Anatomy of a scene

With summer almost on us, this is a repost of a post originally published on Crossroads back in June 2007.

"It was late afternoon as I pulled into my driveway and climbed out. The sun was warm and making its way toward the horizon. On a whim, I walked across the huge yard toward the rolling fields beyond the property line. I scurried over the freshly painted white fence and, with my hands on my hip, stood there taking in the lazy scene. The sky was a deep blue with wisps of milky white clouds passing by at a snail's pace. They had all the time in the world. A cockchafer went flying past me. I craned my neck to follow his flight path. He was moving fast and soon he was out of sight over a small hill overflowing with dandelions that were swaying gently to the breeze. It was a calm day but then it was always calm out here.

As I sunned, I slowly became acclimatized to the smells and sounds of the field. A slight but angry rustle nearby indicated that my presence had disturbed the slumbers of a small animal, perhaps a field mouse. Two butterflies were in earnest conversation a ways off. They seemed to tumble down a bit. They were in combat. Were they fighting for the love of a lady then? The distant warble of a purple martin seemed to add a layer of melancholy to their battle. One of them was destined to lose. I hoped that they were not brothers.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky and the breeze had picked up. The light had turned to a cooler blue. There was a faint hint of a familiar scent wafting down from a small hill yonder to my right: the fragrance of bur marigolds that I could not see. Maybe that cockchafer had a cousin who made her home amidst those marigolds. Had he been taking tea with her before he said his goodbyes and so ended up flying past me on his way home? Maybe it was time for me to be getting home too. I took one long earnest look around. Everything seemed to indicate that it was time to start settling in for the night. I turned and started waddling my way back home."

Exploring new horizons in cooking

As of early 2010, my cooking involved only pan frying, steaming, grilling and closed-wok "currying". I tried deep frying a couple of times in an effort to make pan-fried pork shops and chili chicken -- a very popular dish in south India...especially with booze -- but only succeeded in smoking up my small North End apartment. So I don't deep fry anymore. In the past couple of months, however, I have been spending more of my cooking time baking and roasting stuff using the oven. I have been making my own bread too!

There are plenty of bread making recipes along with the ingredient list on the web. So I won't go into too much detail here. Pictured below are the steps to make simple whole wheat bread. The whole thing takes about an hour. Typically I do this Sunday morning and then use the bread up over the following week.


1. Mix bread flour with active dry yeast, honey and warm water.

2. Add salt, melted butter and, in increments, whole wheat flour. You want to add the whole wheat flour in increments until the batter easily comes off the container and yet is slightly sticky.

3. Roll the batter around in a pan containing a thin layer of melted butter until the batter has a coating of butter. At this point, the batter should be firm and come easily off the container without sticking. Cover the container using plastic wrap or foil and let sit until the batter doubles in size (not pictured).

4. Punch batter down and place in loaf pan.

5. Wait until the batter rises an inch or so above the rim of the loaf pan. Then place loaf pan in oven. Set oven to 350 degrees. Set timer to remind you in about 30 minutes.

6. After 30 minutes, turn the oven off and take the loaf pan out of the oven. Baste top of bread with a thin layer of melted butter.

7. Yum!

To store this bread, use a bread box. If you don't have a bread box, leave the bread in the loaf pan and let it cool first before covering it with aluminum foil. This way, the bread should keep well for a few days.

As a final note, I recently bought a pressure cooker. I have used it successfully to prepare pot roasts. In a future post, I will post some pictures from that piece of cooking.