hudebnik

shalmestere and I were staying at somebody's house, and took the opportunity to take a hike in the mountains (fairly arid and bare, perhaps southern California) starting just around the corner from the house. I had taken the same hike solo the day before and enjoyed it, but recalled that the maps in the guidebook weren't entirely clear, and there was no signage at all on the trail. Just as shalmestere started up the first hill, I realized that I hadn't put the shawms in the car, which was a problem as we would need them the next place we were going. I offered to go back to the house and get the shawms, but didn't want shalmestere to get lost before I could catch up with her, so I told her "if you get to an intersection of trails and it isn't absolutely clear which way to go, stop and wait for me." [Why we didn't just get the instruments after finishing the hike must be attributed to dream logic.]

The last time shalmestere placed a groceries-delivered-to-your-door order, the shopper was unable to find any of the flavors of ice cream she had requested, so we've been getting critically low on ice cream. So shalmestere found this recipe, which looked promising. We've got a pint Donvier ice-cream-maker, of the "leave the cooling element in the freezer until you want to make ice cream" variety. And we had all the ingredients in the house: whole milk, check; egg yolks, check; high-quality unsweetened cocoa, a choice between Guittard and Valrhona; high-quality dark baking chocolate, check (72% Guittard pastilles); cocoa nibs, check. OMG. OMFG. This stuff is amazing: dense, dark, velvety, chocolatey, fruity. We had it over brownies (a recipe entitled "M&M Brownies", but in place of the M&M's we used a variety of leftover Easter chocolate: half a bag of Cadbury mini-eggs and the fragments of part of a ruby-cacao bunny). The brownies too are dense, dark, and gooey, so it all went together well. The recipe makes a quart, so we halved it (we have another pint Donvier in the basement, but no spare freezer space).

Yesterday late-morning I mixed up some flour and water, then after an hour or so added sourdough starter and left it to rise. Around bedtime I added two eggs, a tablespoon of salt, and more flour, kneaded, and left it to rise overnight. This morning I shaped a loaf and left it to rise (in a loaf pan lined with parchment paper, covered, with a damp sponge next to it for humidity, on a tip from hlinspjalda). This afternoon I soaked the Romertopf in a turkey-roasting pan of water. Then, before dinner, I emptied the Romertopf, wiped out the excess water, carefully lifted the loaf into the Romertopf by the parchment paper, put on the lid, put it in the oven, and turned the oven on to 475F. 45 minutes later, a beautiful loaf came out.

When the dogs and I returned from our morning walk, there was a dead bird on the front steps. No obvious injuries, so I briefly thought it might be just stunned, but no, it was definitely dead. And not one of the birds we see every day -- robins, bluejays, starlings, mockingbirds, cardinals -- this one was a little bigger than a sparrow, greenish-brown on the back, white chin and breast with black spots on the breast.




It seemed small for a thrush, and when I looked in Peterson's, none of the greenish warblers or vireos seemed to have the right breast-spots. But this picture


shows black streaks at the temples, with rufous in between them, and I concluded that it's probably an ovenbird. Which actually I would have identified immediately if I'd heard it -- it has a very distinctive "teacher, teacher" call -- but I'd never seen one up this close before.