Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

When last we left our heroine, she was waiting for her bread to rise.  Rawr.  After 2 hours, the dough had expanded into this somewhat gooey mess:  I took that, split it into four small balls, and sprinkling generously with flour, you sort of fold the edges in on itself a bunch of times.  The dough at this point was a little fragile.  I pulled on one of the balls a little too vigorously and broke the dough on the outside, but it seemed fine.  These go onto oiled baking sheets, where you let them sit and rise for another 2 hours. Pre rising: Then into the oven.  Halfway through you get to open the oven, releasing the smell of HEAVEN ON EARTH, so that you can brush them with olive oil and sprinkle them with rosemary and kosher salt.  After a scant 20 minutes of baking, you take them out and you, well I, have bread. I would have taken a picture of the bread when I sliced it, but the first boule disappeared fairly quickly into my gaping maw....

If I had known how satisfying this whole process would be, I'd have done it a lot sooner.  I remember liking baking bread in Nicaragua, but I haven't really done it since I've been back, so I've decided it's the fall of bread.  It will also have to be the fall of the gym, but that's okay, as I've discovered that doing things with my hands and body is about the best thing for my overactive mind. I used this recipe: Almost-Famous Rosemary Bread , because I love rosemary bread, no special cookware was required, and the "makes 4 small loaves" meant it would be easy to give some away. The ingredients: Your first step is to let the yeast get started doing its thing.  Yeast is, well, amazing.  You give it some sugar, a little warm water and it starts respiring and the next thing you know you have CO 2 foam and rising bread.  I had a conversation with someone yesterday and it was apparent they'd never seen yeast.  This is what yeast looks like: ...

The next time I decide vacations aren't important, I need to find this post and read it.  Five days of beach camping has set me to rights in a way that I could not have anticipated.  Part of it was the truly wonderful group of people I had the good fortune to be camping with, who made all the other things possible. We were at First Landing State Park, which is on the bay and lovely.  We had mimosas, coffee, bacon and eggs for breakfast, assorted delicious things for lunch, and grilled things for dinner.  Burgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, beans, veggies, smores.  I felt like I was eating happiness.  Normally the feelings I eat are less positive. There were some games, the beach every day, sand burying, mud throwing, a bamboo and towel lean-to - even dolphins.  Yes, dolphins.  And we were there for the earthquake, lying in the low wet sand and it turned into jello under us. At night we sang around the campfire, talked through whatever ailed us, an...