Crayon Takes a Bath

Crayon hates baths. I think he partially likes being smelly, but it's mostly that he hates being wet and cold. And for such a tiny dog he takes an amazing amount of time to get dry. This is why, in the winter, Crayon doesn't get many baths.

But recently, Crayon has become increasingly pungent. So today, despite the low temperatures and lack of sunshine, Crayon got the full spa treatment.

You can't tell how smelly he is in the above picture, but trust me, it's pretty gnar. His beard is also matted and his mane is showing serious signs of bed-body.

The first step was to brush and comb his mop. Since I estimate his surface area to be 1 square foot, this took all of 3 minutes. And already what a difference!

Step two involved a hair cut. This, he did not enjoy. He kept wriggling and sneezing and trying to make me pet him instead. He helped a little, though. Every time he wriggled loose he shook off all the excess hair clippings, which made it easier for me to get to the rest of him.

And the result: A very handsome dog.

As a reward we went for a walk, before I had to begin the soapy water torture.

But it was all worth it! Because now he smells of lavender and his beard is once again well manicured. In 8 hours when he finally dries off, he'll be the handsomest dog on the block.

Yep. He's a real Ladies' Man.

Nut Teas and Nutella

I've had a pretty bakey week. I didn't make any bread this weekend, because we're still working on that Spiced Honey Wheat Bread (another advantage of making it by hand over using a bread machine : 2 loaves!)

However, I volunteered to host the February board meeting of the Northwest History Network, which meant I had to bake to impress! Or, at least, I wanted to. So I made cookies: LeChuck Chips and Nut Teas. (Every battery in the house was dead, so no pictures. Sorry.)

LeChuck Chips (so named because when I first made them, I was playing a lot of Monkey Island) are basically Chocolate Chip cookies with coconut flakes added, and coconut extract instead of vanilla extract. One could go even further and use coconut oil instead of butter - but I'm much too cheap for that.

I found the recipe for Nut Teas in a cookbook by the Overlook Women's Club from the 1950s - although I can't imagine anyone thinking that "Nut Teas" was a good name for food back then either. The cookbook also didn't think it necessary to give many actual directions beyond a temperature and an ingredient list, but I managed to wing it ok:

Nut Teas
from the Overlook Cookbook ca. 1950
submitted by Mrs. G. A. Baley

1 c firmly packed brown sugar
1 c ground nuts (measure after grinding)
1 unbeaten egg white
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 275F. Mash lumps in brown sugar. Add egg and salt. Add nuts and form into balls. Bake 30 minutes.

What the recipe doesn't tell you is that since these cookies contain no butter and only egg whites, you need to be sure to heavily grease your cookie sheet and be VERY careful removing them after they're done. Make sure to allow them to cool completely on the sheets before chipping them carefully off. Several of mine fell apart because I didn't know this. But they were still delicious, and soon disappeared.

Since I used hazelnuts in the above recipe, and I had a great many of them all ground up and leftover, I decided to attempt to make my own nutella (Recipe found here).

Seen here on my delicious Spiced Honey Wheat Bread (now that batteries have been recharged):

Warning: if you attempt this at home, this recipe is a little too sweet for my taste. I'd recommend using more cocoa powder and less powdered sugar.

Spiced Honey Wheat Bread

The second loaf of bread to be destroyed by my bread machine was a Spiced Honey Wheat Bread. On Monday, I recreated it with my own two hands. According to boyfriend, who had a slice for breakfast this morning, the hand-made version was "sofaking good!"

This one was easier to recreate. I just made a basic honey wheat bread and added spicy goodness. I went out for 3 hours during the first rise, and cooked it at the wrong temperature, but even with all those mistakes, it still turned out way better than the Breadman disaster of 2011.

Here's a recipe to try at home!

Sofaking Good Spiced Honey Wheat Bread

1 c milk
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1/4 c butter
1/2 c honey

Heat milk over medium heat until bubbles form at edges. Remove from heat and add the other goodies, stirring until butter is melted and everything else is dissolved. Set aside and allow to cool to lukewarm.

1 1/2 c warm water (105-115 F)
2 pkg or 4 1/2 tsp yeast

Sprinkle yeast over warm water in the bowl you will be using for mixing. Stir until dissolved. Add warm milk mixture.

2 1/2 c sifted all-purpose flour
2 1/2 c unsifted wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Add flour and spices to yeasty milky mix. With a wooden spoon or fancy mixer, stir until smooth.

2 1/2 c unsifted wheat flour

Gradually add the rest of the flour while stirring. Continue mixing until dough is thick enough that it no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover with bowl and walk away for about 10 minutes. Check your email.

When you come back, knead the dough until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes)

While you were checking your email, you probably should have been greasing a large bowl. Anyway, do that now. Move your finished dough to the buttery bowl, turning the ball over so that all sides get greasy. Cover with a towel and place someplace warm (I like the oven with the light turned on).

Forget all about your bread for about 1 hour 15 minutes.

When you start thinking about your bread again, prepare 2 breadpans, lightly coating them with butter or veggie oil, or your preferred greasy substance. Also flour a surface and your hands, cause you're about to get real familiar with your dough again.

Turn your dough out onto the floured surface and divide in half. Shape into 2 balls. Walk away for 10 minutes again.

When you come back, shape your balls into loaves:

Stretch dough out to approximately 27 inches long.
Fold into thirds, like a letter.
Pinch ends closed and roll into a cylindrical shape.

(Image from McCall's Home Baked Breads, c1965)
Image j is after 2nd rise, so don't worry if your bread doesn't fit its pan like that just yet.

Once you have both loaves in their pans, again, cover with a towel and leave in that warm spot for another hour and 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400F

Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until bread is solid enough to rap with your knuckles without giving. If you want lighter crust (which I recommend) try to remember to cover the loaves with foil for the last 20 minutes of baking.

Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

Enjoy with tea and jam. Possibly Nutella, if you have some around.

Chocolate Hazelnut Bread

After my failed experiments with my bread machine, I thought I'd attempt to make all the ruined breads the old fashioned way, just to make sure that it really was the bread machine's fault.

Here, you can see the delicious result!

Of course, this time, the white splotches are a dusting of powdered sugar. And the bread rose beautifully. And, because I mixed in the hazelnuts by hand, they are evenly spread throughout this chocolatey sweet bread.

I had to invent a recipe for this one, because bread machine recipes always require weird amounts and not enough yeast. And after having eaten a slice for breakfast, I can confidently say that my recipe tested very well.

Try it yourself!

Sarielle's Chocolate Hazelnut Explosion Bready Cake Goodness

1/2 c milk
1 c white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter

Heat milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until bubbles form at edges. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, salt and butter until dissolved. Set aside and allow to become lukewarm.

1/2 c warm water (105 to 115 degrees Farenheit)
1 packet or 2 1/4 tsp yeast

Sprinkle yeast over warm water in the bowl you will be using for mixing. Stir until dissolved. Add milk mixture.

4 eggs (beaten)
3 1/2 c all-purpose flour (sifted)
1/2 c baking cocoa

Add eggs, cocoa and 1 1/2 c flour to mixture. Stir until smooth. Add remaining flour and again, stir until smooth. Dough will be batter-like.

Cover with a damp towel and place in a warm spot, such as the oven with the light on, and allow to rise until bubbly (about an hour).

1 c toasted, skinned and chopped hazelnuts

If you are starting with whole hazelnuts, because you're cheap like me or you are lucky enough to have your own hazelnut tree, start by measuring out the hazelnuts into a baking pan. Toast in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 15 to 20 minutes. Skins should fall off with only a little encouragement. Put skinned nuts into a food processor and smash!

When dough is ready, stir with a spoon. Add hazelnuts and stir lightly.

Grease a tube pan or bundt pan. If using a bundt pan, be sure to grease every nook and cranny thoroughly, and then lightly flour it. I used butter, but I've read that vegetable oil painted on with a brush works very well.

Pour dough into pan, cover with a damp cloth and put it in that warm spot again for about another hour and a half, until double in bulk.

Preheat oven to 350F

When your dough has filled up its pan nicely, bake 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan completely on a wire rack.

Carefully remove from pan (you may need to pry gently with a rubber spatula if you used a fancy bundt pan like I did). Dust lightly with powdered sugar, if desired.

Stand back and admire your work. Send a photo to your grandmother.

Eat! Make sure to share, though. It's a lot of bread.

Me vs. The Bread Machine

For Xmas and my birthday, my mom got me a Breadman breadmaker.

I've been making bread by hand for a while now, so I think that's why she was so inspired. A few years ago, I had found an old Sunbeam Mixer (circa 1970s) at the Goodwill for $15 - one that came with kneading hooks! Just recently, I had gotten into the habit of making some bread every Sunday afternoon, with my own hands. So when I opened up the giant box on Xmas morning, I was a little confused and disappointed.

"Just give it a try," my Mom implored. "At the very least you can use it for mixing the dough and letting it rise."

I have to admit, the thing looks pretty cool. It's got a gajillion settings, a collapsible kneading paddle, so it won't leave a creepy hole in your bread like most machines do, and a fruit and/or nut and/or chocolate chip auto dispenser. Plus, it's awfully shiny. So, I plugged it in and gave it a try.

Round 1: Chocolate Hazelnut Bread.
Me: 0
Breadman: 1




For my first try, I thought I'd make something sweet. I'm a huge Nutella fan, so I thought I'd try out the Chocolate Hazelnut Bread recipe.

Well, the bread didn't rise. The kneading paddle didn't fall like it was supposed to, so my bread had a gaping hole in the bottom. And the nut dispenser just dumped all the hazelnuts into one side of the bread. And, lastly, it had some kind of weird burnt flour shell.

I figured maybe I had mis-measured the liquids, and that maybe my yeast was too old for the machine to work with. So, I went out and bought some fresh bread-machine yeast.

But it was still delicious, at least.


Round 2: Honey Wheat Bread.
Me: 0
Breadman: 2



This time, I needed a recipe that would use milk, but not eggs. I had just bought some local honey, so...

This one was a disaster. The kneading paddle popped out in what appears to be the first kneading cycle. The chickens had a feast that day.

This time, I thought maybe I didn't put the kneading paddle in firmly enough. Next time, I thought, I'll be more careful.


Round 3: Andama.
Me: 0
Breadman: 3

It's hard to see what went wrong in this photo. But the bread rose, and then collapsed in on itself. The sunflower seeds are all on one side of the bread. And the kneading hook popped off again, this time in the second kneading cycle, so it's baked somewhere in the center, but at least it looks relatively bread shaped, this time.

Maybe I used too much yeast. But I sure as heck made sure that kneading paddle was secure.

At least, once again, the bread was still delicious.


In conclusion: Breadmachines, at least this one, appear to require so much babysitting that having a machine do the work for you appears to be pointless. The results are much much better when I do it myself. I've NEVER had my bread not rise or collapse when I'm in charge of it. If I have to check on the machine every 20 minutes to make sure it hasn't screwed itself up, I fail to see where the convenience is.

Whaddya think, should I return the thing, or keep trying to make it work?

Mouthwash

I'm just gonna say it: I hate mint.

I hate mint tea. I hate chocolate chip mint ice cream. I hate mint gum. I even hate Thin Mints. And I especially hate mint toothpaste and mouthwash.

But I really love clean and healthy teeth.

For years I religiously purchased Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste, the original flavor. But a few years ago, this mysteriously disappeared from store shelves. I wrote a letter to their customer service asking about it, and they responded to me as if this product never existed.

For awhile I bought hippie brands from health stores, since those are the only places I can find anything other than 'fresh mint' or foul 'cinnamint' (which tastes nothing like cinnamon, even when you factor in the mintyness) flavors. But I couldn't find a flavor that satisfied me. I just wanted one that tasted like clean.

I tried to make my own toothpaste, but since I don't have glycerin lying about, and I didn't fancy rushing out to buy some, I ended up with toothpowder, and I wasn't happy with it. About a month ago I finally broke down and just bought a minty Arm & Hammer toothpaste.

I'm still hunting for solutions.

In a related matter, recently someone at work left a giant bag in the break room filled with travel-sized body products, free to a good home. Amongst these treasures was a Fresh Mint Molton Brown Mouth Wash. It was free. I love free things, even if they're mint. So I took it home.

The bottle may have said 'Fresh Mint' but the flavor was in actuality pure ambrosia! I took a closer look at the bottle and found that it was actually mint and marsh mallow flavor (as in, the actual flower). It left behind a tingly mouth glow, spicy like cloves and ginger, but light and airy, like... well, mint. Except delicious.

The travel-size sample ran out quickly, so I searched the Google-machine for a vendor from which to purchase a larger quantity - and found that such things do not exist. This luxurious mouthwash is apparently so elite that it is only available in 4 oz bottles in posh hotel bathrooms. Or eBay, if you want 30 travel sized bottles.

I admit, I was tempted. It's that good. But, alas, I just couldn't make myself buy that much plastic. So, until I find myself in a rich person's hotel bathroom, I will try to recapture the flavor in my own mouthwashy brews.

First try: Cardamom and Clove Mouthwash. It's basically just cardamom and clove tea. Supposedly, cloves have antiseptic properties, so it's not just for tastyness. It leaves a similar spicy tingly sensation, but it's much more subtle (I probably should have left it steeping longer).

Maybe for my next try, I'll attempt to get a hold of some actual marsh mallow root.

Margie Liliam (Bergin) Robinson Reminiscences

Margie Liliam Robinson, nee Bergin.
Born July 26, 1918 in Mississippi.
Died April 14, 2007 in California.

Part I
Written February 2006.
(Minimal editing was done on my part, just where needed for clarity)

Born in Paulding, Mississippi, a small country town, with one store, a courthouse, a post office, two churches, Catholic and Methodist, and a four-room school house.

At six years, I walked through the woods to a one room school house with one teacher who taught the first grade through the eight grade - the 2nd year I went to Paulding to a 4 room school house, grades first through 11th. Rode a bus, had to walk a 1/2 mile to catch bus. We had 4 teachers who taught one through 11th, three classes in 3 rooms, except for 2 in 1 room: the 10th and 11th. We were taught English, reading, spelling, math and the 10th-11th were taught geography and history. We had a study hall. When I was in 5th grade I got the chicken pox and then the Measles in the 8th grade.

After the 11th grade (1935) I went to a small town about 15 miles, call Heidleburg, Mississippi, to Graduate. I was 17 years old when I graduated. Stayed home until I was 22 (1940) and then was sent to Jackson, Mississippi, to a Business school to take typing and shorthand and math. I babysat for room and board until a girlfriend and myself got a job at the Selective Service which was a government job where the men were sent to sign up for the army, Marine, etc. (for World War II). We worked for 15 cents an hour, we rented us a room with a stove top, no fridge. So we ate lightly.

As I grew up in a family of 11 children, 7 girls and 4 boys. We all had chores to do, but when we weren't working we played base-ball with a ball made out of old rags and a bat cut off a tree. We threw washers in a hole as we did not have toys we made our own. We walked 4 miles to church for mass, also for catchechism on Saturday as we had no car - no radio nor TV and no electricity. We walked everywhere we went.

Part II
Written May 2006.

A friend (Marie) and I took a test to go to Washington DC, we passed, I went as a typist and she as a secretary, to work at the Pentagon and she with the Senator from Mississippi (probably Theodore G. Bilbo) for about 18 months.

(When) the war was over I was transferred to Kennedy General Hospital to figure up and type paychecks for the Boys returning from the war and Marie went to Jackson, Mississippi which was near her home. I worked at Memphis, Tennessee, until I was needed no more. So then I worked at Yellow Cab until I decided to go to Jackson to looked for a job but jobs was scarce there so I went back to Memphis as I had a friend (Marguerette Oletti) there who worked at St. Joseph Hospital as a Bookkeeper, so I find a job with Hunter Fan.

I like the job, but Marguerette and I decided to join the WACs (Women's Army Corps) so we quit and took an exam to join the WACs. She was passed but I did not, she was sent to Richmond, Virginia. They could not find my record as it was a mixed-up mess : I was baptized as Magdeline Lillian, (birth certificate says Magdeline Liliam) sent my record to the stack as Margaret Lillian and was called Margie, so I always signed my named as Margie L. Bergin.

So I decided to go to Norfolk, Virginia, as to be near Margaret (Marguerette) but she was sent to Japan. I got a job at Glokegron (?) in Norfolk. There is where I met Bill (William Robinson). We were married about 3 months later, got pregnant with Vicki (1952). At 11 months we were separated as Bill was sent to Cuba and I was pregnant with Skylar, so after 2 months Bill made for Vicki and I to fly to Cuba.

It was an old rickity plane that really was very scary and being my first plane trip I think that's the reason I am afraid to fly.

Oh I forgot to tell you first went by train to Florida to stay with Tim my brother until we got a plane to go to Cuba.

After that about 20 months Bill was transferred to New Jersey for school and I stayed with my parents in Mississippi. When Bill finished school he came by to get the three of us and we went to Berkeley, California to Navy house and spent 2 months there until we could find a house in Hayward. But then he was transferred to San Diego so we moved to Chula Vista. When we were in Hayward, Cindy was borned in Oak Knoll Hospital (1958). So when we moved to Chula Vista I had 3 small ones to worry with.

So Bill spent 24 months in San Diego, mostly on a ship out to sea. After that time he was shipped to Treasure Island in San Francisco. We rented a house in Concord, there we lived for 40 years. So Cindy was 6 years old and Skylar 10 years and Vicki 11 years... (they) all went to all 3 schools in Concord also DVC college.

I hope you can read this. I could (have) added a lot more but decided it is easier to fill in than to write it all down. I hope you are ok, I am about the same.

Love,

Your old Grand-Ma