Shaker-style Noodles

 I love working with dough but I've never made noodles before. A couple of days ago I decided to give it a shot and asked Mom a few basic questions. She's an old pro. I remember homemade noodles when I was a kid and they were always one of my favorite meals.

 This is the finished product ... not quite a soup because we both prefer the dish to be quite thick. And certainly without chicken because we're vegetarian. I'll post the basic recipe below but Mom adds potatoes, celery, carrots and onions to it,

 She seasons with parsley and garlic (both home grown), salt and pepper. She also adds two vegetable bouillon cubes (Knorr Vegetarian) and Mrs. Dash Original Seasoning Blend (salt-free).

As with any soup, the amount of water is determined by taste and how thick you want the finished product to be. Maybe 1.5 quarts? Mom also adds a small amount of vegetable oil.

 She cooks the veggies in water first and only adds the noodles when the veggies are tender.

Shaker Noodles *

1 cup bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soft butter
1 egg
3 tablespoons water


 I made the dough in a bowl then poured it onto a flowered pastry cloth and kneaded it slightly. I then rolled it out into a thin layer and let it dry for many hours.

 Here's how the dough looked after I had rolled it into a thin layer. It's a little irregular but I've never done this before. Doesn't seem to matter.

 After drying for much of the day, Mom began cutting thin strips of noodles from the dough.

 After she cut a while, I cut the rest. The noodles were then dried further (hours) and eventually placed in a plastic bag and frozen for use today.

We cannot have noodles without thinking of our beloved schnauzer, Ginger. Homemade noodles were her favorite and we'd often tell her we were making "noodlers". She seemed to look forward to her bowl as much as the rest of us. After she ate, she knew to stand at her bowl and await a beard washing. It was funny to watch her wait. She knew that this was a requirement and she never spoiled it by walking away until she had been cleaned.

Bottom Line: How was it? Delicious!

* Credit: The Shaker Cookbook by Caroline B. Piercy
Crown Publishers, Inc. 1953

A Day in Cincinnati

 It was a warm mid-winter day when Tom and I spent some time walking about downtown Cincinnati. Most January days this would have been impossible - to go out on foot wearing no more than a light hoodie - but we enjoyed 61° temperatures yesterday.

 We parked in the Garfield Garage (11 W 9th Street) which is operated by the city and is "cheap" - just a dollar an hour. Most places we drove by wanted $5 to even $10, though I suppose that was for the whole day. But it meant we had to walk.

 Fountain Square was our first stop as it was the site of the Cincinnati Women's March on Washington - Sister March. Though we offered no more than moral support - and two extra bodies for the count - we were at least present, though late.

 How the city maintains the ice at the rink on Fountain Square is a mystery to me. The sun wasn't shining but it was a Spring-like when we were there. I can't imagine these conditions on a usual late-January day in Cincinnati.

 Another view of Fountain Square.

 We have walked through "Ruth Lyons Way" before but this time I took a picture for Mom. The roadway is no more than an alley but at least Ruth's name is still above downtown streets.

 We next toured the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. I can't say it's my cup of tea but admission was free so what the heck. We walked through only a gallery or two.

 I told my brother, Bob, that I found one artwork that he must have posed for. Or, as he suggested, maybe it was me?

 Across the street from the CAC is a building that's brightly painted (on at least the two sides I saw). I love this depiction of Neil Armstrong on the moon. The mural is by Art Works and is on Walnut Street between 5th and 6th Street



Note: Tom says the main rally/demonstration was at Washington Park and Fountain Square was more of a kickoff point. Our hearts were in the right place anyway.

Dawn's Early Light

 The day was off to a strange start. Heavy clouds scooted across the sky on unseen winds. The temperature, unusual for mid-January, hovered in the upper 50's. A week cold front undercut the warm air and the sky filled with cumulus. It seemed spring.

 But there wasn't a ray of sunshine to be seen as I drove home from the West Carrollton YMCA, Looking to the west, thin light-colored clouds stood in contrast to the darker clouds above and beyond. The slid rapidly to the north, carried on warm wind. The two air masses fought.
 By the time I was within a couple of miles of home, I could see breaks developing, the sky torn open here and there and revealed the blue beyond. These patches opened and closed rapidly.
 I thought, as I stopped at Diamond Mill, how nice it would be to be home now and to shoot a picture from in front of the house with the backdrop of clouds behind. But I was too late. The magic was now and it was retreating north.

 But as I arrived home, I saw that the sun was trying to shine. I opened the back door, threw my gym bag onto the kitchen floor and hurried to the road. A shaft of sunlight poured through an opening in the east and flooded Pinehaven with light. It looked like a jewel. I snapped a picture, the timing perfect.

 We live for such shafts of unexpected light in an often dreary world. The sky opens and closes with a wink. But in that instant, the new view gives us appreciation for what we can briefly see before the clouds again close in.

New Year's Eve - 2016

 Tom arrived just after 11 am and brought with him almost everything he'd need to cook the three of us a special meal for New Year's Eve. It pretty well fit in a cardboard box. But that doesn't illustrate the time it took to gather the ingredients and to do some advance preparation.

 Tom's working on the pasta dish here, The pan in his left hand contained two entire slices of melted butter. This isn't an inexpensive dish, I'll post the recipe below but, seeing as how I don't like hazelnuts, Tom substituted chestnuts. Of course he left out the meat, too.

 Tom even brought fresh sage which he chopped on our cutting board.

 This is a veggie "roast". We had one of these for Easter, too. It seems to be made with texturized vegetable protein (i.e. soybeans) and when sliced makes a wonderful meat substitute.

 Here's the finished pasta dish just out of the oven. The recipe follows.

 This recipe is courtesy of the Arbor Day Foundation.

 Later I made a dessert that consisted of angel food cake, a dark chocolate ice cream bar (Klondike) cut in half, cherry sauce and whipped cream.

 It was a nice way to prepare for 2017's arrival. Tom left about 5 pm and I watched a little TV and then read throughout the evening (I'm reading a Horatio Alger book that was my grandfather's from 1913). I was in bed by 9 pm and didn't wake until 2:30 am. So the "neighbors" must have been quiet. In past years I'd hear fireworks and pots and pans being hammered. But not recently. The new year came in quietly.

Christmas - 2016

 We keep it pretty simple, really. No tree in the living room; no gifts beneath. We simply get together on Christmas, have lunch at the Waffle House and come home, play cards and eat some more.

Mom (91) and Bob (60) 

Bill (67) and Tom (60) 

Mom playing Michigan Rummy 

Bob dealing 

Tom (probably disgusted that I'm taking another picture) 

I'm scorekeeper - honest if nothing else 

Another snack: dark chocolate brownies, chocolate chip bioche

Homemade pimento cheese ball with pecans and three varieties of wheat crackers

Great day, begun about 11 am, finished at 5 pm. Thus Christmas 2016 becomes but a fond memory.

Soft Cinnamon Swirl Bread

 I was ready to bake bread again and had a hunger for a decent homemade cinnamon bread. I searched through Mom's cookbooks for something interesting and came up with nothing. The net, too, mostly pointed to various cinnamon breads, but few with the old-fashioned swirl.
 That's when I found a recipe at The Comfort of Cooking which seemed to fill my requirements.

 The top swirl of cinnamon separated from the rest of the loaf and left a gap. See the text below for a possible explanation. The taste? Oooey, gooie, delicious!

 The recipe is straightforward and easy. Here is everything mixed and ready for the flour:

I always "proof" the yeast (top left) before adding it to the other ingredients. I added some of the sugar to warm water and added the two packages of yeast. In 5 - 10 minutes it is foaming like crazy.

 I used 5.5 cups of flour and ended up with dough that wasn't too sticky and easily workable. I kneaded it for about eight minutes. That's what I ended up with above.

 Then, an hour in a slightly warmed oven while the dough rises. It's easily doubled its original volume. It becomes a bit sticky and must be floured lightly to work with.

Now the hard part ... rolling the dough out to an 18" x 8" piece. You can see that I folded over both edges to get the short direction right.

 And then I sliced the dough into two equal (well, almost) sections of 18 X 4". They fit nicely into 9 x 5" loaf pans. They are rolled from the narrow side, the cinnamon swirled inside. I had quite a time sealing the ends (actually, I'd say I pretty much failed) but I figured it couldn't much matter. Many cinnamon breads have the cinnamon/sugar mixture on the outside.
 Before I sprinkled the cinnamon on the dough, I put down a layer of melted butter. That's not part of the recipe and I think that was the cause for the top layer of swirl separating. Next time: no butter!

 Here are the two loaves after an hour's rise. They've come well above the top of the pans and almost fill the pans end-to-end.

 I baked them for just 30 minutes as Mom prefers bread less dry. Now, time to cool and then we'll slice one loaf in half (Bob and Nancy get one half; Tom gets the other half). The other loaf? Ours, of course!

 Right out of the oven, we buttered the top to give it a shine. While it's still hot, the thin layer of butter melts into the crust and makes it more tender, too.

Season's First Snow

 It's a little late - and maybe even a little unexpected - but it's been snowing since about 8 am and we've got 4" on the ground. For a while, mostly around 11 am, the flakes were falling at a fast clip and they were large ones, often several bonded together and falling like small balls of cotton.

 At 10 am there was very little snow. At noon there was a couple of inches. Now, at nearly 3 pm, I just measured between three and four inches (3 on concrete; 4 on grass).

 Looking south along Clayton Road from my second floor bedroom window, the road has melted and remains open. Snow plows are passing the house regularly.

 Looking north from Mom's second floor bedroom window, the wood pile is covered with a thick layer of snow.

 Here's a view (about 2 pm) from our security webcam. I haven't been out since early this morning so the snow is undisturbed. After I saved this frame, I went outside and shoveled a path to the garage.

 And I took a measuring stick into the yard and found 4" had fallen (1-2" was forecast). On concrete surfaces (back porch, driveway apron) I measured just 3", probably due to melting. It is still 32° at 3 pm.

 After the mail came, I shoveled a single path to the mailbox. Then I turned back and looked at the house. Cold weather ahead ... mid-single digits. It may be beautiful, but when it gets that cold, it can also be dangerous.

So, a late snow to begin the winter season.