Tag Archives: sourdough

how was your weekend? (the one with lots of parentheses)

Leave a reply

How was your weekend?

I had a busy Saturday (for me). I met with my brand new therapist (good and desperately needed in the midst of everything that is going on in our world right now which I don’t mention here) and enjoyed a girls night out with my daughter (excellent). We went to the Basement Burger Bar for messy burgers & fries and then ran across the street, dodging heavy wet snowflakes that suddenly swirled down through streetlights and neon, for a quick aisle scan at TJMaxx. (We ended up scoring a set of Snoopy sheets for her and a new Snoopy blanket for our den. We may have a Snoopy problem around here.)

I haven’t seen a movie in a theater for quite awhile but if there’s some sort of Gothic (or Regency or Victorian) epic sprawl playing, I’m up for it. (I think my last theater trips were for ‘Nosferatu’ and the big screen revival of the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ starring Keira Knightley’s collarbones.) My daughter was meh on the prospect of ‘Wuthering Heights’ but always likes visiting our retro 1920’s movie house and the idea of snacks and popcorn. She regretted her decision as she spent part of the film with her hands over her eyes and another part weepy (it was Heathcliff riding across the moors to Cathy’s bedside that did her in) despite my whispered protestations that these were really NOT great people and definitely NOT worth feeling sorry for. Her summary review through her muffled sniffles at the end: “Mom, that was two hours of bullshit.”

As for me, I enjoyed the movie much more than I thought I would, despite it being more “fan fiction” than anything else. Pros for me were the amazing costumes for Cathy, which felt very Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, the almost Tim Burtonish set design, and Jacob Elordi. Cons were the romanticism of their toxic relationship, the massive changes from the book, and Margot Robbie. I like her a lot as an actress and thought she and Elordi were well matched, despite some criticisms I read of their chemistry, but for me, her icy and symmetrical loveliness was a miscast.

Sunday was another foray into bread baking. I’ve been nursing my starter “Charlie” for a few weeks, went out of the sourdough gate big and bold last weekend and ended up with a dense and gummy loaf that could have caused severe head trauma if dropped out of a second story window. This weekend I scaled back my expectations and did the easier King Arthur Rustic Loaf. There’s still a lot of room for improvement but Brandon and the kiddo ate several big slabs with butter before it was even cooled properly and gave it thumbs up.

In other news – it’s March! We have made it through the winter.

friday files – the olympics make me cry

1 Reply

Fri·day file (plural noun files)

/ˈfrīˌdā,ˈfrīdē /fīl/

A sometimes weekly roundup of things that made our five day grind more bearable (or bogged us down or were just simply on our minds).

  1. Starting with the worst – just to get it out of the way- I can only hope for that vile twat Pam Bondi, to paraphrase Taylor Swift, that karma is on her scent like a bounty hunter, step by step from town to town. I pray that her actions never give her a moment’s peace or rest in this lifetime and the echo of what she has done and continues to do with smug impunity follows her into the next life and the next. She’s got a lot of cleansing to do. Or – and this is a better option- she can rot, along with every monster she is protecting and shielding.
  2. Speaking of things that are sour – sourdough. (I know, and I in no way mean to make a jest, but how can you make a graceful segue?) I bought a sourdough starter from King Arthur (named “Charlie” by household vote) and spent 3-4 days trying to coax him to life. He was alive but unresponsive. I did some troubleshooting and some temperature testing and realized that my kitchen in the depths of February, despite being south-facing and one of the warmer spots of the house, is too cold. He wasn’t warm enough! I considered putting him in my daughter’s bathroom (which is definitely the warmest room in the house) but quickly discarded that idea because, you know, hygiene (there is such a thing as a fecal plume and while my daughter would murder me for saying it, it’s not unique to HER bathroom, it occurs in EVERY bathroom). No one wants that kind of culture in their sourdough. So I ordered a cheap mug warmer from Amazon and in the meantime he is snug in his sourdough crock in the microwave with a hot water bottle and my friends, he is bubbling away!
  3. Sporting events making me cry. Firstly, I’m going through some adjustments with my anxiety medication so I’m experiencing a wider and less predictable range of emotions, but every time Ilia Malinin takes the ice to skate for the US at the Olympics, I get teary-eyed. (He and my nephew also bear a slight resemblance to one another.) The way the Japanese figure skating team supports each other in the box and their overall graciousness and dignity makes me feel emotional. The US athletes who are able to verbalize their love for their country, their pride at representing it, and their distress at the actions being taken by the current regime (they’ve clearly read the memo about the freedoms the US is supposed to be based on) only to be disrespected by the overstuffed mouthpieces of said regime – makes me weepy AND furious. Breezy Johnson’s hand knit headbands. And last but certainly not least – Bad Bunny’s halftime show. I don’t even think I can talk about that explosion of joy and vibrancy and community and culture, culminating in parallel messages of love and hope and inclusion, without bursting into tears. Chapeau, Mr. Bunny, and thank you for showing us what America truly is and can be.
  4. Lastly, my stats are showing that there may be a few new faces visiting here – if that’s the case, welcome and feel free to visit my “About” page to get a feel for what I am about. If in reality these are just bots slithering around, ew.

We have a few days off for the kiddo’s midwinter break and were supposed to have a nice extended trip up north to see my mom, run a frozen 5k, and then go further north for skiing but sickness has (again) become a plague upon our house. We’re hoping to salvage a couple of days of skiing early next week if nobody else comes down with it but we shall see.