So this is the view across from my apartment's front door. You can see the street, you can see a stop sign at the corner of a T-intersection. The slightly farther stop sign in on the crossroad and mainly for crossing pedestrians (children mostly as the school in the the far left corner of the picture). At that second stop sign, you can go straight or make a left.

Kevin and I have been sitting outside today enjoying the fresh air and mild humidity. We've got the grill going and were just finishing grilling up some hamburgers (Wegman's pre-made with bacon and cheddar inside!!!). It has been a busy day with many cars driving by.

As we were admiring the last few grilling moments of the burgers, a dark colored sedan pulled up to the stop sign. I did a double take because at first it looked like a child sitting on an adult's lap, but I recently it was just a very small woman (teenager?) driving and a bigger adult in the passenger seat. They made a right at the stop sign, and then drove a few feet to the second stop sign and turned right into the bushes!!

But it wasn't just into the bushes because just beyond the bushes there is about a 1 foot drop into a sunken parking lot (fortunately there were no cars parked there) and then crashed into the corner of the apartment building that's on the extreme right hand side of the picture.

Kevin and I saw this, people who live to the right of us saw this, some guys in a van that was driving behind the car saw this, and some ladies who were walking down the street. I ran over to see if everyone was ok. When I got there, the guy was getting into the driver's side and the girl was in the passenger's side. Someone from inside the building was yelling out the window "what happened, what happened?!"

The guy got into his car without saying anything to the crowd or the guy in the building and drove away!!!!! Drove away!!!!

I memorized the license plate number, the guy in the building got the make and model. The police are talking with the guy from the building now. **I just got to give my statement to the police too!**

I think that was one of the craziest things I've ever witnessed.





Oh, the hamburgers were amazing!!

Saw and answered on Ravelry... Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think!



My Life According to… Iron Maiden


Are you a male or female: Iron Maiden


Describe yourself: The Educated Fool


How do you feel: Aces High


Describe where you currently live: Caught Somewhere in Time


If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Brave New World


Your favorite form of transportation: Flight of Icarus


Your best friend? The Trooper


You and your best friends: Blood Brothers


What’s the weather like: Sun and Steel


Favorite time of day: 2 Minutes to Midnight


If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Stranger in a Strange Land


What is life to you: Heaven Can Wait


Your relationship: From Here to Eternity


Your fear: Fear of the Dark


What is the best advice you have to give: Lightning Strikes Twice


Thought for the Day: Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger


How I would like to die: Bring Your Daughter…to the Slaughter


My soul’s present condition: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner


My motto: Can I Play with Madness

While donuts are good and delicious, making and frying donuts is not an everyday (or even once a week) activity. After making just one batch of donuts, I've been completely untempted by all donuts. Normally walking past Dunkin' Donuts would make me go "YUM! I need a donut NOW!" but now, I'm a bit donut-ed out. My other baking skills are for cakes and cookies. These also should not be everyday baking adventures because I don't think I can do enough Wactive to counterbalance tons of sweets. All of this has lead me to bread. At first I thought that bread making wasn't for me because there is so much waiting and time required while it rises and ferments and gets yummy. I thought that I didn't have enough patience to bake breads, but then I thought "duh, your a knitter... knitters have tons of patience (usually)." And there's no rule that says you have to sit and stare at the bread as it rises for 3 hours, you can work or knit or exercise or watch TV. So I decided to learn more about bread...







I purchased this book from Amazon after reading the reviews of many, many, many bread baking books. While it was newer and with fewer reviews, I did like that it is essentially a break baking textbook (I'm a big nerd and like textbooks). I read through the entire book and it gives a lot of great information about the science of bread making and what the importance and role of each ingredient is (kind of like reading an Alton Brown "Good Eats" episode, but less funny). I know a lot of people really like "Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day" book, but as several reviewers noted it is kind of a cheat. Not that that's a bad thing, but (remember the mega-nerd comment above) I want to know how to do it the hard way first, and then I'll start cheating.



After reading the book, I attempted a baguette. I created my formula, took notes on what I did, and recorded my methods (the book includes worksheets that help you record all of this information. The book is very much geared towards baking students who plan to open their own or work at a bakery making large quantities of bread, and so making formulas instead of recipes helps you to keep your product the same no matter the size of the batch. And recording your methods also helps you to keep consistency in your products.) I made two baguettes and they were... well... edible. Not pretty, not super-fantastic, not the most tasty. It was a good first attempt; the crumb was squished and the shape was not anything like a baguette. By recording things on my worksheet, I realize at least a few of the areas in which I screwed up (too rough during pre-shaping, too cool of an oven, etc).



I want to get pretty good at a basic bread like a baguette that only requires flour, salt, water, and yeast before I expand into different types of bread. Basically, I want to be sure that I like baking breads before I run out (or log-on to King Arthur) and buy tons of various flours and other baking supplies.

Yes my friends, do not rub your eyes and blink with disbelief. That is indeed some knitting. And a completed FO at that!! Want a slightly different view?


These are the 16A socks. Started on the flight to San Francisco on May 21st; finished today August 12th. I should not need over two months to complete a pair of socks, but this summer has been a summer of laziness with a side focus on playing Scramble and baking delicious food. The yarn is ShibuiKnits Sock, which is my new favoritest sock yarn ever. It is so sproingy and soft. A pleasure to knit with. I used about 1 1/2 skeins, which leaves me with 1 1/2 skeins for another pair. Woo!

Of course, now that the new semester is rapidly approaching, I turn back to my old friend knitting to waste time and soothe my nerves.

What else is on the needles? Well, there's a scarf that is 90% finished and a Mets sock that it at the heel. Fingers crossed that I'll finish the scarf at knit night tomorrow. The Mets sock may be on a bit of a hold since the Mets aren't really inspiring with their lack of quality play. That of course means that I have a lack of projects. I'm trying to organize a small yarn shopping trip with my best knit buds, a trip during which I may (may depending on what deals I find) purchase yarn for 2 sweaters. Which 2 sweaters, you ask? I'm not sure yet. Once the trip is a bit more likely to occur, I'll have to come up with some options off of my queue (although not my Rav queue because I haven't added them there...)



Look for an upcoming three part story of the baguette that was delicious...

These were my first baguettes using the formula and techniques described in the Bread Baking book that I mentioned previously. Yes, I realize that they do not look like baguettes. I got confused in the shaping step and decided to just make a rectangle and see what happened.



Most likely because I was too rough with the preshaping and shaping, the interior is dense. It isn't light and airy; it doesn't have a good crumb. The crust wasn't too bad, but it lacked a nice crunchy texture.



The taste wasn't bad. It was quite plain and definitely not flavorful, but with a slather of butter it made a good dinner companion.

My baguette savior just might be King Arthur. Ok, the cooks at King Arthur's kick-ass kitchen and their blog, Baker's Banter. Since I ordered a ton of doughnut supplies from them, King Arthur has been mailing me catalogs (which I love to flip through multiple times... I spend almost as much time with their catalog as I do with Knit Picks) and emailing me tips and recipes. A link for their Baguettes Redux caught my eye and I decided to have a go at it (in part because it called for AP flour and that was all I had in my kitchen).

I mixed the batter Monday afternoon, allowed it to rise, and then stashed it in the fridge. Tuesday morning, I pulled off about a 15oz hunk and got to it. By got to it, I let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

Hi, I'm dough resting!!

Then I did some folds and rolling to make a baguette shape.

Skinny little baguette.

The dough once again rested. This time for an hour and a half to become pouffy.

Now I'm fat!!

Before heading into the oven, I slashed the baguette with a knife. As you can see my slashes squashed the dough a bit mostly because our knives are not very sharp.

A quick spritz of water and into the oven.

Viola! Behold the baguette!!

Aren't I a beauty?

It was very difficult to wait until dinner time to eat this beautiful baguette. But the wait was worth it!

Not a bad crumb. Not too dense, but still not nice an airy like the King Arthur ones.

The taste was nice and mild (again, some butter was a nice addition on top). It was chewy on the inside and crunchy on the outside. It certainly must have been good since we ate the entire baguette.

On of the great things about the King Arthur recipe is that there is dough in the fridge for up to four baguettes. Once the dough has sat overnight (but no longer than 7 days) in the fridge, it only takes about 3 hours to make up a loaf--about 25 minutes for resting and shaping; 90 minutes for rising; 5 minutes to get it ready to go into the oven; 30 minutes baking. I figure that if I have dough in the fridge, on work days, I can get up at 6 am, rest and shape the dough, workout and shower while it is rising, throw it in the oven, finish getting ready for work, pull the finished bread out of the oven, and when Kevin and I get home from work there's fresh bread for dinner!

Wednesday's baguette got a little bit fancy. After I slashed the baguette (with scissors... much easier than a knife), I placed some rosemary sprigs in the slashes and baked as usual. (Not completely as usual, I took a tip from a King Arthur commenter and threw a couple of ice cubes in the oven with the bread to add some extra steam to make the crust even crustier.)


Not only is she beautiful, but she was deliciously scented with rosemary.


And look! A slightly better crumb than Tuesday's baguette. I think that I was gentler in the shaping and so didn't squash away as many air bubbles. This one was also allowed to rise in a non-air conditioned apartment. Tuesday night was baguette and pasta; Wednesday was baguette and salad. I saved away about a third of this baguette for my lunch... baguette pb&j!!

My Life According to… Bon Jovi


Are you a male or female: Woman in Love


Describe yourself: Captain Crash And The Beauty Queen From Mars


How do you feel: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead


Describe where you currently live: Welcome to Where Ever You Are


If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Who Said You Can’t Go Home


Your favorite form of transportation: Mystery Train


Your best friend? Born to be My Baby


You and your best friends: I’ll Be There for You


What’s the weather like: 99 in the Shade


Favorite time of day: Silent Night


If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: I Am


What is life to you: Livin’ On A Prayer


Your relationship: All About Loving You


Your fear: Misunderstood


What is the best advice you have to give: Never Say Goodbye


Thought for the Day: Keep the Faith


How I would like to die: Blaze of Glory


My soul’s present condition: Bed of Roses


My motto: Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night

Make your own here: http://www.lutralutra.co.uk/squirrelizer/

Click to embiggen!

These are mostly variations on the baguette using King Arthur's recipe. There is a Challah in there as well, which was another King Arthur. The boule (round one) was just made today using the methods in Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes.

The two small Epi (looks like a stalk of wheat!) in the second row were parbaked and then frozen. I heated them up last night for dinner and they came our fantastic. Want to know how to make the Epi? Check out this video.

...another post about bread! Don't worry, I haven't given up yarn for yeast and flour. The knitting will return at some point. I'm part of a very nefarious Guild of Calamitous Intent swap on Ravelry that I need to knit something for, and I have a list of 12 sweaters that I want to knit, and I have plan in the works for attending Rhinebeck.



But I am really enjoying the bread baking (and apparently Wii Fit is enjoying telling me that I keep gaining weight! Argh!! I'm trying to convince myself that it is muscles that I'm gaining from doing Wactive and muscles weigh more than fat, not just that I'm getting more fat because the breads are so damn good!! I also think that getting back to work will help too because I'm more active--taking the bus, walking around teaching--than sitting at home.) I am getting good at french bread in baguette, boule, and epi forms. We've even been making sandwiches with my boule bread...




This is my sandwich: roast beef, lettuce, salt and pepper, and yummy kewpie mayonnaise on half a small boule.



Here is the boule before it was made into sandwiches. I tried to make a signature "K" slash in the top.



The lines on the bread are from being flipped upside down in the oven. I've found a good formula for good crust and color... 10 minutes on sheet pan, 10 minutes flipped upside down directly on the oven rack, final 5-10 minutes flipped right side up on oven rack. You get some indentations, but the crust is perfectly crisp and browned all around.



Here are some baby boules!





Which were also used for sandwiches...



That's Trader Joe's shredded pork topped with some BBQ sauce.



So now that I've conquered (thought not perfected or mastered) basic french bread, I'm going to attempt some light whole wheat and some challah!

Do you ever think about your life and realize that as a kid you would have never predicted that you like what you like? For example, I LOVE kitchen stores (also office supply stores, but that's an obsession to discuss at another time). Kevin and I found this great kitchen store not too far from us called Chef Central. This place is light years better than Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which only affords kitchen stuff a small place in the beyond.



There were so many tools, appliances, pieces of equipment, interesting ingredients, and cookbooks that our heads were spinning. We were able to drop off our knives to be sharpened. We wandered throughout the store calling to each other "hey, look at this!" Fortunately, we got out of there spending less than $100 and not picking up too much unnecessary stuff.



I was most happy that I was able to get containers for rising dough. Now, I don't think that that's the sole purpose of these containers. You can store anything in them really, but they are the same dough rising buckets that King Arthur advertises, but for $10 less! As soon as we got home, I put my buckets to use.




On the left is a light, whole wheat dough and on the right is a challah dough. Both doughs are from Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day.



After two hours of rising time, check out these doughs!!




Wow! Those doughs got huge!! The baked results will be coming soon...

Challah the first...




Just your basic challah bread. The recipe is courtesy of Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day. The thing I am really loving about this book is that the doughs just hang out in the fridge until you want to bake them. For this challah, I grabbed a big wad of dough, quickly divided it into four pieces, rolled some snakes, and braided the dough in the 5 minutes before our dinner was ready. After it rose, I baked it, and we had challah for a late night snack (and even better for breakfast the next morning!).




Look at that soft, yummy interior. Absolutely divine!




Challah the second (also known as the most delicious challah ever)...




Hmmm... this challah looks a little different in coloration than the first one. Let's look inside...




Holy cow!!! Is that cinnamon-sugar swirl challah?!?! Oh yes it is!!!



This brilliant idea came to me while thinking about bread as I was trying to fall asleep. I thought, what if I rolled out the challah sections into flat rectangle-ish shapes, then spread on some cinnamon-sugar, then rolled my snakes, and braided the whole thing together! In my vision, the swirls were a little more perfectly circular, but who cares, it tasted like heaven!!




As is (as pictured here) or toasted and smeared with butter, this was the greatest laying in bed thinking about bread idea I've ever had. Next time, I'll have to make it on the weekend so that we can make it into french toast!

Today was the first day back to school. Granted, I didn't have to teach today, but I still got up early and went through my new routine (that included throwing a bread in the oven) to see how long it would take me to get to work. Happy to say that if it was a teaching day, I would have made it with 45 minutes before class. This morning I was also purposefully a little slow and lazy, so I was pleased with my timing.



As the start of the new semester and the end of the summer, it was time to turn to a new Excel sheet for recording my workouts. This also meant a review of the summer workout. While I was slightly less diligent (took about a week off each month) than during the semester, I completed two 30 day Wactive programs, and supplemented that with some of the pre-programed stuff for a few weeks. I also did a bit of walking in June and July.



With all that, it depressed me that my weight went up 6lbs since the end of the spring semester. Even though I've been eating a bit more bread (I bake it, I gotta eat it!), I mostly stopped drinking soda (now I only have it occasionally when eating out, very rarely at home... this is a big change from 1-3 cans a day), started drinking a lot of water, and have been eating more vegetables, fruits, and salads (yay for summer produce!). I don't feel that my eating habits were any worse than during the school year; I even started eating a little breakfast.



I also wonder where this 6lbs is. My work clothes aren't any tighter now than they were in the Spring. That makes me hopeful that the weight change was because Wactive was strengthening and building a bit of muscle. But 6lbs worth? I think the primary issue is that during the summer, I'm sitting a lot more than during the semester. Hopefully, being back to work will turn things around.



But more importantly, and why I titled this hidden benefits is because even if Wactive hasn't be helping me shed weight, it has certainly made me stronger and improved my endurance.



I left work today at 3:30 and since I rode the bus, I had three choices of where to walk to catch a bus home. Walk down the hill and take the bus that drops me a little farther from home. Walk up the hill and take the bus that drops me close to home. Walk the long way to the bus stop where two buses stop that will drop me close to home. I decided to go with the longer initial walk. When I got to the bus stop, there was no bus coming (that I could see) and it was so nice and sunny and breezy that I decided to keep walking. And I walked and walked and walked until I had walked home.



Google maps suggested that it is about 2.3 miles from school to home. By car that's about 10 minutes (including a bit of traffic and red lights). By bus (with some walking to and from bus) it is about 30-40 minutes depending on how many stops the bus makes. Walking... it took me about 50 minutes. Now, maybe 2.3 miles isn't that far, but I walked at a steady, quick pace and I didn't feel tired or sore. I didn't want to give up and stop walking. When I got home, I was a little sweaty, but I wasn't winded or wanting to collapse. So all that Wactive is paying off!



Will I start walking to work? Probably not, I don't need to show up to work sweaty. Will I walk home again? Probably, if it is another nice day!