Sourdough & Broa & Roasted Tomato Soup

 

It’s been a big week – lots of cooking.  Lots of new recipes. I am in the process of making a sourdough starter, in day two of four. I made a loaf of Broa (Portuguese corn bread) tonight, for tomorrow's dinner of homemade roasted tomato soup and grilled cheese.  I’ve never tried a grilled pepper jack cornbread-ish sandwich before and I’m hoping that when coupled with roasted tomato soup . . . well I’m hoping it will be amazing.  The Broa really turned out great - Fred Myers was having a sale on Bob’s Red Mill products and their corn meal (polenta) is the best I’ve ever found.  A really coarse grind with lots of grit to it – baked up really nice.  

Garlic, Pepper flakes, Olive Oil, & Tomatoes about to go into a 500 degree oven

 

It’s been cold out here in Yakima these past few days.  So I’ve checked out a book from the library on soup making and getting really excited.  My bread making skills have been improving, and I’m starting to turn out nicer loaves with better crust and crumb.

I’ve drank my way thru a few tea’s this fall and need to plan trips to Moscow and Bremerton to fill fast failing supplies.

Tea that I’ve had for ages is starting to be enjoyed.

 

I've started designing a small A-Frame.  I don’t know if I’ll ever build it but I’d like to.  In the neighborhood of 700 (or less) square feet – there is a loft, and a spiral staircase, a fireplace and large floor to ceiling windows looking towards the sunset – a large sprawling deck with room to entertain.  I’m trying to design a place that would hold all I’ll need and no more.  So it’s turned out to be quite the process, planning out every little detail.  When you’ve trying to be small as you can while still feeling spacious, you’ve got to think about every thing.  The kitchen will be full of natural light, the living room cozy.  Still trying to figure out where to put a dining room table.  Bikes may have to hang from the ceiling, discreetly mounted on the wall opposite the fire place.  The bathroom has proved a challenge – fitting a toilet, sink, shower and washer/dryer all in a very small footprint is harder than I thought.  But I’ve got time yet.  Time to save, time to plan and tweak.  Time to see what I need –time to rid myself of things I don’t use while learning how to be more efficient with the things I do use.  Time to go thru several design iterations. 

I’d like to build it myself.

 

Wall space for pictures, heavy thick curtains to draw in the winter – a large east facing window in the loft upstairs which would let the sun wake me in the summer months. A window I could leave open, so that I can hear the sounds of rain, and crickets, and the birds in the morning.  Remote enough that I could hear wind, and see the stars.  Remote enough that I could learn a stringed instrument without causing harm to my fellow man.

 

And the plans grow and grow sprawling from page to page. Wood shops and car garages, gardens and trellises, gravel paths and bee hives – and.

 

And I stop and take a deep breath.  Trying to gain perspective.  Pull myself back into today and it’s challenges, take out the trash, finish the dishes, fold your laundry.

Fix your car, pay off your student loans, turn off the lights when you leave.  Listen to the high schoolers, get to know their hearts, prep for work, punch down your dough. 

 

And part of me is afraid that all the planning will be for naught.  Learning to plan with a joyfully open hand.  Not sure what that means –  a joyfully open hand.  What that looks like lived out.  But I do know that any plan that forsakes the present will never start, and having never started will never see completion.  Plans must account for the dirty dishes, lost socks and car repairs.  It is this planning, this awareness and honest appraisal of the present which turns dreamers into doers.  Doers have long term visions which they hold with a joyfully open hand, plans that they act on in the present.

 

 

So I find myself working on much more than floor plans – much much more than floor plans indeed.