So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

In other news, I am currently baking a (rather flat) loaf of bread using wild-crafted yeast. While down at the sea last week, I set a bowl of warm water and flour on the ledge of the large front porch. The first batch didn't take after two days, but my second attempt worked. However, it's been very slow going -- or is that "slow growing"? I brought the bowl home and "fed" the yeasties some more flour and water After a couple days, it changed to what looked like a viable bread starter, so I set some aside in a jar in the fridge (for the next batch) and made the rest into a dough.

The dough has not risen much since, and it remains prone to being sticky, although the texture in my hands feels right. The flat ball I just put into the oven on the hot baking stone is not much bigger than the span of my hand. So, we shall see what happens...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

wild-crafted yeast?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

The description sounds like sour-dough to me, but I might be missing something...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Sounds adventurous nonetheless. ;)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely! I wasn't trying to belittle the baking adventure lhun_dweller was describing, just chipping in that there may be a different term for it that was more familiar to others.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sour dough I know! I wondered if Lhun Dweller might be gathering the yeast herself from the wild, which sounds very adventurous.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine gave me a fantastic book on baking a few years back; among the things it described was how to make sour dough from scratch. The process sounds very similar to what lhun_dweller describes. I think it might even have used the phrase 'wild yeast'. I tried it and it was great fun, but it also felt rather wasteful; you kept doubling the size of your sour dough every day, and then throwing most of it away every four days, for four weeks. I was very pleased with the taste of the bread, even if like lhun_dweller describes, it didn't rise as much as I expected.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Mr EA has a baking streak -- he's been known to make sour dough in the past but he's been too busy of late. Hopefully next year when he's (semi)-retired he'll get back to baking -- we'll have an Aga which is good for breadmaking.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I do love baking, but I find that living on my own and not eating much bread (I usually try to do salads for lunch to keep the calorie content down), making bread is not very sensible. Luckily my group at work are always very helpful in eating anything sweet I bring in, so at least I get to do some baking without feeling too guilty about how much I eat.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Even with two people, baking generates far too much bread to eat sensibly, sadly.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is a great shame, because baking bread can be such a therapeutic activity, not to mention the lovely smell in the house!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We have the lovely scent of roasted coffee beans in the kitchen :) Which have the advantage of being calorie free!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I do love the smell of coffee, but I just can't do with the taste! Living on my own, that means I don't really get the smell of coffee either...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Aie! A person who doesn't like coffee! [Makes cross symbols]

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I meant to learn how to drink coffee, honestly! But then this course mate of mine told me I wouldn't be able to get through my engineering degree without drinking coffee. That was just a challenge I couldn't let pass by. Then, just to make sure I wasn't accused of cheating, I didn't drink coffee for my Ph.D. either. And then I moved to England, where people actually make good tea, so learning how to drink coffee just slipped off the list of things to achieve in life. I used to think drinking coffee was the mark of being an adult; this might still be the case, I have just given up on being an adult...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Mmmm.... coffee....

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Mmm indeed!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I cannot drink coffee, even though, as someone once noted, my tea is dark enough that it looks like coffee! However, The Beloved is quite fond of his coffee. He grinds his beans, and when buying them at the store, often mixes a couple of the choices. So, I get to enjoy the wonderful aroma!

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in college, my then-boyfriend's roommate sat down at the dining hall table, looked at my cup, and said, "I thought you couldn't drink coffee?"

"I can't," I replied. "That's tea."

He looked hard into my cup, looked up again, and said, "No. That's coffee!"

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Ground fresh beans do smell simply wonderful :)

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

What is an "Aga"?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is a special type of cast iron heating stove and cooker, invented by the Swedish Nobel prize winning physicist Gustaf Dahlén. We have never had one in any of the homes I have lived in, but everyone I know who has loves them!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realised they were Swedish! Somehow they feel very British. My husband had a Rayburn in his previous house, but we've neither of us ever owned an Aga, so it's going to be an adventure.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

Others have already done a fine job of explaining the "wild-crafted" yeast, so I'll just add that it's a fancy schmancy hippy dippy term for, as several of you have noted, something humans have been doing for thousands of years! [grin]

Alas! the first effort did not produce an edible product: way too dense and still sticky in the center, despite copious amounts of flour. Nice smell, and the bit that baked enough to sample was, indeed, tasty and tangy.

Reading through the comments, I wonder whether I should try the feeding-and-chucking-half thing for a bit to get enough yeastie beasties growing to lift a full loaf. I certainly had to leave the dough sitting a day or so at each stage to get it to rise. Well, I still have half the original starter in a jar in the fridge, so I could give it another go. And we're back down to the house by the sea next weekend -- we decided some more time down there was A Good Thing -- so I could try a fresh start. I'll keep you posted.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Even with the four week, feeding-and-chucking-a-lot-away thing, my dough didn't rise a lot or very quickly. The recipe book said that was to be expected though, and I did quite like the result. So I would encourage you to give it another try and would love to hear about how you get on with it.