In which I bake bread the Chef Michael Smith way (almost)

 

Last night we went to the Fortune Community Centre for a fund-raiser in its benefit. Monday night bingo doesn't seem to be profitable enough. Expenses are on the rise. Even last year's boobalicious bingo (!) appears not to have drawn the crowds ...

 

Anyhow, Chef Michael Smith volunteered to help raise funds. Yes, that Michael Smith of the Food Channel, which is not on our cable subscription at home, so I am not that familiar with him, but he is, I observed last night, both very tall and very talkative, which is good when making a presentation.

 

You could have some time with him in a small group for $40 each or be part of hoi polio for $25. We chose the latter and got there 10 minutes late. The event  had, to my surprise at any rate, already started. Chef Michael talked about eating properly and that home cooking was not all that hard or time-consuming.

 

He had a cookbook to prove it, which Greg bought for me:

 

 

 

He also sang the praises of local food, especially PEI delectables. We all received goodies, including mussels steamed in the parking lot, many varieties of chocolate chip cookies made by the ladies of Bay Fortune, and slices of home-made "Country Bread,"  made with Red Fife flour milled in New Brunswick (and available locally at MacPhee's Save-Easy, I was told, when I raised my hand during question period and asked).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fife_wheat  This link is very enlightening - likely more so than this blog!

 

We also received a bag of "Country Bread" ingredients.While we  did a count-down, Chef Michael made up a batch in 60 seconds.

 

Four ingredients only: water, flour, salt and yeast.  The assembly took no time at all once everything was mise en place. But, why no sugar? The reason is that the dough is left overnight for the yeast to work. This means no preliminary kneading - a step saved. 

 

I thought I would try this for myself. I must admit I cheated a bit as the bread last night tasted a bit flat to me. So I added  a tbsp. each of molasses and vegetable oil. The molasses was not Crosby's from Newfoundland, which is  about as local as you can get for molasses around here, but was President's Choice from Ecuador. At least it was from this hemisphere.

 

 

 

 

 

Like Michael, I used the handle of the wooden spoon (cousin Cynthia gave me mine) to stir it. A spurtle would likely work just as well:

That's all: just cover with Saran wrap (no idea where it was made) and let it sit overnight.

I was up at just after dawn - 5:58 to be as exact as my clock radio. The sun was just up:

 

 

 

Freddie dog was awake too, but barely:

 



I checked the dough. As promised, it had doubled in size!

It was a bit early to make bread so I went back to bed where I stewed about its over-rising until 7:00 when I got up and made it into loaves.  I did knead it a bit as the recipe suggested and let it rest while I greased the pans:

 

Then into the pans to rise for 40 minutes and thence the oven - at 380 F, not 425 F as the recipe suggested!

 

 

 

I wish I had put it in at 350F since one loaf rose rather oddly into a hump in the middle - good for Humpday, which my Facebook friends were celebrating yesterday, but two days late for me.



 

 

Nevertheless, I sliced it while warm and ate some. Delicious!  I will try this again! It's so easy having it rise overnight!

 



 

In which Silver goes to church

A couple of Sundays ago, Greg and I went to St. Alban's in Souris so that Greg could preside at the service that morning. It is such a wee tiny church.

 

 

 

Since we were early, I wandered around the cemetery looking at the gravestones.

 

 

 



Soon I was joined by a small tabby cat.

 

 

which seemed to know just here she was going.

 

 

Yes, off to church:

 

 

 

Greg was inside setting things up and generally getting ready.

 

 

 

 

No water for the wine! A human congregation member - the warden, in fact - feeling it would be inappropriate to get a glass of water from the restaurant right across the street went off to "the store"  for a bottle of same. Would that have been the Co-op, the variety store or the Save Easy?

 

 

Meanwhile, decisions, decisions: which pew to choose ...

 



Aha, right at the back - very Anglican -




But before settling in, some more exploration would be fun. If only the organist were here, we could play a duet:

 

or I could help Greg with the prayers:



It seems I am not needed in the chancel:





This seems to be a comfortable pew:

Nice service, great hymns, thought-provoking sermon, I enjoyed the service. Now home for lunch:

 

 

 

Apparently Silver the cat has been in the habit of attending church for quite a while. At a recent service, she joined the priest at the front, and he picked her up and lead the congregation in singing All things bright and beautiful. I am sure she enjoyed the impromptu serenade.

At this service, she visited each pew during the sermon and of course was patted by everyone.

 

 

Alas, her people are moving, so Silver will have to join another congregation soon. She will be missed.

 

But St. Alban's doors will be always open in case she want to return.

 

 



Wild Flowers of Eastern Canada is on the bookshelf after all

I am loathe to throw things away. Once you do that, it seems a use for the forsaken article eventually or, what's worse, immediately crops up.

And I am even worse with books. Periodically I cull the shelves and send two or three to a garage sale, then usually end up returning home with them.  Why wouldn't anyone want a 2004 Tourism Guide to Saskatchewan? It's a mystery.

As I related in my last post, I am making a path in our meadow and have had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a variety of anonymous wildflowers. Well, unnamed they are no longer.

Friend John suggested I should look up the names of the plants and lo and behold, almost hidden on the book shelf between Pierre Berton's Cats I Have Loved and Known and Loved and Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers ( both fine cottage reading) was what I was looking for: Wild Flowers of Eastern Canada.

Yes, I did pack a field guide after all - and not just any field guide, but one made even more beautiful by the watercolours (executed by Katherine Mackenzie), which adorn its pages.

 

 

And only $2.95! 

 

 

 

 

Apparently it was published by Tundra Books in 1973 and purchased by my mother for us in 1977. As I recall, we were living on the military base at Downsview at the time, and there was a large field behind the house.

 

The standing orders seem to have allowed for a fair growth of "weeds," as a photo of our daughter as a toddler, sitting surrounded by dandelions, attests. And at that time, Gran and Granty gave us this little book "to enjoy the many wonderful things in the great outdoors."

  

 



It seems to have become son Tony's acquisition given his initial in masking tape on the front cover and his name in his four-year-old handwriting:

Today I leafed through it and found a whole page devoted to just what I saw yesterday: buttercups, red clover, clustered bellflower  and cow vetch (aka bugle weed?), which apparently tastes like honey (and bovines love it).

 

It is a small volume, I can easily tuck into my pocket long with my camera. But it is more than a handy reference for wild flowers. It recalls to mind a time 40 years ago when the children were still small and at home in what must have seemed like an enormous world bounded by trees, a field, and the houses of little friends now long forgotten.  What happened to the other Robbie, to Tony's friend Cass, to little Alison, the same age as Joanna.

 

And their grandparents, so much a part of our lives at that time:  my dad deceased for almost 25 year and my mum now almost 95 and settling in to life in a nursing home.

 

They're all called to mind while I am leafing through this book and its watercolour reproductions of 100 wild flowers in "90 full color plates."

 

I decide to make a path in our field

Having lived without a lawn for quite a while, during which various projects have been underway, we've become
accustomed to  the grasses and wild flowers in what we now call our meadow.

However, a path through the field could be like stretched-out labyrinth:

 

 

 

Here are Greg and John, intrepid trail blazers. John advised me that making a path would require only 15 minutes a day of conscientious trampling.

 

 So far so good. Some grasses flatten more easily than others:
 

 

Because the meadow used to be a ploughed hayfield, there are still the remains of furrows. It was good to slow down and walk deliberately. I enjoyed pausing to look at wildflowers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 These grasses were incredibly soft to the touch:

 

 

 

At the bottom of the filed under the trees are ferns; this is a species  am not familiar with:

 

 

 

 

At the bottom is a woodsy part. We had some of the trees planted there years ago, but thought they had all died during a drought later that summer.  Several years further on, we discovered to our surprise that some had survived. The remnant of the original rows are visible. They are at the Christmas tree stage. 

 

 

 

Obviously this is the old crone of the woods!

 

 

The fir trees and sky reminded me of an Emily Carr painting:

 

 
It's a fair hike back up the hill:

 

 

But back to pathmaking ... The trail is leading to the barely visible bunkie. The house on the right belongs to our neighbours.

 

 

 

Closer to the top, I decided it would be fun to have two ways to get home, so I trampled  divergent paths and remembered Robert Frost's poem:

 

 

 

Back at last to the bush-hogged part of the yard:

 

Like the good Brownie I used to be,  I tied the grass in knots to mark the way in for the next time:

Just a few steps to the deck and cold lemonade or a G&T!

The grasses play in the wind and I play in them. One should never be too old for the sheer joy of doing somewhat silly things.  then I forget how old I am. It's nice.