sometiems i get thise topics from the tv news -- whICH provides me with hundreds of things to avoid.... but last night... baking bread hit me...
2020 12 11
You may find it hard to believe but I once baked all the bread we ate -----I even baked whole wheat bread -- Try finding that flower in your supermarket ..the first element to baking bread is to have an absolutely clean kitchen counter on which to operate .. consequently I haven't baked bread the last 40 years .. but I did do that and I got to remembering some of the other details that my mother put in my head ...Mother was a super cook .. I think if she were allowed to follow her natural instinct she would have been a chemist but women didn't do that so she had a degree in what the hell is it--- social services --- from vassar . and married my father who got out of grade school and went to some farmers children's winter 2 month farm course ON COW M ILKING at Cornell .. which allowed him to say he went to Cornell but it wasn't very often that he was asked .
. so back to chemical cooking.. I remember....do not allow the yeast to cool off .. Butter the bowl and invert the lump of dough .. and you need a teaspoon of sugar to disoulve with the fleishemas which will make the yeast behave better .
Fortunately the things that run around my counters prohibit me from getting involved with things like yeast and bread ..thankfully.. sliced bread took over ..
Another cooking thing I feel I must tell everyone before its lost to the ages is---- if you are making Jelly or jam which I know most of you do all the time the key to making it gel is not only the pectin you put in but you need a big wide Pan so you have a large surface area to bubble it .....
Flour Sugar soda salt eggs milk add butter . mother used to stand in front of a pan and say that a lot just to be sure she put all the ingredients .. I don't know what she was cooking but she used to say that a lot .
Cooking along with building stone walls is almost a thing of the past ... my one piece of information---- I was told about Stonewall building is it's two up and one down or one down and two up .. and I've tried to look at that as I drive around New England and it does seem to be true .. the most beautiful Stonewall is over ats the Winthrop Property which has several miles of absolutely perfect stonewalls ... and stone pillars at the gates .. with the possible exception of the one I hit one day with my trailer .. so Ann ( a family member) and I try to take those exact stones and put them back where they were .. We didn't fail but you can tell --- that 2 foot of Stonewall looks a little different than the rest .
so onto the saving of original stone walls -- there is a historic farm in topsfield - Meredith fARM ( IT GOOGLES...) WHERE THE OWNER IS REBUILDING THE OLD STONE WALLS And he is using only the stones that were there on the property .. I don't know where he got the MEN to build 'em but they are doing a perfectly beautiful job .
This is the farm where Janine has parked AND MANAGES many rescued animals .. AND we parked Henry there WITH TH4E Fmily.... during the COV beginning.
It's my belief that stonewalls were the answer to the old Yankees problem of hyperactive children especially young males .. this was before hyperactive children had a name .. and Rolling big stones around pastures into stone walls was a very good exercise and something we have lossed out on with having VERY LITTLE grade school PHYSICAL education .
just as it is with the dogs ---you need to get out and run before we take them out for training .. I don't think you can teach a kid very much if they're just bursting with too much energy .. and I never did approve of the timeout theory of discipline .. mine was more go out and do something expend the energy a little bit so you can sit still and learn.... back in Lynnfield our property was a long thin piece and there was a pine tree at the other end I don't know how many times I told my children and all the neighborhood children who were hanging around---- to go run around the pine tree and come back before we could get anything else done like have circus practice . I wish I had photos ==there were usually six or eight kids under the age of 10 .. go giggling their way around the pine tree . it happened a lot...
The only thing that closely resembles that idea now is that the attorney general's office in Massachusetts often sends me some kid ---usually a male kid ---who has gotten into some minor trouble and they are ordered to do 20 or 30 hours of what they call community service .. crazy acres was inspected for this procedure buy someone from the attorney general's office --and I explained that if they were sent out doing hours becausw they were naughty then I GAVE THEM a job like rolling rocks around .or moving manure piles.... .if they were doing community service as part of National Honor Society or need to get to graduate from high school .. I was a little kinder ..
Working and having a job to do is a blessing... not working is a problem on all scores.
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YESTERDAY-----i forgot to include goldie's latest......---
mule with number 737 plastered to her rump arrived here from the kill pens the same day boeing put their 737 back up in the air...
I DON'T KNOW WHAT GOLDIE IS TELLING ME... BUT I NOTICED......
