Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Gotta love poetry class...

A Feminist Looks At Baking

The sweet yeasty aroma
has been singing their song
long before I pull the loaves
from my oven.
A simple process to create
something so sublime.

First wake the yeast
with sugar and warm water.
Then tumble in flour and salt.
Dough blooms joyfully
under deliberate hands,
becoming soft and smooth.

After the first and second rise,
the dough is stretched and shaped
and placed into the hot oven
where the yeast will take one last valiant breath
before finally succumbing to the heat.

Baking is a lost art.
If not lost than losing.
Knowledge swept away to an undisclosed location.
Strangled in the night
along with homemade pickles and
the family farm.

Kitchen bound women in the forties and fifties
may have seen their
very freedom presenting itself
with the advent of sliced, white bread.
And I can't blame them.
I would have skipped right alongside them
to the nearest Piggly-Wiggly,
tossed my apron string oppression into the air
and sang

"Hallelujah!"

The simple act of baking
is so weighted with meaning.
The bread, a fragrant melody,
a creation of crumb and crust
with the taste of a thousand harvests.

No one knew what they might give up by forgetting.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Simplest Buttermilk Biscuits adapted from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe

These biscuits are quick, easy and tasty.

Yield: 8 to 10 medium sized biscuits (I make them large so I usually get 6 or 7)
Preparation Time: 15 minuts, plus 12-15 minuts to bake

Ingredients:
nonstick spray
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
2/3 cup cold buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly spray a baking tray with nonstick spray.

2. Place the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and optional sugar in a medium sized bowl and give a stir to combine everything together.

3. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix into the dry ingredients with your fingers. When the butter is sufficiently cut in the mixture will resemble a coarse meal.

4. Add the buttermilk and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture holds together.

5. On a floured surface, roll or pat the dough into an 8 inch surface, 3/4 inch thick. Cut free-form biscuits with a knife or, to be more traditional, with a glass. I like to use a glass with a 2 and 1/2 inch rim.

6. Bake in the center of the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until deep golden brown on the bottom and light golden brown on top. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before serving (if you can wait that long).

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

A little poetry to mix things up...

Thoughts On Narcissism

Apples lined up,
gleaming in rows,
bygone stars in a wax museum,
believably authentic to the ignorant eye.
There are oranges
shipped 3000 miles from Florida.
dimpled little navels,
sweet tangerines,
sunning themselves in the fluorescent lights,
blissfully unaware that the truck that brought them
was belching toxic fumes along the way.
Ahh, but wait.
Leave that air-conditioned tomb.

With just the slightest bit of care and effort and sacrifice
(however un-American that may be)
you could stop trampling and destroying.
Learn the way, back
to the things we used to know
just 50 years ago,
before refrigerated box cars
and the blatant squandering of our resources.

And now for the typical response:
Why does it matter?
Why should I have to wait to have what I want, when I want it?
I am most important.
I am the dominant species.
The earth will repeatedly crack itself open like an egg
to give me whatever I hunger for.

These are the thoughts
that plant themselves in my mind
as I bury my hands in the soil
of my garden, struggling
to make sense
of this world,
too consumed with convenience
to care.

-SMS

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Beautiful Bathtub



Time for recipes

When I originally started this blog I planned on posting recipes to go with all my food pictures but school has a way of being all-consuming. So, I just want to say that I'm going to try to make a real effort to post the recipe with the photo from now on. I just returned home this afternoon from a great weekend on the coast. The weather was surprisingly warm and there wasn't even a strong wind down by the ocean! (which is nothing short of a miracle here in the NW) Above are a few pictures of the bathtub. Isn't it so creative and surreal? The plants are right above the tub.