Away-From-Things Time

Once again, hard to craft or code when I am not at home.

For one weekend I went berry picking with friends. On one hand it felt odd to pay for the privilege to pick berries- something I grew up doing in our back yard- and on the other it was so fun to be picking berries again! I delighted in all the blackberries I brought home. Pulled some of my Amish Bread Starter, mixed some things into it and got myself some dough. Rolled it out, laid out the super fresh berries, and rolled it up. Most tasty bread so far! (rather sweet)

That was one weekend, no time for crafting. Next up was my first trip to Yosemite ever. Went with a bunch of friends, interesting times. Spent a lot of time reading. I recently stumbled across two new Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books that I'd missed! Am caught up now on the book series (stopped watching the show mid season 3 and have no intention of resuming it) There is something immensely pleasing in those Stackhouse books... I think it has to do with how grounded the main character is and the amount of mundane life/detail describing her actions when she's not being hassled by vampires, weres, witches, and fairies.

Adam brought along his new guitar and he spent some time playing on it. Our friend Vince also played a number of tunes which was rather awesome.

The highlight, for me, of the trip was my first stab at camp baking. I brought 2 bags of starter (one sweet, one not), flour, some yeast, salt, oats, and dried fruit. I also picked up a Dutch Oven on the way out of town (What camping trip is complete without a final stop at REI?) I love my new Dutch Oven-- I actually greatly enjoy boiling water in it. I look forward to making some sort of soup thing next trip. This trip was bread though. It was... enlightening. I knew when we moved the *entire* fire onto the oven that it was a bad idea. But whatever. No regrets! After approx. 30 min I pulled it out to find the fruits of my labor. Once you got past the centimeter + thick crust of char there was some really tasty bread in there! We also made bread-on-a-stick which turned out much better. In fact (since I used the sweet starter) it wound up standing in for the marshmallows that night. Took longer to toast, but it browned all nice like, just like a marshmallow. I was too impatient (no surprise) so mine was burnt outside and undercooked inside. Yaron however mastered it on his first attempt and made several rounds of tasty real (if tiny amounts) bread.