Dream journal

I read a newspaper article profiling a little old lady who owned and lived in an apartment building on the Brooklyn waterfront with two distinguishing features: first, her marketing manager was a 12-year boy (also living in the building) with a knack for jingles; and second, the building (named The Falconwood) had an unusually large number of residents with falcons and/or greyhounds. So I told shalmestere about it, and she immediately wanted to move there.

Cooking successes and failures

The chocolate-chip pancakes (our default Sunday-brunch recipe) went well, as usual.

We also planned a lamb tagine, our default Easter dinner recipe for the last few years. We were unable to find 2-1/2 pounds of boneless lamb stew meat, so we got lamb neck, which comes with a lot of vertebrae and connective tissue. I figured that would be OK because the recipe calls for low-and-slow cooking anyway. Also, I wasn't sure what percentage of it was bone: I guessed 50%, which worked out well because between the previous two grocery runs we had about 5 pounds of neck. But the thought of picking all the meat off all those fiddly neck bones was daunting, so I put the meat, onions, spices, and "water to cover" in a pot for an hour and a half before trying to pick it. And in fact it wasn't too hard to separate the meat from the bone and connective tissue after this treatment. Threw the meat back into the pot along with prunes and honey and gave it another 20 minutes or so while I cooked couscous to pour it over.

And the tagine came out watery and flavorless. Perfectly edible, but not nearly as rich and luscious as in past years. Hypothesized reason: it takes a lot more "water to cover" 5 pounds of bone-in neck than to cover 2-1/2 pounds of boneless stew meat, and I should have increased the cooking time and/or the spices. So I left what we didn't eat immediately on the stove on low for another hour or so; it looks somewhat thicker and richer now, but sorta skimpy on the meat. Fortunately, we picked up a partial leg of lamb at the same time, some leftovers of which can go into the tagine.

Meanwhile, shalmestere threw the bones and connective tissue, with carrots, celery, and onion skins, into another pot to turn into stock, and we left that simmering for a couple of hours. It's in the fridge now; no idea yet how it turned out. This will be competing with the tagine for lamb-leg leftovers.

Meanwhile, I realized on Saturday that it was time to bake bread, so I started a sponge Saturday night, added more ingredients Sunday morning, formed a loaf Sunday afternoon, and baked it last night. It seemed to be rising like gangbusters yesterday, so on a whim I formed it into a long Italian-style loaf with an aspect ratio of 3-3.5 rather than my usual sandwich loaf with an aspect ratio of 2-2.5. (I have an appropriately-shaped proofing basket that I never use, so I did.) But the longer loaf didn't fit into the Romertopf, nor into any baking pan we own, so I had to revise the baking plan: rather than putting the bread in a soaked Romertopf into a cold oven and heating it up, I put the bread on a cookie sheet into a hot oven and decreased the baking time a bit. Evidently not enough: the bread was overdone, and it spread out on the cookie sheet so I think it was about 2" at the tallest. Nonetheless, I cut a slice and tried it, and suddenly realized why it had risen so rapidly: I forgot the salt. So the bread is weirdly-shaped, overdone, and flavorless. I threw it out, started a new sponge, and am trying again today.