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My sourdough starter survived the trip to CA.

My family likes sourdough so I multiplied my waffle recipe by 10. That’s a lot of waffles.

I went to bed at 1 am, bemoaning the fact that my batter was hardly bubbling.

I woke up at 7:30 am and found this in the kitchen:

Yes ma’am, it’s active.

Verdict on today’s waffles: Very, very tasty but next time I need to halve the baking soda. I think my sourdough is lively enough without it and using the meyer lemons from my parents’ yard made the batter less acidic than usual so the full baking soda regiment made for a batter that was bitter in parts. Usually, you add the baking soda right before pouring on the griddle and it causes a visible chemical reaction. I should have sprinkled half in and watched before going for the other half. I would have noticed the lack of reaction.

Incidentally, the baking soda is basic and the lemon juice and sourdough starter are acidic and in a perfect world the baking soda neutralizes the lemon juice, creating some extra leavening but letting the sourdough shine through. Baking powder, on the other hand, has both acid and base in it and so the leavening kicks in when you add liquid. And when you bake it.

Anyway.

We smothered ‘em in homemade three berry syrup* or straight maple syrup.

*The realization that you can just heat up frozen berries and blend them up and pour them on waffles, without adding any sugar, has changed my life.

 

Mackenzie also found a new friend

Only problem is…

He’s a balding yellow man with a uni brow and an orange nose. Also, he has just three fingers and a thumb on each hand.

Yes, that’s right, the muppet nobody loved has found a place in Mackenzie’s heart.

I bring you… “Buh” :

After some reflection, I did come up with a few things that endear him to my daughter:

- It’s always nice to find someone with even less hair than yourself.

- He wears shoes. Don’t underestimate the power of shoes to a 1 year old who can consistently identify them.

- His pants happen to be green. Green happens to be the only color Mackenzie reliably identifies. So about 13 times a day, she proudly points to his pants and says “pahn!” Then with a sly smile and a calculated head nod, she follows it up with the triumphant “geeeeen!”

- His unibrow has actually come in handy. Unfortunately for Bert, Mackenzie uses it as a convenient handle for towing him around the house.

- She’s too young to cringe at the ivory mock turtleneck he wears.

Of course, the relationship goes both ways, as any good relationship does. Things Bert gets out of it:

- Lots of love. More love than he’s had in his whole life, probably. Until Mackenzie, everyone favored Ernie and I’m sure that fact was not lost on poor Bert.

- His teeth brushed regularly.

- Diaper changes around the clock.

 

My new friend – I call her “Sourdough”

Nearly everyone I know and love in Columbus is either leaving in the next few weeks or has already moved out.

It’s a crazy mass exodus as people are graduating from medical school, finishing internships, finishing masters programs, switching jobs, etc. Nearly 20 families we depend on for good times and support are… well… temporarily unavailable.

So far, I’ve been in denial. I acknowledge the moving trucks, wave goodbye (did I mention I’m not a big hugger?), and then the next day I think “Oh, I should call so-and-so and see if she’s up for a walk.” Doh! So-and-so is now in another state entirely.

I knew people would move on, eventually. After all, we only planned on being in Columbus for four years when we first arrived. So in another year, we could be packing up a Penske as well. But it still just rocks my world to see everyone go.

We have been living in a young family utopia. I could literally walk five minutes from my house and arrive at the door of 15 different apartments of friends, most with a child near Mackenzie’s age and a girl friend who was up for taking a walk or chatting over dinner prep. That’s not normal. It’s magical. I literally had more friends than I knew what to do with. And to be clear here, I am so preoccupied with work and Mackenzie that these were nearly all friends who reached out to me and drew me out of my hidey hole.

In hindsight, probably many of these women considered me to be just a casual friend because I’m so wrapped up in work and family that I don’t have a lot of time to spend with other people. So we’d only chat 5 minutes on the way to the mailbox, or take a 20 minute walk together every few weeks.. or catch up in the hallway at church. But for me and my life right now, that means a lot. Being a work-at-home mom can be very isolating, and having neighbors who happily “monitor-sit” at the drop of a hat, and friends who are up for a late-night run, or up chatting about girl-stuff and mom-stuff has kept me going. Most significantly, I knew I could call on any one of these women to help if I needed them. And boy, there were times that I did.

I’m bad enough about keeping in touch when someone lives next door, so I’m really counting on blogs and Christmas cards to at least keep in loose contact with people.

Ok, enough with the wallowing. I’ve made a new friend in the last month. I created her from whole wheat flour and pineapple juice and she is now returning the favor by making fabulous bread and waffles.

True, she doesn’t talk back or have any stories to swap, but she does “eat” and “breathe”. That’s all one needs in a friend, right?

Right.

So far I’ve made:

All sourdough 100% whole wheat hearth bread (huge success):

Then I tried the same recipe but adding the (optional) commercial yeast. Not as good! I learned a valuable life lesson: All sourdough all the way, baby.

2 loaves of “simple sourdough” bread. It contains just three ingredients: Whole wheat flour, water, and salt. It was a smashing success, I’d say. I like it every bit as much as my Trader Joe’s whole wheat sourdough, it saves more than $2 a loaf, and there’s something so cool about using simple ingredients.

Sourdough flapjacks/waffles. Again, whole wheat. Oh man, these just kill me. They are so incredibly fluffy and delicious. And almost the best part? I made ‘em the first time two ways: One following the recipe with egg and butter, and one “Anne-style” with flaxmeal + water for the egg, and a reduced amount of canola oil instead of butter. Guess what? My way won the taste test hands-down. I was not expecting that, and neither was Scott. But I rolled with it and made the same recipe again a few days later. These will definitely be making a regular appearance at our house. In fact, I’ve toyed with the idea of making them every week as a Sunday tradition. Mmmm.

Anybody interested in whole grain sourdough stuff? If so I may put some time into posting photos and recipes. Otherwise I will just go eat some more waffles.

*A note to my friends who have not moved away: Regrettably, I have not changed my slacker friend ways, but I still very much like you and appreciate you. Perhaps I will organize another “Healthy Minds and Bodies” group meeting soon to give us an excuse to hang out. Er… learn to make really good hummus.

 

How to clean a knife properly

Or, “Why one should always refuse a dinner invitation from the Beans”

Step 1: Use dinner knife for spreading almond butter on homemade bread.

Step 2: While Mackenzie is watching, lick almond butter off knife.
Step 2a: Subconsciously make a sound of contentment while doing so.

Step 3: Place knife in dishwasher.
Step 3a: Run dishwasher.

Step 4: Encourage Mackenzie to help unload all the silverware and put it away in the appropriate drawer.

Step 5. Leave kitchen briefly to grab something.

Step 6. Hear loud “Mmmm” exclamations coming from kitchen.

Step 7. Return to kitchen at a brisk pace.

Step 8. Arrive just in time to witness Mackenzie lick a knife up one side and down another, and sigh in apparent bliss at the taste of pretend almond butter.

Step 9: Watch in awe as she repeats the process for knife after knife, before carefully* putting the knives away in the drawer.

Step 10: Laugh, scoop the little smugrat up and tickle her, then get distracted by something at work.

Step 11: Freeze like a deer in the headlights when you recount the story to your spouse several hours later and he asks, “You did wash the knives again, right?”

*