Having been given the “bread and granola” chore for the week, I knew I’d be spending not only my afternoons in the kitchen but my mornings as well.
When a fresh batch of granola came out of the oven, I was deciding what kind of bread I would like to make.
Anja took a look at my starter and told me it seemed ready to make bread, so I decided to give it a shot- yeast researchers know their yeast!
I followed the instructions from Hannah Field’s chapter of Build Your Own Earth Oven and set the dough aside to ferment.
The weather was acting strangely, with a dark sky and unusually calm air. This quiet, of course, was followed by deep rumbles of thunder which shook the dorm. It began to pour rain, but only continued to do so for a few minutes before giving way to gentle showers, which themselves soon cleared up.
Weather on Kent Island is like weather in New England: if you don’t like it, wait a minute.
Perhaps the biggest excitement of the day was a visit from a dozen or so elderly folks, many of them artists, mostly from Toronto.
They seemed to be on a sort of creative tour of the Bay of Fundy.
They arrived in Russell’s skiff, ate lunch in the Lower Lab, and received a tour of Petrel Path from Damon.
When Emily and I walked down the path to the waterfront, we saw the prints of ballet flats and walking canes in the mud.
We arrived in the nick of time, for the visitors were already climbing back into the boat in which they had come to the island.
We introduced ourselves, and they began taking photographs of us.
“Which one’s Emily?”
Damon explained that Emily was a filmmaker and I was the cook and also kept a blog.
They asked my specialty, and I replied “what do you mean?” Damon took the question to be kitchen-related, so he clarified for me. “Baking.”
The murmurs from the skiff:
“Bacon?”
“Oh, yes, Bacon, mm-hmm.”
“Bacon, oh my, yes.”
As Russell pulled away from the dock, they must all have been marveling that anyone could have had such a culinary specialty as that.
By this time I was heating the oven and the cast iron pots to bake my attempt at bread.
The signup board for chores had the initials DG in the sous chef slot for Monday, but it was Janet who arrived at 2 pm.
She was an excellent sous chef as always, making a beautiful salad with what extremely limited ingredients we had: lettuce and radishes from the garden, broccoli slaw from the refrigerator, avocado from the pantry, and corn and black beans from cans. She made a delicious spicy dressing to give the salad a southwest aesthetic.
Next she shredded pounds and pounds of cheese for the lasagna as I prepared the sauce and baked the bread.
At one point we had to stop to replace the propane tank.
Despite the oven having been much colder than recommended for much of the baking time, the bread came out perfectly. Real sourdough!
For dessert, I made a cardamom coffee cake, which the Moosewood cookbook where I found the recipe describes as “one of the world’s richest cakes”.
Indeed it was, and it was quite a hit. (Recipe)
Having baked the cake in a Bundt pan, I felt obligated to fix the hole by filling it with our Tabasco-bottle bud vase.
At dinner, we were delighted to find that we all fit at one table together- while this is the norm for Kent Island it was the first time this had happened for our group the entire summer.
Emily, the braiding queen, put my hair in a style of braid that was new for me and which wrapped all the way around my head. Since this somehow manages to keep my hair out of the way even better than a bun does, I’ve decided to try to maintain it for the rest of the summer.
Once all the dishes had been cleaned up and Janet and I had spent some time upstairs and in the pantry planning a shopping list for the upcoming week’s menu, Emily, Christine, and I decided to go swimming at East beach.
Picking over the slippery rockweed and bringing Charlotte and Elisabeth for company (Colin stayed on the rocky part of the beach above the high tide line), we found the water was cold to an unpleasant degree but also quite invigorating.
The refrigerator had received a thorough cleaning, of which it was in dire need, from Colin and Kathryn.
We spent the remainder of the evening working on crosswords.
When a fresh batch of granola came out of the oven, I was deciding what kind of bread I would like to make.
Anja took a look at my starter and told me it seemed ready to make bread, so I decided to give it a shot- yeast researchers know their yeast!
I followed the instructions from Hannah Field’s chapter of Build Your Own Earth Oven and set the dough aside to ferment.
The weather was acting strangely, with a dark sky and unusually calm air. This quiet, of course, was followed by deep rumbles of thunder which shook the dorm. It began to pour rain, but only continued to do so for a few minutes before giving way to gentle showers, which themselves soon cleared up.
Weather on Kent Island is like weather in New England: if you don’t like it, wait a minute.
Perhaps the biggest excitement of the day was a visit from a dozen or so elderly folks, many of them artists, mostly from Toronto.
They seemed to be on a sort of creative tour of the Bay of Fundy.
They arrived in Russell’s skiff, ate lunch in the Lower Lab, and received a tour of Petrel Path from Damon.
When Emily and I walked down the path to the waterfront, we saw the prints of ballet flats and walking canes in the mud.
We arrived in the nick of time, for the visitors were already climbing back into the boat in which they had come to the island.
We introduced ourselves, and they began taking photographs of us.
“Which one’s Emily?”
Damon explained that Emily was a filmmaker and I was the cook and also kept a blog.
They asked my specialty, and I replied “what do you mean?” Damon took the question to be kitchen-related, so he clarified for me. “Baking.”
The murmurs from the skiff:
“Bacon?”
“Oh, yes, Bacon, mm-hmm.”
“Bacon, oh my, yes.”
As Russell pulled away from the dock, they must all have been marveling that anyone could have had such a culinary specialty as that.
By this time I was heating the oven and the cast iron pots to bake my attempt at bread.
The signup board for chores had the initials DG in the sous chef slot for Monday, but it was Janet who arrived at 2 pm.
She was an excellent sous chef as always, making a beautiful salad with what extremely limited ingredients we had: lettuce and radishes from the garden, broccoli slaw from the refrigerator, avocado from the pantry, and corn and black beans from cans. She made a delicious spicy dressing to give the salad a southwest aesthetic.
Next she shredded pounds and pounds of cheese for the lasagna as I prepared the sauce and baked the bread.
At one point we had to stop to replace the propane tank.
Despite the oven having been much colder than recommended for much of the baking time, the bread came out perfectly. Real sourdough!
For dessert, I made a cardamom coffee cake, which the Moosewood cookbook where I found the recipe describes as “one of the world’s richest cakes”.
Indeed it was, and it was quite a hit. (Recipe)
Having baked the cake in a Bundt pan, I felt obligated to fix the hole by filling it with our Tabasco-bottle bud vase.
At dinner, we were delighted to find that we all fit at one table together- while this is the norm for Kent Island it was the first time this had happened for our group the entire summer.
Emily, the braiding queen, put my hair in a style of braid that was new for me and which wrapped all the way around my head. Since this somehow manages to keep my hair out of the way even better than a bun does, I’ve decided to try to maintain it for the rest of the summer.
Once all the dishes had been cleaned up and Janet and I had spent some time upstairs and in the pantry planning a shopping list for the upcoming week’s menu, Emily, Christine, and I decided to go swimming at East beach.
Picking over the slippery rockweed and bringing Charlotte and Elisabeth for company (Colin stayed on the rocky part of the beach above the high tide line), we found the water was cold to an unpleasant degree but also quite invigorating.
The refrigerator had received a thorough cleaning, of which it was in dire need, from Colin and Kathryn.
We spent the remainder of the evening working on crosswords.
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