Lifescapes

About bagels

 

Making bagels. Following the advice of Kate Heyhoe in Cooking Green (which I reviewed here), I bought a toaster oven to replace the monster oven in my kitchen range. I love it, just love it. And now I can bake bagels whenever I want them, without heating up the kitchen and adding to the A/C load. These in the photo are plain bagels, which keep for about a week in the fridge. I love them for breakfast with cream cheese and marmalade, or for lunch with a spread made of cream cheese, canned salmon, chopped onions (lots of onions), and chopped parsley. And of course, there are herb bagels, of which rosemary is my favorite. Here's a recipe, with some how-to instructions if you haven't made bagels before. Don't panic. Bagels are easy-peasy, as my friend Dani says. You just have to be around for the length of time it takes the yeast to act, the water to boil, and the bagels to bake.

Making more words today. I always get stuck in the general middle of a book, along about 50,000 words, technically past the middle of an 88,000-word book, but you get the idea. It's usually not a lack of story material or the loss of imagination, but a failure of focus. The problem with this book was last week's storm: power out, roof repair, errant cows, cleanup. I shouldn't blame the storm, really, since it seems to happen with almost every book. But yesterday the story came unstuck, and Beatrix and I (I'm working on #7 in the Cottage Tales) sailed along for our usual 1500 words. Today I'll be making 1500 more words. That's the plan, anyway. I'm with story-meister Stephen King when it comes to making words: I have to do it regularly, day in and day out. Give me a day off, pull me out of my writing schedule, and the energy sags and attention fails. I'm a gone goose.

Of course, I can always make bagels.

Reading note, from Stephen King, On Writing: I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words... On some days those ten pages come easily; I'm up and out and doing errands by eleven-thirty in the morning, perky as a rat in liverwurst. More frequently, as I grow older, I find myself eating lunch at my desk and finishing the day's work around one-thirty in the afternoon. Sometimes, when the words come hard, I'm still fiddling around at teatime. Either way is fine with me, but only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words.

Spring garden soup

 

Soup for supper, made with chicken broth (from chicken I slow-cooked last week), sausage, and onions, carrot, kale, potatoes, and parsley from our garden, along with some herb bread I baked in the slow-cooker. The potato crop was disappointing (10 lbs of seed potatoes yielded 10 lbs of potatoes--not exactly a stunning success), but the potatoes are tasty and I've learned some good lessons. I'll plant some fall potatoes in early August and see if they do better. I've also ordered a couple of different varieties, all early. (Did you know that some potatoes produce in a shorter season than others?) I've found a great supplier: www.potatogarden.com. They're easy to work with and their catalog is terrific. This year, I planted Kennebec, Yukon Gold, Bintje, Caribe, Red Pontiac. The Bintjes, Yukons, and Pontiacs (all earlies) did best.

This week in the garden: planted three cane bean tepees (cut from the cane that grows by the creek), then planted pole beans (Blue Lake pole) around each tepee leg. Also planted a couple of rows of soybeans (Shirofumi). These are new to me--I love the frozen soybeans that I get from the supermarket, but stopped eating them when I discovered that it came to my table all the way from China. That's just too many food miles for me. Planted sweet potatoes (grown from slips in the kitchen window) and bush beans (more Blue Lake). We're a little cramped for space, so I'm getting ready to move the fence and expand the garden by another five beds.

Fence? Absolutely necessary here, and in most places for a successful veg garden. There are too many critters, both in town and country, that love fresh beans, lettuce, peas, etc. If you don't have a fence, you'll be waging endless battles. It's a little more work, yes. But definitely worth it.

Book stuff. Worked on The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (still a working title). Slid into Chapter Four but feel that I need to go back and add in a couple of scenes. The main story line is off to a strong start, but the subplots need attention. And since this is the next-to-last book in the series (only 8 Cottage Tales), I have to start paying attention to winding up all the subplots that have been developing over the course of the books. I've never written a time-limited series before: that is, once that develops a main story and a gang of little stories across a definite, planned number of books. An interesting challenge.

Also on the book front, Bill finished the contract details for The Darling Dahlias, the new series I'll start writing in September, due out in July 2010. Nice to have that interesting project settled and scheduled. If you missed the announcement, it's here, where (as a bonus) you can see a photo of our Lady Banks rose in bloom. She was gorgeous this year.

I'll be in Austin and San Antonio this week, celebrating Texas Mystery Month and selling books (on behalf of Story Circle). If you don't have your copy of Wormwood yet, you can get it, signed, and support a good cause.

Reading note. I truly believe that to stay home, to learn the names of things, to realize who we live among [is profoundly important]. . . then I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home . . . If we are not rooted deeply in place, making that commitment to dig in and stay put . . . then I think we are living a life without specificity, and then our lives become abstractions. Then we enter a place of true desolation. --Terry Tempest Williams

Sun Cookery

My new solar cooker, a Sun Oven. I'm learning a lot about the way the sun moves across the sky during the day, and how the temperature rises and falls with cloud cover. I've cooked rice, lasagna, and green beans; baked a loaf of bread and a cake. Here's the lasagna, cooking:

I always use the thin lasagna, which is easier to work with and tastes just as good (to us, anyway). This baked perfectly in just under two hours, at a temperature of about 275.

The zucchinis are starting to bear, now that the weather has cooled off. I had plenty of extras (who doesn't?) so I baked a zucchini chocolate cake, with pecans. I used a recipe I found on the web--not only zukes from the garden but pecans from our last year's super harvest. The cake baked in the solar oven in just under three hours. Since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a sour cream frosting.

                                                                                                   
Book report. I've started on the next China Bayles--worked on the overall character set, central mystery plot, secondary plots, and started the first chapter. I wanted to get something into the computer before I leave this week for my class reunion in Illinois. I'm doing a couple of book talks and a signing. If you're in the area, you're invited, but please check with the library venues to see if there's still room.

The Tale of Briar Bank will be in the stores on Tuesday. If you'd like a signed copy, click on the link--your purchase through our website will benefit Story Circle. Many thanks to those of you who have ordered through SCN. Your book purchases help us do all kinds of good things that we couldn't do with out your support. Have you checked out our women's book review site lately? Something to be proud of! (If you've already ordered a book, it will be in the mail tomorrow. And I hope you enjoy the dragon!)

For those of you who missed the link, you can find my first post on growing medicinal herbs at Hen & Harvest. Part Two will be along in a couple of weeks. These are easy-to-grow, easy-to-use herbs, nothing at all exotic about them.

Reading note. Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.--G.K. Chesterton, quoted in The Tale of Briar Bank.

Think about this, please: One in five U.S. presidents have died in office.

Crockpot bread

I try not to use the oven in the summer, because it heats up the kitchen--but we still love fresh bread. This is my latest experiment, "baked" in my oval crockpot. The bread that's pictured doesn't include herbs; the recipe does. Good either way, with or without. The jar in the background is hog plum jelly, a gift from our rancher friend Dolly, who gathered the hog plums herself. Bill is still in New Mexico, and I'm afraid I'll eat this whole loaf myself, and probably half that jar of jelly. Think I'd better put the bread into the freezer.

I've spent the week catching up on emails and various small projects. Peggy and I assembled our herbal eletters for September. I wrote an article for Sharon Astyk over at Hen and Harvest--the first part of a two-part piece on growing herbs for your medicine cabinet. I'll let you know when Sharon posts it. While you're waiting for that, you can read an excerpt from Sharon's new book, Depletion and Abundance. (Hey, Sharon: I'm still waiting for my review copy. Hurry it up, okay?) Peggy and I also worked on the new eletter for our Story Circle book review website. If you're on our SCN mailing list, it'll show up in your inbox on Wednesday. Also caught up on the week's entries for my journal book.

Fall Garden report. The temperatures are cooling off, which seems to be encouraging more female blossoms on the squash. I've planted more beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, and radishes, but am saving space for later peas and spinach. The potatoes will go in as soon as the seed potatoes arrive--next week, I hope. Meanwhile, I'm watching Ike. The computer models are split, half taking the storm to LA, half to TX by late in the week. No way to tell at this point.

Several people have written to ask how Toro is adapting to being an Only Dog. Frankly, he's bored. He's a heeler, and he likes to keep an eye on things. When there's nothing to keep an eye on (when Mom is sitting in front of the computer for hours on end, say), he takes a nap on my feet, just to make sure that I don't get up and go someplace without him. Bill and I are discussing the possibility of getting a puppy to entertain Toro. We're not sure that this is the right motivation for getting another dog, but like Toro, I miss the extra doggie energy that's generated by more than one dogs. So we'll see. Still in the talking stages.

Book talks. Bill and I are driving up to Illinois for my high school class reunion (Bismarck High, 1958!) in early October. I'm doing three book talks in the area. You'll find the details here. If you're in the area, stop in and say hi.

Reading note: I truly believe that to stay home, to learn the names of things, to realize who we live among . . . then I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home . . . If we are not rooted deeply in place, making that commitment to dig in and stay put . . . then I think we are living a life without specificity, and then our lives become abstractions. Then we enter a place of true desolation. --Terry Tempest Williams.

Mesquite and Cactus Cornbread

3/4 cup chopped nopalitos (about 2 medium prickly pear pads, available in the produce section of many large grocery stores)
pinch baking soda
1 cup mesquite flour (make your own by drying and grinding mesquite bean pods, or purchase online or in Southwestern specialty shops)
1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
3/4 cup corn kernals (fresh, canned, or frozen)
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking dish. Cook chopped nopalitos in boiling water with a pinch of baking soda until they turn a dull green (3-4 minutes). Drain. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in nopalitos, corn, and cheeses. In a separate bowl, stir together mesquite flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to nopalito mixture; stir until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour, until the top is golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean.