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Our Favourite Spelt Bread Recipe (Using Bread Machine + Oven)

td Whittle

Posted on January 20, 2013

spelt-bread

To our surprise, Robin and I discovered recently that we love spelt  in breads, pastas, and other goods where it replaces conventional flours. We were surprised because we did not expect such a flavour difference. Since we had been enjoying the bread machine that we bought last year, we decided to try baking our own spelt bread just a few months ago. Initially, this was a failure, due to the recipes that we tried not being quite to our liking, and (even more crucially) due to the quickly-realised problem that spelt bread does not bake properly in bread machines. It is fine to use the machine to make the dough and put the dough through the first rise (so, load the machine and set it for “dough”). But then, you must remove the dough for the second rise, and bake it in a conventional oven. It is lovely if you follow this procedure.

 

The reason I am posting this recipe and these guidelines are because most of the dozens of recipes that you find when you Google Spelt and Bread Machine Recipes do not tell you this! People post these recipes and comment that their bread machine spelt bread is the best thing since … well … sliced bread. I do not know whether they have bread machines with super powers, or whether they are just lying. In our experience, which is now rich and varied, spelt dough in a bread machine rises like the Sun, but then craters catastrophically, so that you end up with a flat and too- dense loaf that is not very nice at all. Bread machines are fine, and very useful, for making the dough for a spelt loaf, but not adequate for baking the bread.

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Blank Page

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on January 1, 2013

blank page

 

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

“As a writer, I can think of no greater terror than confronting a blank page, except perhaps the terror of being shot at.”

~ Richard Castle, Naked Heat

 

It seemed like such an good idea: I’d take myself to lunch. Tea. Croissant. And a blank journal.  A blank journal may or may not be an ideal companion. Its pages stare mutely at you as you sit, pen poised, listening to the buzz of conversation around you. It doesn’t ask how your holidays went. It doesn’t inquire after friends, family, pets, or the traffic on the way over. It just sits and, in the words of Uncle Remus, “don’t say nothing”. So I sat among the people who had the good sense to bring a human to lunch and had a private conversation with myself, inside the world of the journal. And by the end of lunch, the journal was a little less blank and a little less mute. Not a bad way to start the new year.

Last Seen

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on September 20, 2012

Last Seen 
“Your silence will not protect you”
~Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches 

Last Days of Summer

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on September 10, 2012


Last Days of Summer Image 1

A Story and a View

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on August 15, 2012

A Story Image 1

Texas Hill Country Vista

First, a few things I love: a great view; revisiting someplace and finding that I still love it or, better yet, finding something new to love about it; and a good story. I also have a great fondness for dessert, but that’s another list. 

   
We’ve driven right by this spot at least twice before on the way to Alamo Springs Cafe (for their a-mazing burgers), but we never stopped to check out the view. It was worth stopping for. As we stood and admired, the kid asked about the structure over to the left. I told him it was probably a fire lookout tower and that it reminded me of a story. 

   
Sometime in 1936 a girl took a walk in the woods of western Louisiana with a girl friend. They came upon a fire lookout tower and climbed up to check out the view. In addition to a view, they found a sleeping man. He was the CCC volunteer assigned to man the tower and was happily sleeping off the previous evening’s fun. The man awoke to a girl with big grey eyes and a dark ponytail peering at him. She was a shy 17 year old in a blue pinafore. He had a rakish grin, was 26 and, worst of all, was “Louisiana French”. 

   
Of course he immediately began pursuing her. For two years he courted her with compliments and gifts and promises. The thing that eventually won her over was when he paid to have her mother’s remaining teeth removed, and then covered the cost of her dentures. He proposed, she accepted and in 1938 they were married. And then in 1939 they had a baby girl, my mom.

   
So, I explained to the kid, a fire tower like that one was responsible for my standing there, admiring that view.

A Winter Soup: Celeriac, Potato, Leek, and Onion

td Whittle

Posted on July 25, 2012

While the Northern Hemisphere is enjoying (or suffering through) Summer, we here in the Southern parts of the world are in our final stretch of Winter. If, like me, you enjoy a simple meal of soup and toast at times like these, when it’s cold outside and the days are short, then you might appreciate this creamy soup featuring celeriac. The potatoes provide a substantial but plain base, and the onion and leek are beautiful accompanying notes, but it’s the celeriac that sings out in this dish. I tossed in a parsnip, simply because I like parsnip and I had a leftover one that needed to be used; but that’s optional.

 

This recipe will serve 3-4 people, as a main course, or more if used as an entree to accompany a larger meal. I recommend a hearty sourdough toast with a spread of fresh butter, or a drizzle of olive oil, as an accompaniment. I would like to thank my friend Monique for introducing me to this beautiful soup! I have to admit, though, that hers was better; but then, it was my first try.

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Weekend Away, San Antonio

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on July 18, 2012

Old Fashioned Room Key

Old Fashioned Room Key

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Notes on the Coming Apocalypse(s)

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on July 1, 2012

Don't worry, the roaches and I will be around for a long, long time.

Don't worry, the roaches and I will be around for a long, long time.

    
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the apocalypse–actually make that the apocalypses. Not that it’s a new obsession. My theory is that as soon as we had something to lose, we started worrying about someone taking it away. Growing up, I heard lots of talk about THE Apocalypse, but that was mostly on Sundays and the idea that Jesus might be a zombie almost never came up. But nowadays it seems to be apocalapooza* with possible supernatural annihilation coming from all directions.

   
Zombies are a popular possibility, as even my co-blogger has noted. And of course we are constantly at risk of attack from vampires and werewolves. (Except Alcide, he’s clearly on our side–but I digress.)  It’s a good thing we have the government keeping us safe from the bogeymen. I’m just assuming that the presidential monster killing mantle got passed on after Lincoln, but I haven’t seen the movie yet so I’m not sure. And speaking of presidents, apparently we Americans expect our president to take care of all sorts of invasions, even those from outer space. 

   
Yahoo!, with its usual helpfulness, is here to help us prepare. Recently they listed apocalypse-proof homes in their real estate section.  They were a bit pricy, especially for the end times when funds will be in short supply (I assume), but it’s good to have the pointers anyway. Which brings up the question: what will I need for the apocalypse? Canned food, safe water, durable clothing, garlic and silver, and, maybe most importantly, several good pairs of reading glasses. After all, what’s the point of a good apocalypse if you can’t enjoy it?

   
*I think I just made up a word! 

 

   
Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Today I Started Loving You Again

td Whittle

Posted on June 26, 2012

My dress sense was exceptional, even back then.

My fav cowgirl combo, with white tights and panda shoes, circa 1969

Nostalgia is a funny thing. I find, as I age, it becomes funnier still, or perhaps curiouser and curiouser is a more apt phrase. With some regularity these days, my long-term memory tosses up random files from the Life Narrative Archives of my brain.

 

Of course, if we are honest with ourselves, Freud and I both know that this memory selection-process is not random at all. These moments of reverie are triggered by my present life looping back to my past in subtle but poignant ways. Sometimes, it’s the way sunlight slices through a room at a particular time of day; or the texture of a shirt I’ve dug out of my closet, that’s still wrinkled from its last wear; or the feel of a sandy wind blowing across my face, on a certain patch of beach, at high tide.

 

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The Beginning is Happiness

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on June 23, 2012

    

Is there a sound? There is a forest.

What is the world? The word is wilderness.

What is the answer? The answer is the world.

What is the beginning? A beginning is happiness.

What is the end? No one lives there now.

What is a beginning? The beginning is light.

What makes happiness? Nothing.

What makes an ending? What does not.

What is her skin? Her skin is composed of strange clothing and clouds of butterflies,

          of events and odors, of the rose fingers of dawn, transparent suns of full

          daylight, blue loves of dusk and night fish with huge eyes.

                                                                                                     Max Walter Svanberg

 

~from Trouble Deaf Heaven by Bin Ramke 

   
Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez  

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