Bread makin'

I indicated in the last post that I have start making bread. One of life's great frustrations in graduate school is an immense feeling of guilt when you pursue hobbies instead of dissertation studies. That is particularly true now, that I am done with classes, my days consist of unstructured time and I have only myself to blame for any lack of progress. So, although I would love to start crafting, woodworking, playing with bikes, etc., but I don't usually let myself. But baking, I figure, is a marketable skill that also delivers immediate returns and helps the marriage, all at the same time! So, to that end, I have started collecting cookbooks, baguette pans, pastry cutters, and mixing bowls to assist me on my way (oh, yes, baking is a wonderfully gear-oriented pursuit). I've had a few successes and failures, tried cheese bread, ciabatta, whole wheat, cinnamon rolls, and ...  English muffins.

In my mind, this was one of the holy grails of making bread: being able to bust out English muffins before breakfast would forgive a lot of sins, so I was excited to give it a shot. Interestingly, you don't bake the muffins at all, but instead pour them into crumpet rings dusted with cornmeal and fry them. Who knew!?! The crumpet rings that I acquired were slightly too big for our pan, but things generally worked pretty well, and the results were tasty.

 Toasting on the fry pan...

 A closeup. You can see the cornmeal covering the top.

The finished product. We didn't take any photos of the nooks and crannies, but I can assure you that they were there.

Thanksgiving in Maine

It's been a cozy Thanksgiving week up here in Maine. Rebecca and I flew to Boston on Saturday, spent two fun-filled days with our friends Nick and Jess, then took the train up to Portland on Monday. We've been on Peak's Island all week with our buds Carol and Jackie. The weather has a distinct chill to it, but it has been sunny most days, so we were able to run around the island prior to our Thanksgiving feast.

We also sampled some of the local delecacies, including fresh lobstah, clam chowda, and silly accents. I've been getting into baking lately, which will be the subject of another post, but it was fun to have fresh-backed bread to go with your lobster dinner. I wish I had some more photos to put up, but, unfortunately, the designated photo-taker of the family, R-----a, takes the photos and hoards them for up to a year before they are able to be shared. The drawbacks of having a fancy camera: you have to process them before you can share them (and if you only process them once in a blue moon, nobody can see the photos until they've forgotten they wanted to. Sigh.) I guess I just have to keep re-learning the lesson that I should take any photos that I have any expectation of seeing in the near future. Cut out the middleman or woman, so to speak. Anyway there are a series of photos from the past month that capture all the fun that we've been having, but I'll have to wait to post them.

In the meantime, some photos, taken by Carol, of our cooking fun:

The aforementioned fresh bread

The lobsters getting ready to be enjoyed.

 Rebecca taking photos for her private collection

 Yummmyyy....

Contemplating where to begin on Thanksgiving

 A different view of our intimate dining table, Jackie on the RHS