i've got a little list

I’m not one of those people who live by lists, making them every day and obsessively ticking things off, (though I live with and admire the productivity of someone who does). But neither could I live a completely list-free life. They definitely have their uses for efficient shopping, planning for events such as Christmas and generally making sure that things get done. When I was still working I had a daily to-do list to keep me on track and more recently I have discovered the beauty of what I can only call an aspirational list.

Three or so years ago I made a list of fifty things to do before I was sixty. You can see it here. It was a mixture of things to do, things to do more of, one off special activities, regular commitments and plans for the future. It wasn’t too prescriptive. It was fun to make and it was fun to do the stuff and interesting to revisit and see how I had got on. Clearly life has moved on; I am now retired and so is Steve, so the shape of our days and weeks has changed significantly. Spending eight weeks “home alone” in the summer while S was off volunteering on Iona made it reassuringly clear to me that I enjoy my quiet domestic existence with its gentle routine of one or two regular activities, friends and family within easy reach, sewing and knitting projects to keep me busy and creative. I am generally content to take things as they come and make it up as I go along, but there is always the danger of drifting, of frittering, of getting to the end of a day, or week and thinking “what have I achieved?” or “why did I spend the day on household tasks instead of something I enjoy?”

So I thought it was time to revisit the List and make some plans. I started by going back to the 50before60 list and merrily crossing off the things that were done and dusted, or that time had told me I was never going to do. Then I added in new plans; nothing huge, nothing too difficult, but little things to make the future look inviting and to help keep me a bit more focused.

This time it seemed helpful to divide the list into general headings.

PLACES TO VISIT OR REVISIT

• Cambridge
• St Ives
• Penzance
• Leeds
• Roseland Peninsula
• Exeter
• Cardiff
• Rye
• Amsterdam/Utrecht
• Ireland
• Venice
• Vancouver

HEALTH/EXERCISE/SPIRITUAL

• More walking – including more of what I did recently and which I would describe as a sort of prayer walk; spending the best part of a day walking in the city, stopping off from time to time to read a passage or a prayer from a book on pilgrimage.
• Reduce weight by 5% - yep, still working on this one!

REGULAR ACTIVITIES

• Singing with a community choir
• Knit and Natter

CREATIVE

• Finish “jewel” quilt (more on this soon)
• More indigo prep: (I love the dyeing, but stitching and preparing fabrics for the dye vat takes ages)
• Finish my mother’s canvas-work rug
• Finish my Kantha quilted scarf
• Complete green cardigan currently on the needles
• Chart and stitch some needlepoint cushions from a design by my daughter to go with some newly re-upholstered chairs which belonged to my grandmother

CULTURE

• More theatre.
• Regular cinema
• Read at least two books a month
• Exhibitions and galleries

COMMUNITY/FAMILY/FRIENDSHIP

• Spending time with family and friends: one of the most pleasurable activities in life
• Ithaca (our weekly get-together with friends to eat, talk, discuss a spiritual/philosophical theme)
• Share veg garden with H+F
• Support for local initiatives like the Bristol Pound
• Malago WI
  
  DOMESTIC/CULINARY

• Make another sourdough bread starter. I binned the last one when we went on holiday and never got round to starting another
• Batch cooking for freezer
• Making more interesting meals
• Small chunks of house clearing on a regular basis
• Egg custard!! No, I still haven’t got this one under my belt

more sourdough

Since my last post about bread-making I have continued to make bread regularly. We have had hardly any bought bread in that time. On the whole I have stuck with the same basic recipe, just varying the flour and trying both fast action dried yeast and fresh yeast and generally using a measure of the sourdough starter as well. The results have been good - a dough which rises surprisingly quickly and a fairly consistent, even-textured loaf.

Yesterday I decided it was time to branch out and make a different style of loaf, so I flicked through my book and settled on Pain de Campagne a rustic French style bread which uses just the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. After my previous experience with the sourdough solo I was a little anxious about whether it would work and warned Steve that he might have to go out and buy his breakfast bread today!

I was pleasantly surprised because it did in fact rise quite well. It was slow, and I went to bed rather later than I had planned, but I was very pleased with the final loaf. The recipe creates quite a slack dough and I resisted the temptation to add more flour, using the French-style stretching and throwing kneading technique that I learned at a workshop with Mark of Mark's Bread.

Because the dough is rather formless it needs support during its second proving so I sat it in a colander lined with a well floured tea towel. The trick then is to turn it out quickly on to a pre-heated baking tray and slam it into a hot oven before it has a chance to collapse.

This loaf has the more airy uneven texture of artisan bread and a very good flavour.

the rise (and fall) of the sourdough loaf

As my first “try something new” of 2012 I decided to have a go at making sourdough bread. (And in fact, to make more bread generally). This involves creating a sourdough starter from flour, water and the airborne yeasts that exist in the environment. My bread baking book had a recipe, so off I went.

100g bread flour and 115g tepid water mixed to a paste and left in a covered bowl on the kitchen worktop for 2 – 4 days

After this time it should look bubbly and smell pleasantly yeasty, and it needs to be fed. Add another 100g flour and enough tepid water to make a paste-like dough. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
By now it should be pretty active. Stir, then discard half the mixture and feed as before. Cover and leave for 12 hours, by which time it should be just about ready to use.

Increase the volume by adding another 100g flour and tepid water and leave for 6 – 8 hours. Measure what is needed for your recipe and put the rest in a closed container in the fridge.

So far, so sourdough.
I was a bit surprised after five days of so much bubbling and dividing and adding and stirring and leaving under a damp cloth that the recipe for California Sourdough bread still specified the addition of yeast as well as the sourdough starter, but I did it anyway and was very pleased with the results.

Next I wanted to make a loaf that just used the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. The recipe I chose was for a delicious-looking olive and thyme loaf. I measured the starter, added flour and water, kneaded and left it to prove. Well I waited and waited and really nothing happened. I’ve tried it twice now and the second time I actually left it for more than 24 hours, but the starter just wasn’t active enough to raise the dough.

I was disappointed, but used the starter to do another batch of California sourdough using a wholemeal/white flour mix. Again, the result was very pleasing.

I’m continuing to work with the sourdough starter, feeding and resting, but still haven’t produced anything that looks lively enough to work on its own. It’s beginning to feel a bit wasteful as I add and discard, but I’m going to give it another week or two. Of course I’ve had a look on the internet for other methods of creating a sourdough starter, but ended up feeling confused and distressed because there are so many different approaches. It could be that the ambient temperature of our kitchen in January is just a bit low (though all the artisan bakers extol the slow, cool rise rather than the accelerated approach). For now I’m just going with these wise words from the poet David Whyte: Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. (With thanks to Gail Adams)