Good mid-day!
The above title an essay in itself and should be spread over three days' writing. But I shall try to cram it all into one brief and well-trimmed posting.
First, Cherry Bread. Yum, yum. Since we are still operating in a severely curtailed and hardly operative kitchen, I decided to buy a box of bread mix and make some Cherry Bread. How easy it is, with a nice box of mix by Krusteaz. I bought the Country White flavor, but now think I might have done better with the Hawaiian, which is sweet. But it's also yellow and I like the idea of white bread with red cherries. I had a package of dried cherries which had already long stood opened, and I just mixed up the bread, the yeast, and the water in a mixing bowl as directed on the package. Then I stirred in a lot of cherries as tons fell unexpectly from the package.
Choosing the "artisan" method, I didn't even have to knead the bread...just let it rise, punched down, put it onto a baking sheet, let rise again, and baked it at an unknown temperature (same old oven) for an indeterminate amount of time. I let it bake until it was brown and crisp. It came out delicious, though nothing as fabulous as it wd've if I'd used FF's wonderful hot roll dough. It had a soda bread quality to it though it was a yeast bread. Like a huge oval biscuit. It sliced well and made wonderful oven toast. I speak as though it were in the past, but there's still plenty left after yesterday's snack and this morning's toast.
Now, Miss Read. Miss Read is an English authoress of whom I don't know enough, except that she wrote many many books about a little village named Thrush Green. I have not read many of these books, but I can see that they have a value as consoling books of old age. Open one and you're transported to a very pleasant place presided over by a good Omnipotent Deity (Miss Read), full of very human people with all their failure and fallibilities--and their goodness.
The one I'm reading is called, "Affairs at Thrush Green," and unless one looked closely it might not be distinguished in any striking way from its mates. I also have, "The School at Thrush Green," and it is about two spinsters who keep the school there. The same characters people all the books, with new folk added from book to book to keep up the spice. The writing is not folksy--I would not like that. It is plain. Plain English. With a guiding Brain behind it all. Very satisfactory.
There's one section where two good ladies are lamenting their new cookbooks. The decimal system has come to Britain, and they are furious not to have the new recipes using their familiar kitchen measures--"good Christian pints!" They refuse to change their ways and plan to hang onto their old cookbooks. I'm with them; I like my pounds and ounces and am perfectly satisfied with them, even though kilos and such have been part of our lives since infancy thanks to Mexico.
Now time for the reprieve. Taterton has come up to the reckoning: his driver's license is at stake. His doctor is anxious for him not to drive...but he sent us in the wrong direction for the cause of T's forgetfulness. It was not really the neurologist we needed; it was the young cardiologist who pointed out that not taking his Lasix, old racehorse that he is, was what fogged Theo's brain with water...now that we are on the Lasix on a more fastidious basis, Theo's brain is doing well. He only missed two on the written test; now he has to do the driver's test which may well bring us down at last. We shall see. YAZZYBEL
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