For January 12: Happy Birthday, John!

By age seven, you already loved to cook. Your Aunt Mary gave you a chef's hat and apron for Christmas that year.

As soon as you were old enough, you eagerly took your first job. Here you are at age twelve, returning from your paper route. That's our pup Rencor in your newspaper bag. You both grew a lot bigger very quickly.

 And now you are about to open your second restaurant in Bend, Oregon.

I think this was in the cards all along.

Happy Birthday to my oldest son, John: a good cook, a hard worker, and a great dad.

We couldn't be prouder of you and your beautiful family.

With lots of love from Mom and Bob



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For January 11: Happy Birthday, Franny!

Meet Miss Francine Ginger, birthday girl.
She is pictured above, seated on her sister Margie's lap.

Not so long ago, Franny was just a little sprout.

But just like the little ginger plant I started in her honor, she's been busy growing.

On January 11, 2012, Francine Ginger will be one year old.

Happy first birthday, Franny!

With lots of love from Grandma Bee and Grandpa Bob.



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Back to Bread

One of the things I plan to do in my retirement (which starts in fourteen more school days, but who's counting?) is to get back to baking homemade bread more often.  Used to bake it a lot; not so much in recent years.

It's hard for a home baker to produce bread with a good crunchy crust. It requires steam, you see, to form a good crust.

But thanks to the Internet and cooking blogs, I recently discovered Dutch oven bread baking. Although this article describes a no-knead bread that is allowed to rise slowly, I thought I'd try the baking method with a conventional kneaded bread recipe.

Today, I experimented with a version of Mill Hollow bread, tweaked a tad to my own taste and ingredients on hand. After mixing and kneading and allowing it to rise once, I baked one loaf in a preheated cast iron Dutch oven, as described in the NY Times article. This is the bread pictured on the left in the photo above.  

The second loaf, pictured on the right, I let rise and then baked it in the usual way. Exact same dough, just different baking methods.

The Dutch oven bread was a hit. Crusty and nicely grained. Really good. I see many more loaves baked this way in my future. Maybe I even need to buy a second cast iron Dutch oven, to bake two loaves at once.



If you like to bake and are fond of crusty bread, give this method a try. It's really good. Happy baking!

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Homes and Hairdos

 Apparently, I'm not the only one fascinated by Callista Gingrich's hairdo. The Huffington Post had a recent article featuring twenty-eight (!) photos of her "beauty evolution".

But today, I saw this New York Times photo of the Gingrich's Virginia home and now it all makes sense to me. I think the same person who prunes their shrubbery must also do Callista's hair.

You can see the New York Times slide show of all the Republican candidates' homes here.  No surprise that there's not a single fixer-upper among them. Guess the economy is still working for them!


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Faith, film, food, and First Night: It's all about Saratoga this weekend.

Last night, the Handsome Husband and I went to see Higher Ground at the Saratoga Film Forum. I enjoyed the movie but it's an odd sort of story. As I read in a review somewhere, it may be too religious for non-believers and not religious enough for people of faith. Based on a memoir, I found it to be a poignant and believable story of a woman's struggle with both her faith and her marriage. The Forum will have one more showing of this film on New Year's Day at 3:00 pm.

And speaking of faith, I was saddened to read this recent story in The Saratogian, about the First Baptist Church:  Saratoga Springs' oldest church is running out of money. For both persons of faith and for supporters of historic preservation, this is not good news. 

I am an elder in a different protestant church in an adjacent Saratoga County village. Our lovely building is actually twenty years older than this at-risk church, and this story strikes way too close to home. I wish the folks of the First Baptist Church well and we will be doing our bit tonight to support them.

From 4 to 8 p.m. tonight, December 31,  the church will host an annual roast beef dinner during First Night in Saratoga. Please won't you consider helping them out, too? You can find the First Baptist Church of Saratoga Springs at 45 Washington Street, about a block or so off Broadway. Their telephone number is 518-584-6301.

And by the way, First Night, too, supports a good cause: Saratoga Arts.  The Handsome Husband and I will be volunteering at one of the venues tonight. Come on up (or down) to Saratoga and do good while having a great time!

Happy New Year to all!

Note: The photo above shows the cupola of the First Baptist Church of Saratoga Springs, NY.
Photo credit: (ED BURKE/eburke@saratogian.com)




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Post-Christmas Optimism

Every year at about this time, whatever shred of self-awareness I have completely disappears.
Next Christmas, I always imagine, I will give everyone a beautifully hand-made gift. I should start TODAY!

Some crafty, artistic souls actually manage to do this. You would think that at my age, I would have learned that I am not ever going to be one of those people. Still, like the mom in the Zits comic above, I like to dream.

This year, I did actually manage to make some penuche and chocolate chip cookies for our youngest son who lives near by. That counts for something, doesn't it?

I have eighteen (!) more school days left in my teaching career. On Friday, January 27, at 2:33 pm, I will be officially retired.

Ah, I think, then I will finally have time for all of those craft projects I have been imagining all these years.

Beware, family members: there may be a nice pile of fabric squares in your future.

For now, I'm off to try to finish that sweater I started knitting for granddaughter Margie 'way back last February. At least I had enough self-awareness a year ago to pick a pattern that was a generous size bigger than she was then.

Perhaps next year, Margie would prefer some penuche for Christmas.





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Good cookies make good neighbors and First Night volunteering

 Our good neighbor Nealie invited the women of our neighborhood over for an annual holiday cookie swap and an evening of catching up.

Nealie is a gracious hostess and we all left with a generous supply of lovely cookies baked by our neighbors.

 Since many of our development homes are quite similar, we enjoyed hearing about Alisa's remodelling adventures and shared snake stories of recent years. It's really good to have this time together. Thanks, Nealie!

Tonight, the Handsome Husband and I attended a training session for Saratoga's First Night volunteers. This popular event is a great way to spend New Year's Eve and benefits Saratoga Arts.

If you're interested in helping out, there is still one more training session, on Monday, December 19 at 6:00 pm. Call the Saratoga Arts Center for more information: 584-4132. Or buy a button for $15 and enjoy the dozens of events and a great night out in Saratoga this New Year's Eve.

Happy holiday to all!

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