Tweaking the starter.....

     My bread won't rise. I've tried heating the oven on low and putting the dough in to rest....I've put a pan of boiling water  alongside the dough in the oven - none of my little tricks are working. I hope this doesn't mean my starter has died....maybe it's just the damp cold....maybe the barometric pressure is wonky. I've decided I am going to separate the dough anyway, put it in the loaf pans and try a second rise....the thing about it is - I kind of feel like my dough - I just can't be bothered to rise. Maybe it's this nasty cold I've got .....maybe it's the season of my life....maybe it's all of the changes in the past months, but I sure am ready for a "second rise" - praying that my starter hasn't died.
     Here's the thing about living in the same small town you grew up in - you are always running into someone from your past - a friend, a boyfriend, someone you didn't like, parents of your friends.....Yesterday, I was happy to run into the Mother of one of my favorite friends from High School. He grew up and away - living a life of excitement and importance as a Doctor specializing in Infectious Disease - he's been to Africa to research AIDS and new treatment methods, he's worked in major cities all over the U.S....his has been a life of service and difference making, and I have been so proud of him - watching from afar. Yesterday, standing in the cold rain at the entrance to the Teeter, his Mom told me that he has started a new career - left the practice of Medicine for a job in research - she laughed and said that he felt if he was ever going to branch out, it might as well be now. I answered that he was young enough to have a long and successful second career. We said our goodbyes, I turned to take up my grocery bags and was pole axed. I said it....out of my own mouth - "he is young enough to have a long and successful second career".....He. Is. My. Age.             I think I faced it for the first time yesterday......I. am. not. old....I just feel old.....like my life is over.....yet my dear friend is young enough to have a successful second career.
   His starter appears to be in good working order....mine obviously needs a little nudge.....an oven set to warm, or a pan of boiling water tucked up next to me....but where to find it? How to tweak it, so I rise....not sit in a doughy clump at the bottom of the bowl? The painful truth is - I am old of my own making. Not chronologically....I think of my friend as young enough to start over.....where, then...where am I old? In my thinking? In my heart? In my spirit?
    In bread making terms, it is obviously time to feed the starter.......So I turn to you, my friends...how have you done it? Have you ever found yourselves in need of an overhaul? Have you been successful in lifting yourselves up...in tweaking your starter? Do you mind sharing the recipe.....it just so happens I seem to be in need of a new one.

Sciatic Shuffle

    One should never do the extended version of the Cha-Cha Slide when their Sciatic nerve is on the fritz.....I'd like to think that I sat down at the computer in the kitchen to write tonight because of my burning need to express myself...but it could just as easily be because of the burning in my shoulder and hip, and my need to rest before attempting the steps that lead to my bed! You see....we had a dance tonight....at the Church....that's right....at the Baptist Church. Young people....old people....and all kinds of in between people. A Valentines Dinner/Dance, with beautiful decorations, Steak, and a most excellent play list for the dancing - beach music, Moves Like Jagger music, Twist music, fun line dancing music, and of course - a little bit of Romantic Music....it is almost Valentines, after all. I wish I could download my memory - so that you could see the pictures I am seeing, as I sit here - sciatic nerve in my hip throbbing - foot slightly numb....But I'll do my best to describe it - because it really was quite a night. Our new Youth Minister is a dancing machine - he's my  Hero, because he did the unthinkable...he made the dancing seem cool and fun - and before you knew it, Middle School boys were dancing with Middle School girls - high school girls were dancing with each other...the High School Boys....well...you can't win 'em all! Fathers were dancing with Daughters, Mothers were dancing with Sons (I sure did miss College Boy), Teens dancing with the "old folks", and the four and five year olds were dancing with helium balloons that had once been centerpieces! "Pillars" of the community were ripping off their bow ties, swinging them over their heads Gagnum Style, and having a blast. A beloved Gentleman who is slowly forgetting himself and those around him, cut quite a figure as his sense memory guided him as he danced - a beautiful slow dance.
    I love to dance - always have, always will - and it was fun to teach a 13 year old how to dance to Beach Music, nice to slow dance with my sweetie, and worth every minute of  Sciatic agony I will experience tonight -  to Cha-Cha Slide, do the YMCA, the Macarena, the Cupid Shuffle, the Twist....The familiarity of our Fellowship, the joy we felt from laughing and playing together turned the ordinary into the extraordinary. In the grand scheme of Society, our Valentines Dance was a little thing - hardly worth notice, really....except, to my way of thinking, it was so much more. It was 1st Graders in Beautiful dresses....2 little guys enthralled with pink and red helium balloons, and using them as dance partners....a celebration of a 61st Anniversary.....it was a gaggle of teen-aged girls gathered around the handsome exchange student....it was a team of men, adorned with Aprons, cooking for a multitude......it was a time for splitting the last piece of pie...a time for thoughtful teens, bringing coffee to their elders....a time for laughter and family and kinship........it was a celebration of a young widow and widower - how they found each other and blended their children into one big beautiful new family.... a time to forget the aches and pains that make days a  chore.... it was a simple pleasure of togetherness, baked potatoes, and heart paper chains....the best of Life - for this Mid Life Wife.

Talons, and Wings, and Beaks.....Good-bye....

    I have washed my last egg. No more will I see my sweet babiest girl, cheeks pink with the cold, run into the kitchen carrying 3 warm eggs in her bucket. The Girl Scout Silver Award project is complete, and our beautiful chickens are safely ensconced in their new home - giving the residents of a halfway house a new sense of responsibility, and quite possibly the best source of an omelet within the city limits. You might recall that I was slightly discombobulated by their birdlike qualities, when the chickens first came to our house to live...but I made my peace with their beaks and talons (so achieved by never entering the coop enclosure), and grew to love their constant presence. At first, my eyes found the peachy orange of their chicken coop jarring (babiest girl and her partner did a primo job painting the coop), but I soon came to love the cheery contrast it made nestled among the brown bark of the  pines in the backyard - and found it to be downright homey, next to the deep red of our storage barn. If you stood in the back yard and called "chickens" - letting your voice raise by at least a 5th on the second syllable, they would answer with a soothing, heart warming clucking. On pretty days, I would go up and wedge my sizeable backside into one of the swings on the kids old playset and sit there swinging - watching the girls go about their business.....scratching in the dirt, ruffling their feathers, drinking their water, pecking at the fencing...as I swung back and forth, my shoulders relaxed, and my blood pressure lessened.
    The back yard feels empty - no bright orange coop, no scratching or clucking...and perhaps, most saddening of all...no more fresh eggs! The girls were good layers, and we were amazed to discover that each chicken had a signature shell to her eggs. Abigail's were very pale brown, with a pink tinge, and they were the smallest of all. Kesha's eggs bore the cutest freckles, and Falcon's eggs were deep brown - the largest of all. (All of the eggs came with the byproduct of their origin - hence the washing!) When you cracked them, the yolks were the deepest gold, and the whites were thick and clear. Having free, home farmed, fresh eggs to feed my family everyday was an amazing thing - somewhat akin to nursing my babies. I remember feeling this magnificent power - knowing that I had the ability to produce food capable of keeping another human alive....It's the same with baking my bread - every time I bake my loaves, I am reminded that I - by my own two hands - can produce food capable of sustaining those I love.
    We are already working on Mr. Kennedy....reminding him of how much he loves two fresh eggs - sunnyside up....how little work it was, taking care of the chickens....how happy their gentle clucking made all of us...what a great value we received from the few dollars of scratch and feed we purchased. He, thus far, seems unmoved - unswayed by our desire to have a permanent Kennedy flock.....It might be time to throw in a snippet about how we might possibly survive a zombie apocalypse..... with a few eggs and a loaf of sourdough bread.