Bread, the Post Office, and Such
Apr. 13th, 2020 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse I promised dreamshark that I would post any pictures of things that I've made from the cookbooks that she gave me from her big clean-out. So, this weekend, I made a rye bread from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
Image: two lovely round, extremely delicious dark rye loaves cooling on an accordion rack.
I followed the recipe fairly closely, except that since I have Vera, the sourdough starter, at my disposal, I hived off a cup of her and added it to the mix. I will admit to being somewhat distrusting of the sour dough, so, where the recipe called for two packages of active dry yeast, I still put in one. I know, I need to trust Vera. Thing is, we had a somewhat disastrous attempt at sourdough donuts on Saturday. They did not rise nearly enough... and so we ended up with fairly leaden donuts. Good flavor, but so chewy and dense as to be ALMOST unappetizing--we still ate almost all of them, of course.
Image: they look like decent donuts, but they're secretly trying to break your dental work.
So, I didn't trust. Listen, Lyda's Lead Bread has been a thing of far distant past and I would very much like to keep it that way.
When I first started making bread, I did probably every thing wrong at one time or another, but Shawn (my only family at the time) would still bravely try my failures. We started calling anything I made with yeast Lyda's Lead Bread. It made me laugh enough to keep at it, keep trying. The truth is, now that I'm where I'm at, I am secretly very embarrassed by those early loaves and very proud of my current prowess. So, if this sour dough experiment is to continue, I'm either going to have to keep cheating or abandon it, entirely.
I was tagged on a Facebook post today citing the "cult" of sourdough, as in, someone lumped me in with all the people who are extolling the virtues of wild yeast. I guess I approach this cult the way I would any new religion, with much skepticism. I'm just not convinced in the miracle of the wild yeast. I am happy to have seen results in my starter, but after that...? I have yet to become a true convert. In fact, I am definitely seeing the down side of sourdough. Everyone is talking about how yeast is basically free, so it's an easy way around the yeast shortage. But, NO ONE is talking about how much flour you have to feed your starter on a regular basis. I'm at the point where I can safely put Vera in the fridge and only feed her once a week, but previous to this? I was supposed to be throwing away half the starter and adding hot water and flour every day. It's starting to be fine, because I've been using the discarded half to make daily bread, but before it was ready I was throwing it away because it wasn't good for anything yet. We have a flour shortage here, too, although I did see flour making a comeback at Kowalskis.
Enough of that.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is the postal service. There is a thing going around various social media platforms suggesting that we all do our part to try to keep the post office afloat by buying postage stamps. I have no idea if that would really be enough to get them through another fiscal year, but I highly recommend this, regardless. There are some really neat stamps out there.naomikritzer sent me a link to the T-Rex forever stamps and so I will pass it on to you: https://store.usps.com/store/
Also, this is your regular reminder that if you need someone to write to with those fancy new stamps you're buying, I am always willing to be the one. Just drop me a PM or email at: lyda.morehouse@gmail.com with your snail mail and I will send you a long letter and probably a very weird card. I have a huge collection of greeting cards that I have picked up over the years from estate sales. Not to mention very fun, cute stationary from Taiwan, courtesy ofjiawen .
I was also going to do the pandemic meme that was going around, but perhaps another day.
I hope you all are doing well.
dreamshark that I would post any pictures of things that I've made from the cookbooks that she gave me from her big clean-out. So, this weekend, I made a rye bread from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.Image: two lovely round, extremely delicious dark rye loaves cooling on an accordion rack.
I followed the recipe fairly closely, except that since I have Vera, the sourdough starter, at my disposal, I hived off a cup of her and added it to the mix. I will admit to being somewhat distrusting of the sour dough, so, where the recipe called for two packages of active dry yeast, I still put in one. I know, I need to trust Vera. Thing is, we had a somewhat disastrous attempt at sourdough donuts on Saturday. They did not rise nearly enough... and so we ended up with fairly leaden donuts. Good flavor, but so chewy and dense as to be ALMOST unappetizing--we still ate almost all of them, of course.
Image: they look like decent donuts, but they're secretly trying to break your dental work.
So, I didn't trust. Listen, Lyda's Lead Bread has been a thing of far distant past and I would very much like to keep it that way.
When I first started making bread, I did probably every thing wrong at one time or another, but Shawn (my only family at the time) would still bravely try my failures. We started calling anything I made with yeast Lyda's Lead Bread. It made me laugh enough to keep at it, keep trying. The truth is, now that I'm where I'm at, I am secretly very embarrassed by those early loaves and very proud of my current prowess. So, if this sour dough experiment is to continue, I'm either going to have to keep cheating or abandon it, entirely.
I was tagged on a Facebook post today citing the "cult" of sourdough, as in, someone lumped me in with all the people who are extolling the virtues of wild yeast. I guess I approach this cult the way I would any new religion, with much skepticism. I'm just not convinced in the miracle of the wild yeast. I am happy to have seen results in my starter, but after that...? I have yet to become a true convert. In fact, I am definitely seeing the down side of sourdough. Everyone is talking about how yeast is basically free, so it's an easy way around the yeast shortage. But, NO ONE is talking about how much flour you have to feed your starter on a regular basis. I'm at the point where I can safely put Vera in the fridge and only feed her once a week, but previous to this? I was supposed to be throwing away half the starter and adding hot water and flour every day. It's starting to be fine, because I've been using the discarded half to make daily bread, but before it was ready I was throwing it away because it wasn't good for anything yet. We have a flour shortage here, too, although I did see flour making a comeback at Kowalskis.
Enough of that.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is the postal service. There is a thing going around various social media platforms suggesting that we all do our part to try to keep the post office afloat by buying postage stamps. I have no idea if that would really be enough to get them through another fiscal year, but I highly recommend this, regardless. There are some really neat stamps out there.
naomikritzer sent me a link to the T-Rex forever stamps and so I will pass it on to you: https://store.usps.com/store/Also, this is your regular reminder that if you need someone to write to with those fancy new stamps you're buying, I am always willing to be the one. Just drop me a PM or email at: lyda.morehouse@gmail.com with your snail mail and I will send you a long letter and probably a very weird card. I have a huge collection of greeting cards that I have picked up over the years from estate sales. Not to mention very fun, cute stationary from Taiwan, courtesy of
jiawen . I was also going to do the pandemic meme that was going around, but perhaps another day.
I hope you all are doing well.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 06:37 pm (UTC)I'd take (and send) mail. 1409 Dean St, Saint Charles IL 60174. I only have a few cool stamps, but eventually I'll use up the boring ones and get more interesting.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 07:06 pm (UTC)I will put something in the mail to you today!
no subject
Date: 2020-04-14 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-14 04:14 pm (UTC)