Home Is Where the Bread Is

Home, for me, has always had an intricate connection to food. So when a sudden chain of events transported me away from the Midwest, away from the Michigan woods, away from my family and everything familiar,  to Washington, D.C. amidst a sea of new faces and places, the urge to cook set in immediately.

At almost every gathering of friends or family, at every holiday meal, acting as indispensable support to the main dish, my mom's French Bread played an iconic role. Mom has baked countless loaves of French Bread over the years. In many ways, the bread encapsulates everything I love and know. And so, at a moment when I needed to hold on to old ties and create new ones, when I needed to both feel the connection to home and forge my own way, I turned to French Bread.

Following my mom's recipe, I proofed the yeast. I mixed the flour, sugar, and salt. By hand, I kneaded the stiff dusty mixture into soft malleable dough. I held my breath while I waited for it to rise, hoping I hadn't killed the yeast. Finally, I slid the two loaves into the oven.

A short time later, my roommate and I cut into the soft warm bread. As I quietly savored the familiar taste, a feeling of total satisfaction washed over me. In that warm bread, I knew I held onto a little piece of home.

French Bread

2 1/2 cups warm (almost hot) water

2 tbl. yeast

2 tbl. melted butter

2 tbl. sugar (plus an extra sprinkle to proof yeast)

1 tbl. salt

7 1/2 cups flour

To 1 cup of very warm water, add two tbl. of yeast. Sprinkle a little sugar on top and stir. Allow yeast to proof. (It will foam and expand to 1 1/2 -2 cups.) Grease a bowl with butter. Combine flour, sugar, and salt in bowl. Combine melted butter and 1 1/2 cups water. Add to flour mixture. Mix. Add proofed yeast. Mix until doughy. 

Knead (try to avoid tearing the dough....rather, stretch the dough with the palms of your hands; then turn the dough 90 degrees, flip over, fold, and stretch again) on hard, non-porous surface (a granite counter-top works well) for 15 -20 minutes. Dough should become softer and more malleable as you knead.

Let the dough rise in a covered bowl in a warm place for 45 minutes. Separate the dough into two equal parts. Gently shape the dough into smooth elongated loaves. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Bake at 420 degrees for 25 minutes.

A Successful Search

At the beginning of last summer, I began the search for the perfect planner. I looked at dozens of planners of every conceivable size, shape, and color. I even tried designing my own in a binder. The options were endless and ridiculously overwhelming.

Any system that I looked at would have been acceptable....and none were perfect. Finally, I forcefully narrowed my choices by asking myself one question:

"What must the planner have? What is the one non-negotiable?"

Surprisingly, that one simple question solved my dilemma almost instantly.  

I needed a planner small enough to carry.

If I didn't have the planner at my fingertips, it was useless. Twelve different kinds of lists and 6" x 6" daily calendar blocks weren't going to help me if they weren't with me.

Then it dawned on me. The planner I have been using for the past three years fits perfectly in my purse or book bag.

In an earlier post, I listed three other characteristics that my planner would ideally possess. I realized the planner I've been using has most of these. I've been able to track my expenses on the spreadsheets in the back for three years...why do it differently next year?. There's space in the back for notes, lists, and memos. It's cute and classy.

Furthermore, Day Runner's standard 3 3/4" x 6 3/4" pages (normally available for about $1.99 at the grocery store) fit perfectly. More writing space would potentially be useful, but I don't think more white space is actually going to make or break my life at this point.

Suddenly I couldn't remember why I was looking for a new planner in the first place. And so I stopped the frustrating search for a planner, leaving space in my brain for more important things.

Lesson #1: Sometimes you already own the item for which you're shopping.

Lesson #2: Sometimes just accepting an immediate and reasonable solution saves a lot of frustration, time, and energy.

So what are your planning tools for 2011?

January 2011 Goals

Breaking down big goals into smaller, manageable pieces is definitely an important step in actually accomplishing those goals. For instance, attempting to read 101 books is rather intimidating. So is attempting to tackle 101 new recipes. But breaking those goals down takes them from the realm of the ideal and makes them real.

The blogs Never Niche and Balance and Blueberries have a system that seems to work well. At the beginning of each month, they list their monthly goals. Then, at the end of the month, the bloggers list the goals that were actually accomplished, examine the goals that they failed to achieve, and create a new list of goals for the next month.

So in the spirit of the New Year, I'm going to see if this system helps me more effectively accomplish my goals. Here are some of my goals for January 2011.

• Tackle 4 new recipes
• Finish the three books I'm currently reading as well as another one.
• Wake up earlier.
• Make 10 cards.
• Write 13 blog posts during the month of January.

Here goes January...

_________________________

Blessings I am grateful for today....

30. Organization
44. My sister's Christmas gift to me...Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
56. Slow, peaceful afternoons
57. Snow falling slowly and silently from the sky
58. The sound of a guitar's soft strumming drifting from the music room

101 Books Challenge

Back in October, I discovered the 101 in 1001 project (full credit for the brilliant 101 in 1001 idea goes to Day Zero) and was completely captivated. Here was a plan both cool and practical. I started tweaking the idea to fit my own needs.

While Rachel from Balance and Blueberries and I started the 101 Recipes Challenge, I also started compiling a list of 101 books.

The list for my 101 Books Challenge includes books that I've always wanted to read and never had time to tackle, books that I started and never finished, books recommended by friends and family, books by authors that just seem important, books on business, books on writing, novels, non-fiction, and poetry.

Essentially, it's a massive random conglomeration of titles that are linked only by their participation in this project. I'll probably drop a few current titles as time goes on and I find other books that I want to add.

My starting line is a bit fuzzy, but I'm setting an arbitrary goal of August 12, 2013 (a convenient date, since that is also the 101 Recipes Challenge deadline). Join the challenge! (If you would like to be added to the 101 Books Challenge blogroll, e-mail your link to emilyadams829 at hotmail dot com and place a link to this page on your home-page..)

Any suggestions for my list? What's on your book list?

The List

1. 1984 - George Orwell
2. 4 – Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
3. 44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith
4. 48 Days to the Work You Love – Don Miller
5. A Chance to Die - The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael - Elisabeth Elliot
6. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
7. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf
8. A Room with a View - E.M. Forster
9. A Streetcar Named Desire - Thornton Wilder
10. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn -- Betty Smith
11. An American Childhood – Annie Dillard
12. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
13. As I lay dying – William Faulkner
14. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
15. At the Back of the North Wind - George MacDonald
16. Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. City of God by Augustine
19. Chicago Poems - Carl Sandburg
20. Confessions by Augustine
21. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
22. Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
23. Death by Love - Mark Driscoll
24. Desiring God – John Piper
25. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
26. Essays of E.B. White - E. B. White
27. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
28. Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography - Hans Christian Anderson
29. Father Fiction - Donald Miller
30. Fire by Sebastian Junger
31. Friends, Lovers, Chocolate -- Alexander McCall Smith
32. Good to Great- Jim Collins
33. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinback 
34. Great Son - Edna Ferber
35. Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in a Digital Age - William Power
36. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
37. Holy the Firm – Annie Dillard
38. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
39. Ice Palace - Edna Ferber
40. In the Grip of Grace - Max Lucado 5/18/11
41. Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
42. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 6/5/11
43. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
44. Let Me Be A Woman- Elisabeth Elliot
45. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
46. Linchpin by Seth Godin
47. Living by Fiction – Annie Dillard
48. Love is a Wild Assault -- Elithe Hamilton Kirkland
49. My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
50. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
51. Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
52. No Room at the Inn - Edna Ferber
53. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
54. Our Town - Thornton Wilder
55. Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis 
56. Perelandra - C.S. Lewis
57. Peril at End House - Agatha Christie
58. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard 4/17/11
59. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
60. Renovations of the Heart – Dallas Willard
61. Rivers to the Sea - Sara Teasdale
62. Sandition - Jane Austen
63. Sarah’s Key - Tatiana de Rosney
64. Saratoga Trunk - Edna Ferber
65. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
66. Silas Mariner- George Eliot
67. Show Boat - Edna Ferber
68. Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
69. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
70. The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
71. The Bridge of San Luis – Thornton Wilder
72. The Brothers Karamakazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
73. The Forsythe Saga – John Galsworthy
74. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
75. The Go-Getter - Peter Kyne
76. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
77. The Joys of Love - Madeleine L’Engle
78. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
79. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
80. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
81. The Murder of Roger Ackaroyd by Agatha Christie
82. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
83. The Question Behind the Question – John Miller
84. The Right Attitude to Rain -- Alexander McCall Smith
85. The Skin of our Teeth – Thonrnton Wilder
86. The Spirit of the Disciplines –Dallas Willard
87. The Sunday Philosophy Club - Alexander McCall Smith
88. Integrity - Henry Cloud
89. The Writing Life – Annie Dillard
90. Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris
91. This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Tribes - Seth Godin
93. Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell
94. Walden Pond - Henry Thoreau
95. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
96. Watership Down - Richard Adams
97. When I don’t Desire God - John Piper
98. William and Mary Trilogy, Volume I: I will Maintain - Marjorie Bowen
99. William and Mary Trilogy, Volume II: Defender of the Faith - Marjorie Bowen
100. William and Mary Trilogy, Volume III: For God and the King - Marjorie Bowen
101. Zen in the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury

Ringing in the New Year

The last week, that stretch of days between Christmas and New Year's, was filled to overflowing. I spent most of it immersed in friends, family, laughter that echoed late into the night, movies through which nobody could manage to stay awake, skiing until the point of total exhaustion, too much food, and everything else good that happens when burned-out, restless, energetic 18-to-23-year-olds spend time together in the lonely beautiful Michigan forests.

And today is New Year's Day, the day for planning and resolutions and good intentions. I love planning. I think I'm addicted to it. I don't have all of my plans for the New Year entirely mapped out, but I have made some headway. Details are forthcoming but my goals for 2011 include:

• Cooking goals
• Reading goals
• Financial goals

Goal-setting is not necessarily the path to a perfect world, though. Intense frustration used to set in when I didn't accomplish specific goals in the expected time-frame. I began trying to accomplish goals for the sake of a sense of completion, regardless of the current relevance of the goal. Letting go of goals became a painful grieving process as my type-A personality fought frantically against the concept of choosing not to finish a project or task.

I'm slowly learning to use goals to achieve greater productivity while always being aware that there is also a danger in letting my goals control me. We set goals in order to be better stewards of our resources, our time, our money, and our talents. Goal-setting makes us accountable for our energies. But goals are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

Schedules exist to keep me on track, to motivate, and to inspire. Lists remind me of my priorities. When those schedules and lists themselves became roadblocks, frustrating obstacles in a world of ever-changing circumstances, the goals need to be modified. The overarching vision is greater productivity, more accomplishments, and less wasted time, not simply a checklist finished for completion's sake.

So I suppose one of my New Year's resolutions is to more effectively use goals, checklists, schedules, and lists.

What are your goals for the New Year?

Of Cookies and Christmas

On this Christmas Eve, my mom made yet another tantalizing batch of cookies. As I helped her roll the dough into sweet small spheres, I savored the feeling of the gritty sugar and sticky wetness against my hands. The smell of cinnamon and cloves and ginger filled the air. Loud energetic laughter trickled up the stairs from the basement. Scraps of ribbon floated around, mysteriously homeless.

Suddenly, life's big questions and messy problems seemed very small and insignificant and far away next to things this tangible. Vague questions and uncertainties vaporized against the solid reality of golden, spicy ginger cookies and bright twinkle-lights sparkling on the Christmas tree a few feet away.

And that, of course, is partly what Christmas is all about. Sometimes those things that seem big and important and pressing shrink into dust and blow away in the face of realities like cookies and ribbons and lights and laughter on a cold snowy night.

In the end, kings and legions of soldiers and all the power the Roman empire could muster didn't really matter very much compared to a seemingly insignificant infant born in an unimportant corner of the world.

In the end, then, Christmas is about making much of small things. Christmas is about remembering that sometimes God's perspective is different than ours. Christmas is about commemorating the tiny, the tangible, and the real. And Christmas is about celebrating one lone event that, in the whole wide expanse of history, really did matter.

1000 Blessings

I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately. Back in October, inspired by the writing of Ann Voskamp and Rachel Center, and attempting to journal in a more focused way, I began a list of 1000 Blessings and I'm finding it both delightful and challenging.

The goal? To list 1000 things for which I am grateful by November 1 of next year. Just a few things each day. A few daily notes in my journal. A few daily reminders of God's grace. A few visible marks of the endless blessings in my life.

Through this, what did I originally hope to accomplish?

• A regular, productive journaling regimen
• A list of blessings
• A record of the year

 I won't share all 1000 on the blog, but I do plan to keep at least a condensed version of my list updated here. Here's a few garnered from my list so far:

#1.Sleep
#3. Jeans
#4. The smell of the morning
#5. Mornings off
#8. Books
#9. Sunshine
#13. Blank Paper
#27. Laughter


Join me! What are you thankful for this holiday season?