capitol building in the background but hidden behind my large head.

I did get some baking done these past few weeks -- I was on a whole wheat and bread kick (or continuing), and made two versions of whole wheat Irish soda bread in honor of March (here's the better of the two, from 101 Cookbooks), along with a doctored (sesame honey whole wheat) version of Beranbaum's Bread Bible flaxseed bread for my friend Nancie that was really *&^#@ing good. I also made some butter dinner rolls that turned out good despite having been dropped on the floor (in the sealed pyrex bowl--no three second rule needed) so that the dough deflated pretty dramatically. They turned out fine, but not in time for the dinner I was trying to pull them together for.

Here's the bread recipe, adapted from The BB:

13 oz (2 2/3 cups) All Purpose Flour
5 oz (1 cup) Whole Wheat Flour
2.5 oz (1/2 cup+1 tablespoon) dark rye flour
2 oz (.5 cup) ground flax seed
1.25 teaspoons instant yeast (about 1.5 teaspoons non-instant kind)
2 tablespoons honey
14.6 oz (1 3/4 cups) warm water
1/2 cup sesame seeds (a bit more would have been fine)
2 teaspoons salt
One 9X5 inch loaf pan.

Whisk together the flours, flaxseed and yeast, and then (making a "well" in the middle of the flour for the honey) use the dough hook to add the honey on low speed. Gradually add the warm water until it forms a dough, scrape down the sides of the bowl and cover for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the salt on top and ad the sesame seeds, and mix on medium speed for 7 minutes, until the dough is a bit sticky but firm. Scrape the dough into a slightly oiled container, cover and let rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured counter, flattening it to deflate it somewhat, and shape into a loaf. Place it in a slightly oiled loaf pan and let it rise, covered loosely, for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 375 at this point, with a baking sheet in it.

Slash the bread--make a long slit down the top of the dough bread with a razor blade or knife. Place the loaf on top of the hot baking sheet and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until it is golden brown. Turn it after about 25 minutes so it bakes evenly.

Let cool on a rack. While still warm, brush the loaf with melted butter.

Here's a video about shaping a loaf of bread by a guy who has a very involved bread baking blog, in case you're interested. And a couple of shots of completely unrelated loaf of white sandwich loaf I made a few weeks ago, slashed and then baked.





There were some other things mixed in as well -- Jake's 30th birthday (big carrot cake that was sort of funny looking but tasted fine ... I made a three tiered white cake, thinking one decade for each tier and realizing later that it looked like it needed a bride and groom on top. Wedding on the brain?).

But mostly it has been all surveys, all the time -- I'm happily over the hundred respondents mark, and there are only a few that seem to be unusable. The big problem is that I am out of stipend cash and now dipping into other expense reserves for printing and data entry and whatnot, so I cut the stipend from $10 to $5. People seem equally as happy. Some of these folks show up with no idea how they might eat lunch that day (after three or four hours spent at the office), or really struggle to buy diapers day to day. Every session someone tells me how grateful they are to be able to go get a sandwich (and of course someone else reeks of booze, but still). I wish I could keep giving $10.

Tomorrow is the Big Climb (!), so I refrained from going to my favorite class at the gym. I always end up with a sore ass, and I figure I should spare myself that tomorrow morning. I am already a bit weak in the knees from an overly ambitious run yesterday. I'll post my time, whatever it is, and come home to host brunch with the folks on my team. Many thanks to those of you who generously contributed to the Leukemia/Lymphoma society on my behalf! I appreciate the support.

Enjoy the weekend -- and wish us luck!

It's T-minus three or so weeks and counting until this years Big Climb! Which is a race to the top of the Columbia Tower, Seattle's tallest building. That's 69 stories and 1,311 steps for a total of 788 vertical feet, which apparently means something to people who climb things.

Last year I finished in a respectable 12 minutes 41 seconds. Times can be found here, if you're interested. Technically, the my team won. But that's only because one guy -- the very fit Henry -- ran it three times in a row. They calculate team times based on the three fastest finishers, and his three times were not only our team's fastest but but faster than everyone else's top three. That's pretty humbling as far as stair-climbing goes.

This year I'm not on Henry's team, but have a great group: there's Madelyn, who is a trainer when she's not dealing with journalism school; Colin, who lives in San Fran now and used to run stairs with Madelyn and I before he moved; Courtenay, who is new to the whole thing and has gone from horrified by the idea to wanting to practice at 7AM; and Brenda, who has climbed Rainier twice and will definitely be a contender. Not like we're trying to win or anything, but it'll be fun and hopefully there will be celebratory drinks afterwards.

Last year I didn't try and raise money for the event's charity-- leukemia and lymphoma research. I do several races of some sort or another every year, and never feel comfortable about asking people to donate. But this year I'd like to try and raise something. A friend from work is about to take on a bone marrow transplant in March. A friend I grew up with's younger brother recently went through a transplant. And my mom recently told me of someone she knows who needs a bone marrow transplant. All are in their 30s or 40s. WTF?

So, if you have the means to do so, please donate a couple of bucks. I don't think there is a minimum for the website. Our team fund raising page is here. It's sparse, but functional.

Many thanks!