Halcyon

Evening, Main Beach, Byron Bay.

Attack Of The Dough Monster

This is a lesser-horror story. It begins with a decision to bake bread without a stand mixer and without a breadmaker, when I have really never done so without either. Or even with, come to think of it. I always had a Lauren before. Lauren is a very good baker.

Before I get too far into my narrative, you should know that this story has a happy ending. I haven’t even told you the story yet, and already I’ve ruined the ending! But observe:

I was so relieved when Justin sliced into the first loaf to reveal a decent-looking crumb. I hid my eyes when he made the first cut, then when he pronounced it okay, good even, I fetched my camera. I needed to have photographic evidence that I’d won.

You see, before there was bread (which came out dense, well-flavoured, and with a very nice crumb), there was an unexpected, evil, sticky, and not-at-all-nice dough. A dough that grabbed both of my hands and stuck me to the bowl before it decided to devour the bowl, the counter, and a kilogram and a half of flour (± half kg) before it was brought under control through the combined efforts of four Buis.

You read that right: it took four people, three of whom are under 5′3″, to pwn this dough. I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed.

The bread begins with this story and recipe, from Orangette. I really like Molly’s blog; her recipes and notes are good, and when I get the yen to bake, she’s been advising me in place of Lauren and my copy of Nick Malgieri’s How To Bake, both left behind in Portland.

3 1/2 cups of water, 1/4 cup honey, 2 T active dry yeast, 2 T canola oil: everything was going swimmingly. I began to add the flour and shortly after the addition of the sixth cup of flour, I began to realise that things were going horribly awry. The recipe called for only a half cup more, but to my eye, it didn’t look like a half cup more was going to do it. I stuck a finger in anyway, and that’s when I got trapped. Before I could react, the evil not-dough had swallowed my hands and wrists and I was beginning to panic because I had followed the directions closely, and this wasn’t supposed to be happening*.

I started wishing very hard for Lauren to arrive like a delivering angel to either a) help me out of my jam, or b) pull down Malgieri, and read me out of my jam.  But I wasn’t in Portland, so while Lan beat back the dough with a wooden spoon, Long grabbed the bag of flour and threw it first by the half cup, then poured it straight from the bag onto my hands and the dough monster. Meanwhile, Vinh ran to the market to buy another baking pan, because suddenly, we had more dough than the present pans could handle.

There was an ugly struggle.

By the time Vinh returned, Long was reading about bread on the internet and Lan was hovering by my shoulder as I wrestled with the recalcitrant lump. We’d lost track of how much flour had been added and we were so far off-recipe that all I could think to do was to keep going, to keep adding flour and knead the dough until it was smooth and elastic and did not stick to the counter. Finally, after a long, long time, it was and it didn’t, so I divided the dough and put it into the pans to rise. And it rose, so I baked it. And then we ate it.

 

THE END.

 

*Here’s where I think I went wrong: I used wholemeal flour in place of whole wheat flour. I couldn’t find whole wheat flour in any of the markets here in Brisbane, so I hoped wholemeal flour would do. Furthermore, The Economist Style Guide advises in its American English/British English section that wholemeal flour in British English is whole wheat flour in American English. So I figured everything would be copacetic but I was SO WRONG. I don’t believe that wholemeal flour and whole wheat flour are the same thing at all anymore. Shut up, Economist Style Guide.

Sapote

Above the pile of persimmon-esque green-skinned fruit, the sign read: “(Chocolate Pudding Fruit)”.

Couchsurfers.

Snippets from a conversation in the chiles aisle at Pennisi

 

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Tony: Where are you from?

Me: America.

Tony: Me too! I’m from El Salvador. Central America! You, you’re from the United States.

(I laugh. Schooled!)

 

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(After learning that Tony lived in LA before moving to Brisbane)

Me: Why did you move to Australia?

Tony: People are nicer here. Even police! In America, you’re someplace you’re not supposed to be, you do something wrong, they grab you, yell at you, “Put your hands up!” It’s very scary. Here they’re very calm. They say, “Mate, how ya going mate?” or ”Sir, stop. That is not allowed.” They’re polite.

 

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Pennisi is a fancy foods store in the ‘Gabba. You can buy anchovy stuffed green olives there! They taste like awesome with a pleasantly salty finish of nostalgia.

On the Ropes

New Farm Park. Camera settings: f1.8, 1/30, ISO 100.

The Footy

State of Origin

Game 2 is tonight. If Game 1 is anything to go by, I’ll be able to keep track of who’s scoring when simply by listening to the exclamations of the neighbours. Happy exclamations, Maroons; rude exclamations, Blues.

Also, there’s this.

Update: Nasty stomach virus, oh noes!

Update: Maroons win! From the article:

“Queensland lock Dallas Johnson had been on a saline drip only hours before kick-off.”

Pros! Not at all like us!

Winter Solstice

We stand in queue, waiting for hot scones in the cool night air. Under the lights of the tent, the baker kneads the dough, pushing down with the heels of her palms, dropping her fingertips to pull the edge of the dough back to lift it, then pick it up to put it down again before pushing down with the heels of her palms, again. There are two small children standing in front of her station. They are shifting their weight from foot to foot, their hands holding their arms behind their backs, and they are watching her. She rolls the dough out, cuts rounds, and arranges them on a baking stone that she places in the cob oven behind her. The word goes out that it won’t be long now, only twenty minutes longer and then there will be scones, hot scones with thick cream and jam. So we continue to wait. There is a sprite leaping hither and thither, playing songs on his flute, and he has charmed a tiny girl who is beaming at him. And there is another girl, someone I know from a dance class and we are chatting about this and that and it is pleasant to wait where everyone is happy to wait. There is other music besides the sprite’s and there are other conversations besides mine and there is other laughter besides the tiny girl’s and all of it exists because of the farm and because of the solstice celebration that the farm is hosting.

A Father’s Day Post

Dear Dad,

Happy Father’s Day! I sent you a card but I’m pretty sure you’re not where the card is today so I’m turning to the interwebs because the interwebs is everywhere, sort of like God. I know it looks like I’m late acknowledging you by a day, but really I’m not. Australia is on the other side of the international date line from the US, so we’re a day ahead. The 22nd here is the 21st there. Also, Father’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September in Australia, so I’m not even late wishing you a happy father’s day here anyway. We can talk about my logic and my timeliness again in two months.

All excuses aside though,  I would like to highlight and recognise a good moment in parenting. Your parenting to be exact. Let’s go to the wayback machine and set it for my teenage years.

It is 1996 or maybe 1997, whatever year it is that you relent and let me “borrow” the old suits from your closet. The world should know that you have excellent taste. You used to own these beautiful three piece suits in lovely colours and polyester, custom tailored for you in late-seventies LA. Fitted jackets. Vests. Alarmingly flared bell bottoms. I was fifteen, I was struggling with my self-confidence, and I was pretty sure that if I was allowed to integrate your suits into my very boring wardrobe, then I would be awesome. I also had designs on Mom’s clothes from the early 80’s, but the fabrics in your closet were so much better.

Amazingly enough, I was allowed access to both y’all’s closets. So off to school I’d skip, wearing your old powder blue bell bottoms and one of Mom’s knitted acrylic vests over a tee. Or maybe I’d borrow your brown suit with a fitted shirt (also from your closet). Or maybe I’d pair skinny jeans with an oversized striped tee from my closet, and then your grey vest over the whole atrocity. And then there were the too-long, kelly green bell bottoms. I have no idea where those came from but my fifteen year old heart believed they were perfect.

Sometimes I look at the indie-hipster-emo kids and the way they dress now, and I wonder what they’ll think in ten years’ time about their sartorial shenanigans. I suppose that since there are others who are complicit, they won’t look out of place. But also, they wear their clothes with irony while I wore mine with enthusiasm. One of those emotions is less embarrassing than the other.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure there were days I left the house and your eyes hurt. In fact, you told me so, many times. Thanks for the straight talk, Dad, and thanks for driving me to school, dressed in those outfits. Also, thanks for not creating a body of photographic evidence with which to torment me now.

Love,

Kim