five new days

old job...

...new job!

major, nourishing, balmy, grounding change.

 a shift from serving the unanchored hungry masses to the eager and ravenous minds of the luminous species of little humans. whether by luck or the sheer appetite for escape this blessing has settled softly into routine like a featherbed. also there has been snow, broken and faceted light and a new timetable to metabolize. this is a change- to work in the daytime instead of slumbering numbly through it. below is a catalog of sunrises from the new routine. i am so grateful for this opportunity to still and distill language for the very young (2 to 6 year olds) and walk them through the joy of material, color and form that make us into whole-grained, hard boned, inexhaustible creative creatures we all become. (regardless of any judgment about not-being-artistic or having no-creative-ability we might self-impose on our adult selves. that is a separate grief, and one that deserves its own ramble.)

prompt

(from here)

good motto. get on it, get to it.

the bread journey

the sound of crust, and a bread journey. this time with more loft, bonus crackling crust, and a fishing about in the cabinet for a fresh jar of jam to crack open.

this is an old world, patience trying (or patience cultivating!) bread practice.

1. the leaven is made by adding a spoonful of mature starter (which has aged for a minimum of two weeks) to a mixture of flour and water and left overnight.

2. the following day the leaven and the remaining flour and water are added and left to autolyse (rest) for 45 minutes.

3. following this resting period a little more water and some salt are added and the dough undergoes its bulk fermentation- a rest of between 3 and 5 hours depending on the ambient heat of your kitchen. during the bulk fermentation the dough, in lieu of being kneaded, undergoes a series of folds and turns in its oiled bowl every half an hour for the duration.

4. the dough is then divided, loosely shaped and left to rest for 40 minutes for the gluten to relax.

5. following this the dough is shaped and put into towel/baker's linen-lined baskets or bowls to undergo its final fermentation period in the refrigerator 4 - 5 hours or overnight. (the longer this final fermentation process goes on the more flavor and texture the dough achieves in its final stage.)

6. the following day the bread is taken from the refrigerator and let to come to room temperature for about 40 minutes.

7. the bread is then baked at 500 degrees for twenty minutes, its cover is removed and it is baked out for a remaining 20 - 30 minutes.

8. lastly the bread is left to cool (singing in its sublime crackly way) for a minimum of one hour. this sets the crumb, allows the moisture to evaporate and soften the crust and for ample air currents to seal the crust against premature staling.

9. only then is time for bread and jam.

so!

it is finally, i am told, wintertime. the light is right, the cold breathes through us and snow, at long last, is falling thickly in the middle of the day. we have lived in a kind of drought-like panic, willing the sky to cloud over, for the streets to be impassible and all the stocks we laid in of cocoa, stewing onions and woolen socks to be put to good use. entire weeks for visitors, ticked and circled in red ink on calendars months ago have been scratched out. the hotels are vacant, the streets are wide with empty parking spaces and you can walk into almost any restaurant without a wait. it is an eerie phenomenon indeed. but (and this can be attributed to a Northern Ute tribe member who was called in to dance for money and snow to fall from the sky onto the grateful Powdr Corp. execs...blech) snow fell! whether it was the paid Native in fringe or the late snow coming as it reliably does the season, though quite late, is upon us.

in honor of the Winter we did Wintertime things. drank cocoa spiked with chili pepper, tangelo zest and cinnamon, baked off loaves of wild yeast bread,  and sat by the fire, idling away the morning while the view eclipsed with storms and then opened again.

thoughts about the future are inevitable in moments like this. likely because we are humbled easily by anything en masse- snowflakes, natural disasters, flowers coming into bloom. but it also seems poignant as the natural world is resting. quiet and pure whiteness abound. all things germinating in clandestine sleep, tiny brave green rinds blushing beneath frozen loam. all springs plans seem to hatch when winter is felt most fully. seed catalogs seem most appealing, the smell of growing things a richer novelty. nothing cement yet, but firm intention is certainly coming up all around.

winter feather lining

feather lining the nest to get through the cold and dark. new plants, newly cut cream and butter dough (grapefruit ginger scones), newly harvested contributions to the Science Pile (those below are different samples of coarse, strong moose hair), and parting with the first sprouting green narcissus bulb of the season.

embarking on a Pretty Big Deal printmaking project, collecting small scraps and compiling some small drawings. more later!

snowlights

some difficulty in cultivating intimacy with the season. usually this summit town is buffeted by winds, blowing cornices, duvets of snow, manic tearing clouds and split and drifting light. but this is the driest winter on record. the sky remains obstinately clear, brilliant and unchangingly blue. very little change in light strobes the town during the day. somehow numbers tick and move on the clock, but, as was mentioned to me by someone very clever, who can say what happens to time during all of this? and so, in an awkward and unusual way, a great effort has gone in to walking the land, cataloging the light and weather (albeit minute) change to find delight in the passing of winter. the stormless season has at least bred vast and brutally hard fields and banks of ice where old snow melts and then galvanizes the landscape. delight from small folks has been eked out in the wake of ice. though we are not, as a rule, a town of many skaters, we can be persuaded to slide and tumble across bare ice when we find it.

 

 but mostly what has been necessary is learning to hone in a taste for kinds of light. when the sun is relentless and flat, making precious those fleeting moments of weak and bent light is the key to being present with winter.

 

 

by grace or pity we were gifted a very light snowfall, every nose in town pressed against the glass, breath hold, hoping it would hold out. come on snow!

ice and shortening

making hand pies today! the warmest thought i could conjure as it's only 9 degrees outside. sharp blade-like cold. hence our beautiful, icy stalactites. 

 

 

 

 

also reverting to a familiar preoccupation with the uses of the natural to implement in studio practice. this blog (and their shop and photograph gallery called 'belly of flea')  has a similar aim, though one much more fully realized and specific. additionally, they happen to make their own beautiful paintings which are well-worth looking at. currently i am looking at the use of the super-food blue green algae called spirulina, possibly the greenest green ever to grace my notebook paper.

p.s, below is the recipe for Best Pie Crust. a mother of a friend of my mother's provided it and it's changed everyone's pie making life. we are complimented to no end when we present pies using this crust (well, not me so much, little sister and mum are the true pie makers.) take care to handle it minimally as the shortening tends to seize up and make tight little tough pastries. also, letting the dough rest after you mix it, and before rolling it, makes things infinitely easier.

1 stick Crisco (or 1 cup shortening or butter)

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon vinegar

pour the vinegar into the milk and let it sit aside until well curdled. whisk the salt into the flour and rub the shortening into it until it resembles coarse meal or small peas. pour the curdled milk into the shortening and flour mixture and mix minimally until the dough masses together. optionally (but optimally) let dough rest 10 - 15 minutes before rolling out.

or the overlapping rollers

from Elizabeth Bishop's Crusoe in England

Well, I had fifty-two
miserable, small volcanoes I could climb
with a few slithery strides–
volcanoes dead as ash heaps.
I used to sit on the edge of the highest one
and count the others standing up,
naked and leaden, with their heads blown off.
I'd think that if they were the size
I thought volcanoes should be, then I had
become a giant;
and if I had become a giant,
I couldn't bear to think what size
the goats and turtles were,
or the gulls, or the overlapping rollers–
a glittering hexagon of rollers
closing and closing in, but never quite,
glittering and glittering, though the sky
was mostly overcast.

A nice thought, "if had become a giant..." for what if we all were? What would we made of the small cracks in the sidewalks? The viscous spread of an egg white in a hot pan? Of rainstorms, squalls and sun cups?

the uinta range

walking in the Uinta range yesterday. the space there is has the timeless patina of a truly wild place (although, conforming to the staunch definition of the technical 'wilderness' is debatable.) but being in a place much bigger than you, and being keen to absorb all the things around you, making the least amount of noise, and stepping as softly as you can, is a cure-all for almost any stagnant circuit. here there are questions of authority and the dull closed circuit of waiting tables. it was a good dose of the earth medicine, and, as always, the Men enjoyed themselves.

brunchtime

 had some lovely brunch with lovely friends with whom we have not visited for far too long. lemon cream scones with bitter orange and meyer lemon marmalade, cinnamon plum jelly and blackberry jalapeño jam. velvety scrambles eggs with gruyere, parmesan, spinach, bell pepper and fresh tomato. fig hazelnut bread with cold sweet butter. quartered sickle pears and thick yogurt. homemade apple brandy and coffee with kahlua. yeesh.