Big Girl Bed

About a month ago, Audrey started sleeping in her very own 'big girl bed.'

A week later, she shed her pacifiers, leaving them all on the front porch for the 'Pappy Fairy' to pick up and deliver to all the newborn babies. The Pappy Fairy left her a really cool Winnie the Pooh sticker book and Daddy and Mommy bought her a kite. This is a HUGE sacrifice that deserves a little bribery.

Playing in the rain....

On a different note, I am telling you that the 5-minute bread dough is incredible. Not only does it turn out amazing loafs, the other recipes are incredible too. We used the Boule dough for their Caramel Sticky Buns and the European Peasant Bread dough for pizza dough and both were the best I've ever made.

Nudity goes with alot

--Edit: July 15th: since there are so many creepy people on the Internet and we've made our blog public again, the nude picture is removed. You still get the general idea.---

A homemade scarf and platinum shoes look good with nudity.

Or you for evening, you can never go wrong with a glamorous black/metallic scarf and your birthday suit.

Bar-b-que ribs are such a mess anyway, I say why not eat 'em nude?

And when you're using glitter to make your Valentines, it's much easier to make them whilst naked and just shower off afterward.

You know your child

needs a sibling when....

...when they carry around a ceramic statue (that you bought at Ross for $8), cuddling it, wanting to take it to bed and calling it her "baby sister."

Man kids know how to push the 'guilt button.'

The Violet Garden

Toward the end of January, Audrey and I started taking a Parent/Child class at a Waldorf preschool here in Sellwood. We have several friends whose kids attend the preschool itself and L-O-V-E it, but since we don't have plans for A to attend P.S. quite yet, we thought it could be fun to join this instead. 

It is soooo cool. Enchanting and peaceful. Not like any other sort of storytime, playgroup or date we have ever joined. (I leave feeling like I've had a glass of wine.) 'Ms. Jody' leads the class which starts each week with  quiet song while the kids grind grain for the bread that they make for their own snack. Then, the children play in her beautiful playroom which is furnished with all kinds of traditional wooden toys, dolls, etc. --all very well-worn and loved, while the mommies sit and work on a craft (materials provided) and fold linens. (Everything in Waldorf is intentionally done.) Later, we sit at the pint-sized wooden table where the kids knead and form their dough into buns, adding raisins (or eating them all) and even making a roll to take home to daddy. Then, we go back into the playroom to tidy the room, sing songs and listen to rhymes, returning to the table to eat the bread with cinnamon-butter and tea. After that it's time for a puppet show and then outside to play in the uber-cool yard that is covered with hay and contains all manner of fun spots for kids' imaginations to run wild. There are even chickens. It is an absolute kid-heaven.  (There's no regular preschool on Thursday's so the only children are in the P/C class, which is limited to 5 couples.)

Pictures below are in reverse chronological order. 

Audrey and Delilah hold hands on the swing

A eating bread dough. No, not bread. Dough. You'd think I never fed the child. 

Audrey eating raisins instead of putting them in her bread.

Ms. Jody and Audrey grinding grain for the bread

Kneading the dough...

The kiddies 'clean up' after each activity, to the tune of a very mellow song about a gnome who said 'let's clean up our room' 

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I wasn't sure that I believed it, but it's true. In the quest to bake artisan-quality bread, I stumbled across this book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.

I bought it from Amazon, wondering how any book could get SUCH rave reviews and incredulous that it is actually possible. Well it is. And let me tell you, I've now read quite a few books on bread baking and most of them do require a good deal of time, effort, equipment and materials to be on par with what the authors call for. This book, on the other hand, couldn't make it easier. AND, perhaps the thing that I love most is that they have eliminated every possible step that is not needed--including kneading. (Pardon the pun.) It's CRAZY. You can even mix it in one bowl. The authors may not like me for telling you the secret, but here it is: they have developed a very simple dough recipe that has a very wet consistency and therefore can be stored for up to 14 days in the fridge. So all you do is mix together water, yeast, salt and flour(s)--just barely mixing, no need to knead, let it rise and then store in the fridge. Then you just take a blob out every day, letting it rest for 20 minutes before baking. And bake. And let me tell you-- we baked our first loaf today and devoured the entire thing while still hot. And it actually even looked like the cover of the book. SO SIMPLE! And there's enough dough in the fridge for 5 more loaves.  (I made one batch of boule dough and one of European Peasant dough). Several other super cool things: 1.) Supposedly, the bread only gets better and better as the dough ages in the fridge, creating it's own 'sourdough.'  2.) The book is chalked full of simple variations on the basic recipe (rolls, sweets, etc.) and includes recipes for using bread as a main ingredient, as well as uses for stale bread. 3.) It's a quick read and they completely demystify many of the things that prohibit the common man from attempting artisan bread (that you need fancy, expensive ingredients, etc.) At $4-$6 a loaf for artisan quality, think of how much money you'll save!

I HIGHLY encourage you to purchase the book yourself. In the quest to eat healthier and avoid all those breads with so many preservatives, etc.--this book makes it SUPER easy to bake fresh bread as often as you'd like. Not to mention the fact that making the dough really and truly does only take 5 minutes and you don't have that annoying flour-mess all over your kitchen and multiple rising times, which, for me, has been the primary deterrents from baking bread more often. 

Oh--and a few tips: I have only just discovered the virtue and pleasure of shopping for kitchen stuff at restaurant supply stores. HOLY COW--where have I been all these years? Buh-bye William Sonoma and no--not even Target can beat these prices, not to mention the fact that restaurants expect higher quality than regular consumers. Flour & bread dough storage containers that retail for $16 each (plus lids!) at KingArthur.com sell for $3.50 at my local restaurant supply. 

- I still used my cast iron skillet method, rather than a baking stone + water as recommended and the magical crackle was still there. Will definitely do a showdown test at some point.

- Instead of a pizza peel, I used my wooden cutting board to save a few bucks. On second thought- given my propensity for serious burns and mishaps, may be that would be money well spent. 

In any case, the 5 minute artisan bread baking is a truly groundbreaking discovery for domestic life. 

A revelation.

Everyone around me has probably always known this but has been far too kind to break it to me: I am a dork. 

I have always known that I am a goof, a bit unconventional...and unique in my own way. But isn't everybody?

Over the past few weeks, however, I have suddenly realized that this is far beyond the realm of normalcy. 

I think I may have a mild version Turret's syndrome. You know- the disorder where you blurt out cuss-words and have tics (spelling?) Only in my case, I blurt out abruptly direct questions/comments, etc.--not cruel or even meant to be rude-- just without much filter. Things that no extremely nice person would actually say (Denise!) even if they are thinking them. You may not believe it, but to me this trait has just always passed as openness/sincerity. And instead of twitching, I'm just extremely ungraceful and clumsy, obsessively multi-tasking, to the peril of each and every task. Just now, for example, while I was writing this, I heard a huge splash out in the kitchen. Assuming that it was my very low-end and loud dishwasher, I continued writing. When the lovely smells of lavender and burnt sugar wafted into my senses, I suddenly remembered that I was infusing a pot full of honey on low heat. I ran into the kitchen only to discover honey boiled out onto my entire ceramic cooktop. Burning and scorching...creating yet another mess for myself to clean up.

This is starting to sound like a different disorder altogether. When I was a kid my favorite cough drop was Sucrets. So I think I'll call it that. 

I am a dork and I blame it on my Sucrets.

How is it, exactly, that I have any friends?

I am a dork, suffering from Sucrets. Admitting it is always the first step, right?

Coolest Kids Furniture EVER.

An article about fun kids furniture in the Oregonian highlighted some seriously fun stuff. The Sobey Dresser and Anne Armoire at Straightline Designs are our faves...Bridge cabinet is SUPER clever as are many of their other pieces. Wonder how much they cost? Probably slightly pricier than IKEA. Darn.

P.S. Audrey sleeping in own toddler bed. New posting on this to follow.

Found this hilarious pic taken in Las Vegas- 2002, I believe. 

Elvis is alive peeps.

Symphony of Crackle

"How can you tell how good bread is without tasting it? Not the smell, not the look, but the sound of the crust. Listen. [bread crackles] Oh, symphony of crackle. Only great bread sound this way."

- Colette (Ratatouille)

If you love bread, this tip might just rock your world.

I am by no means a bread-baking expert. That being said, I have baked quite a few loaves and buns in my life. Most Danish people bake their own bread regularly and consider it no big deal. But most my breads & rolls, while tasty, have lacked that elusive and tell-tale crust of true artisan textures.

On a NY Times blog, I have discovered a tip from a famous NYC baker that has completely revolutionized my crusts. And best of all, it is super simple. It is no feat to create culinary masterpieces with tons of time and/or money. Most artisan bakers have amazing ovens, stones, equipment, etc. Simple rocks my world.

See sidebar, 'What's Cookin Hot Stuff' for the tip.

I am on a quest to learn how to make awesome but super quick/easy breads, so that we can have fresh bread more often. If anyone has tips or is interesting in joining me, let me know.