Bread, Basil and Adventurous Relatives

As a celebration of my new life here in L.A., I am making a very conscious effort to search out interest that I have and cultivate them instead of imagining how things could be while eating ice cream and watching TiVo'ed episodes of The Office.

So, I started cooking. I've made granola twice. The first batch was a little overcooked, and it didn't have quite enough oil and maple syrup mix. The second time I added coconut, more maple syrup, a bit more oil (olive), and I think that this batch will be pretty good! I haven't taste tested it yet; I'm waiting until the morning, although I nibbled bites before I baked it, and the flavor was good. Don't know about the final texture yet. Granola doesn't need to bake that long - maybe 15 to 20 minutes - but when it has more goop (oil, syrup, etc.) on it, you can bake it longer. The basic recipe is oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, mixed nuts, cinnamon, a dash of salt, oil and maple syrup, with dried fruits added after you've toasted it. While you're making the original mix, you should microwave the oil and syrup together for about 20 seconds so that they mix completely.

I've also got whole wheat bread in the works tonight! It's been quite a cooking night, which is really fun. I have the Pandora radio station set, and sometimes I dance around the kitchen - bursting into either modern or ballet moves, as the song inspires. (As an aside, I also had sausage for dinner. My yogi vegetarian mother would not have indulged! I didn't have any potatoes, so I put the sausage on toast that had fake 1000 Island dressing spread over it. I didn't have any pickle relish, so the fake 1000 Island was just Vegenaise and ketchup. :o) )

The bread recipe that I used actually had more white bread flour that wheat flour. The bread that I buy in the store gets held to higher standards -- I usually don't buy it unless whole wheat flour is the first ingredient. But when I'm cooking, I s'pose that the easiest recipe wins. At least for my first venture into whole wheat. I've make herb bread before that used a combination of whole wheat and white flour, but it's not been successfully fluffy yet. Oh well. Maybe the third time's the charm. Although this is really only the first time I've made this recipe; it's the third time I've made bread ever. So, I feel a little proud.

There is also a newly-purchased basil plant hiding out on my back porch now that I got this weekend. He's a cute li'l thing that had been sitting outside at Whole Foods for way to long. (The plant is male, I think, by the feel of it. Not any sort of botanical indicators.) His branches hadn't been pinched and they were sprawling everywhere and couldn't hold their heads up because of the weight of the leaves. I pinched back the leaves and set some in water to sprout. The internet tells me that the stems should sprout, just from sitting in water, after 5 - 10 days, but I'm not holding my breath. I also had to search the internet to find out whether the plant was dying due to the stem browning. If the base of the basil plant starts to turn woody, that's okay. It just means that it's becoming sturdier to account for the larger life that it's sustaining up top. The recommendation is to pinch the leaves back to take some of the weight off. If the stem is brown and slimy, instead of woody, that might indicate overwatering, so you should let the soil dry out and the plant may improve. Another thing about the plant is that the leaves taste a bit like licorice. This worries me because the problem might be irreparable. I'll have to google that problem to see if I can find any suggestions. You can find out anything on the internet. Some people must have nothing else to do . . . like I'm doing right now. :-)

Speaking of taking the weight off, I've had hairstylists refer to giving me layers or bangs as "taking the weight off". Once a hairstylist told me that and proceeded to cut of pretty much all of my hair. It was about 1" long, all the way around. I hadn't had overweight hair to begin with, but I really had to develop a tougher attitude to keep up with that super-short cut! (Maybe I'll post a picture, if I can figure out how.)

I also planted oregano from actual seeds! This is very exciting but not likely to result in an actual plant because the mechanism of growth makes no sense. The directions on the package and the recommendations on the internet make it sound like you basically put some dirt in a pot, water it, and sprinkle the seeds on top. You don't even plant them! A couple of internet sites recommended that you can smoosh them into the soil a bit, so I sort of did that, but I have a hard time imagining that anything will come of them. The seeds were so tiny and looked like crushed pepper -- not freshly cracked pepper -- like the super-fine variety that comes in plastic with salt in a combination packets that you're supposed to take on picnics.

For a total change of subject, my younger cousin, Mary Margaret, is on a fishing boat off of the coast of Mexico. She sent an update to her family, and it got circulated around to me. I am thoroughly impressed with her spontaneity and adventurous spirit. She and her finance don't know anything about fishing. I think that they're on a tuna boat; it's a very small one with a tiny crew. She's the cook, but she fishes, too. She commented that her role as chef somehow brought her back to her roots -- she made Bar-B-Que sammiches! Tres southern.

My brother, Adam, and his girlfriend, Gena, are on a cross-country documentary adventure, and I am pleased as punch that they've decided to take this plunge into the life that they want to live. They bought an RV, and they are driving around the country filming a documentary about unique ways that people are coping with the economic downturn by spending less money but shifting to make their lives fuller in other ways. He visited a self-sustaining community in Virgina called Twin Oaks. http://www.twinoaks.org/. It has every sort of occupation from accountant to farmer, everyone works 42 hours per week, including domestic activities, and they produce a wide variety of foods and goods for trade. I think that their main monetary income is from a high tech business that they've created. Adam and Gena are headed down to Athens now, but they are planning to be out here in Los Angeles around the end of November. We'll have a real thanksgiving feast! Maybe I'll have figured out how to make bread by then . . .

I went to a ballet class today. It was taught by a tiny Russian woman, who probably weighed 85 pounds soaking wet. However, she was able to use all of those teeny, muscular limbs to demonstrate beautifully and her waving arms smacked any part of her own body that she wanted us to focus on. Sort of physical exclamation point. I was thankful for this because her Russian accent was very thick.

At the barre, I stood next to this woman who was quite good and had obviously danced for many years. Her leg extensions nearly touched her nose and her pointed feet arched over as though her toes were about to touch her heel. But that was okay, I hadn't lost steam yet. The class was challenging. I think that some of the people in the class were retired dancers. It's funny to spot old dancers. They wear layers of stretchy clothing tied oddly around them, sometimes belts secured at various locations, and pants made of this funny material that sounds like rainproof windbreakers. And they wear all of this clothing at once. In a climate-controlled studio. After they've been dancing in a studio in Los Angeles, which is a very warm location.

They were all quite good, though. I chickened out during the part where we were supposed to go across the floor. The combinations weren't exceedingly difficult, but I felt awfully out of place. For starters, I was only wearing a leotard and pants (although I had started class, appropriately, with leg warmers and a thermal underwear shirt). But my brain just wasn't in ballet mode, and it was hard for my arms, legs, and torso to decide that they understood anything either. This nice man introduced himself with a firm, warm handshake, which was nice. Then, he got a bit chattier. He'd moved here to become an actor -- 20 years ago -- now he's an attorney who takes long lunch breaks on Fridays to go to a dance class. He asked about me and found out that I did research at USC. He asked if I'd made friends out here yet, and I said, "Oh yes!" so as not to encourage too much conversation. He had on tights and a shirt; he must've left his windbreaker pants at home this morning because he seemed to fit in with the class in other ways. He talked a bit more to me, and I was even less able to pay attention to dancing after that. So, I picked up my stuff and officially wimped out, walking out of the studio. The attorney followed me and suggested that we could have lunch sometime. I replied that it was a nice suggestion and perhaps we'd see each other at the studio some time. Maybe the poor guy was just trying to be nice. But he was quite a bit older than me, and he was in my ballet class. I couldn't even figure out how to do the 8 count combination across the floor. I certainly couldn't deal with living in a new town -- Los Angeles of all places! -- and dating an out of work actor masquerading as a ballet dancing attorney. I have enough to deal with as it is.