Jessica Sutich

It worked! I feel as though my dough was a little too sticky but the resulting bread was really good! I believe that the hardest part of making this bread is getting the dough into a 450 degree pot and then 30 minutes later taking the lid off of ridiculously heavy and hot pot. I used to have pot holders, but now I seem to only have pot holder. Additionally, I am unclear as to what the tipping point for my oven rack is and I was very sure that as I slid the rack out to put the dough in that I would tip the rack and it would fall towards me and suddenly there would be far more pain and injury that I am able to handle. Due to this I burned the edge of my hand. Fear will always be the enemy. The next time I do this I will try a trial run of pulling out the pot to put the dough in before it is hot to see how sturdy this oven is. I will also buy new pot holders.

Another side note is that when the bread comes out of the oven it crackles like a bowl of rice crispies. Not sure what the cause of this is. I will check the internets and figure out that tidbit of info.

Well it has only taken me three years to get around to doing this. It looks like my time-line is pretty spot on. Realize, what should be done, wait three years, act! So I am in the extremely hands-off process of making the No-Knead Bread recipe from the New York Times article, adapted from Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery. I used active dry yeast instead of instant yeast. The adaptation suggested using 1/3 teaspoon of dry yeast instead of 1/4 teaspoon of the instant. I now realize that I need a more extensive set of measuring spoons because I have no 1/3 teaspoon. Instead, I measured 1 teaspoon and then using my very scientific eyeballs, divided that into 3 equal piles. We’ll see if that works. I also realized part-way through taking these pictures that I needed to change the settings on my camera so that everything is not blue.

So it’s 3 cups regular flour (sub wheat flour if you wish)
1c. + 5/8 c. water
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. instant yeast or 1/3 tsp. active dry. Mix and wait.

Whilst I wait, I put a note on it alerting my roommate that it has the potential to become bread so that he doesn’t think I have gone insane and just forgot my goo in the pantry for 18 hours.

I also took a picture of the endless endless rain. This is further proof that my project of learning lifes kills is not in vain since it is clearly arc-building time outside. So someone build an ark and invite me on because I will be really useful!

Okay, so it’s not incredibly impressive, but last year I bought a bunch of herbs and proceeded to kill them. The very fact that things are growing seems to me to be a miracle. If I ever have an actual yard I now feel a sense of hope that I will be able to make food come up from out of the ground.

Things are looking good although I think it is going to rain forever which means that now that I am not over-watering my plants, mother-nature is. I have now realize though that one of the downsides of growing food is that although I have a decent amount of potential vegetables on my porch, I will not have actual food for a while. At that point I will then have too much food. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Too much. I feel as though technology should be able to offer us plants that bear fruit at a rate of say a couple per week. We could call these plants grocery plants. I really think it will catch on. I also think that technology should be able to offer us teleporting. If you think about it, with teleporting, we could pop off to India, get some mangoes, and then pop back. Teeny-tiny global footprint there, right? Because everywhere would be local.

I will post some pics of my less dead plants and I’m going to make some no-knead bread tomorrow.

Unless you water them so much that they can’t breathe. Apparently in an effort to be very diligent and take care of the tomato plants I watered them. I watered them often. Perhaps I failed to let the roots ever get dry enough that they could breathe and take in the water and nutrients from the soil. OOPS! I will now attempt to grow plants without waterboarding them.

I bought a nice bottle of wine a couple pots and some potting soil. Romantic evening? Oh yes.

The plants have been re-potted in potting soil that seems to have fertilizer in it. It is organic and yet still I was not supposed to touch it with my hands. I will now go an read about fertilizer and compost while worrying about over-watering the lettuce.

As of last week, I now have a tomato plant that claims to be a “big boy” tomato plant. I also have some basil, lettuce, and a bell pepper plant. The lettuce and the bell pepper need to be re-potted so at some point today I will have to bike dirt up the hill to my apartment. As a city dweller I am scared of the dirt in my yard. I am under the impression that it is filled with lead paint, gasoline, chemicals, and death. I don’t know if that is true but I was raised in New Jersey and I was taught to be afraid of dirt and water. I lived for a brief time in Boulder, Colorado and people would just go down to the creek in the middle of town and swim in it. I had to fight the urge to yell at them to not touch the water. So today I will buy dirt and take care of that.

The thing I am finding the hardest to do is leave the plants alone. I water them and then I stare at them. Then I go inside and look at them through the window. I keep expecting them to do something. “Boom! I grew a tomato for you, Gardener!” or “Boom! I’m dead. You have failed and your colony will eat nothing this winter.” I came very close to killing my tomatoes by over-watering them. This weekend I was away from my apartment for three whole days and I figured when I got home they would either be dead from neglect or thriving. I got home and they were fine. They were healthy, socializing better, driving cars, and dating. So I guess my plants are growing up. I will not tell them quite yet that I eventually plan to eat them.

Crazy happenings in the world! Economy’s in the crapper, polar caps are melting, crazy people are arming up with nuclear power… We are in for a world of trouble that may very well blow us right back to the stone age. I figured it’s time to start learning some real life skills. Post-apocalypse we all will need someone around who can make a good brew and some camembert? I’m going to work on it! I will also learn other some other useful stuff based on suggestions and the skills that people around me offer.