yo - yo - yo, we're hooked on the dough

Last week was Henry's spring break from school, so we took a drive to Boston.  It was a great trip: we visited my sister, Beth and her son, Michael - and went out to dinner with my brother Wally and his spouse, Donna.  One of the days, I went in to my company's office to work - while Henry found a gym to work out for a few hours, and Charlie found a Starbucks to get some work of his own, done.  We had a chance to visit my Dad's younger sister, Peggy, who lives in Boston and spent the afternoon walking all around the city and to the New England Aquarium. 

On the drive back to Burlington, we stopped by King Arthur Baking Company which I'm so proud to announce: IS IN VERMONT.  OUR state: which I'm convinced is the coolest little state in the nation. 

There's a Bakery - A Cafe - A School - And A Store.  At the factory, just down the road a spell, you can buy all kinds of flour in bulk.  

Here I am with Henry...  he's 6'1 and still growing.  His goal was to be bigger than his brother before William returns home from Germany. While it's unlikely he'll surpass 6'4" in the next four months, he has become fanatical about working out and spends hours every day at the gym.  He'll be entering his first powerlifting competition next week and is very happy that he can lift insane amounts of weights. I've found this is very helpful for lugging bags of insanely heavy flour. 

Here's a picture of one of the classrooms, inside.  Look at all the pretty bright red matching Kitchen Aids!!!  This is now on my bucket list, to drive down and take a class @ KA with a KA!   

They have clothing! 

Hats! 

Beautiful baking sheets, bowls, and all kinds of gear that I didn't know what it was, but I'm sure would make cooking and baking so much BETTER. 

I'm happy to report we didn't go completely crazy. This was our haul. I bought the hat, Charlie and Henry both both shirts which they've been wearing this week.  Oh how we all love to bake!! 

Charlie and I have a pact that we will strive to not buy new gear and supplies for the kitchen until we redo our kitchen.  I'm not sure when exactly that'll happen: we're hoping for next year, but TBD.  Will admit, the one thing we *do* miss about Texas is our brand new gourmet kitchen which we had just finished remodeling before we left on vacation.  But, whenever I start to get weepy about the loss of our Wolf steam oven, I dream about our future kitchen. It might look something like this. 

Then I snap out of it and think about how blessed we are to have a functioning kitchen and although it is quite dated, I am reminded of our old appliances in Fairfax and how they lasted forever.   

(BTW: that oven fire didn't actually destroy our oven like I thought it would!) 

Here's my setup: ready for action - new scale and bread whisk - which has been great. 

Here's the sourdough I made earlier this week, which went went quite nicely with the corned beef and cabbage that Charlie had made for dinner.  It was delicious - but next time, I think we will cook it longer.  We read that you can cook corned beef for up to 24 hours in a slow cooker.  That sounds like a fun experiment we may have to test out for St. Patrick's Day. 

The "crumb" of the bread is the soft part within the crust.  Real sourdough bakers will say things like, "LOOK AT THIS CRUMB!"  LOOK AT IT!  Doesn't it look beautiful?  I still have a lot to learn with shapes and fun patterns, but appearance aside: this is the best tasting bread I've ever had. 

Another highlight of the week was receiving a case of wine from our niece, Alice, who lives in Northern California and works at Handley Cellar vineyards.  Charlie's brother, George (Alice's dad) had sent us a couple of bottles for Christmas, and Charlie thought they were so good - that very night, he went online, bought a case, and joined the wine of the month club. They'd been waiting to ship the wine since December because they wanted to make sure it wasn't at risk of freezing in transit. Since we had warmer weather this week - it was finally shipped and got here just before the storm that is currently dropping two-feet of snow on our mountains.  

So, we have a house full of yummy wine, and another batch of bread going in to the oven, today. 

AFTER TODAY, I've told Charlie that this was my prayer and intent for the REST OF THE WEEK. Even though I mostly wear wool and flannel, which are very stretchable, my friends have told me that if I'm going to lament going up a pant size, I must break up with King Arthur. 

This was Charlie's response, as he was awaiting his haircut. 

So it is, I've become quite the domestic: I cut hair AND bake bread.  

Now, if only I could just savor the smell of it without inhaling an entire loaf, I'd be all set.