Bread and our days

 

So bread.
I still end up baking about three loaves at once.
I bake it longer than the recipe calls for
as I can't get the bread in the oven without
pulling the rack out and
then pushing them on to the
already hot pizza stone.
This past time two of the breads stuck and ripped
at the bottom.
I am wondering if I am not flouring the pizza peel
enough which leads to them not wanting to
move quickly from peel to stone.
Suggestions are welcome...
*
So now that it is November it seems that all is very busy here.
Yesterday, I made it to a neighbouring town
to do some shopping.
Christmas shopping, odds and ends shopping.
I went to a mall.
You know malls are not what I remember when I was young.
The loud music, the TVs in the food court,
the blatant TV girl talking loudly via speakers while I am eating
saying what is in style and how to wear one's makeup.
Now I love beauty and that includes clothes
but I don't understand the need to be always
'in style' for what is 'this season'.
It just seems such a lie.
Wear this lipstick this way and you day is made,
your life complete and wow, don't you look better than
the way you formerly wore your lipstick?
Why do we listen or believe this stuff?
*
For me it is more wear what is beautiful, modest and becoming.
Each has their own way;
for me it is long flowy skirts, a nice tailored jacket or
one of my sweaters.
Most are not new and if I had to redo my wardrobe I
would look for what I already have.
*
I remember when I was a teen I would go with siblings
to get a cinnamon roll at the mall.
Big ones that we would split.
It was wonderful, that time with my Mom.
I felt like I was projected into a surreal futuristic world,
there in the mall with
a guy's voice talking about the latest movie and you look up
and there are two screens,
one with the guy telling you about the movie and the other
clips from the movie itself.
I felt like I was walking in the future, as if I was
suddenly flipped through a trap door and found myself in a
very strange place.
*
Mr. Husband laughed at me when he heard
that I had gotten fast food Chinese
at the mall;
it was about 4:30 and of course everything was taking
much longer than I had hoped for and all I knew
was that I needed food and fast.
I got, in Mr. Husband's words,
the low end of Asian Fast food and he knew
exactly what place I went to without knowing the mall at all.
Of course there are food chains here in NJ I've never heard of
so little did I know.
All I know is that rice, shrimp and veggies on a Wednesday is
OK by me! :)
*
One my way back home while waiting for public transit
there was a man preaching a sermon of some sorts
from the Bible.
A bit bizarre, and it always seems that these sort of preachers
are removed from people's lives and are marginalized themselves.
*
Well, there a still a few things I need
and the only place I know to get them is that same
strange mall with all it's noise,
pictures flashing and everything screaming
this is the latest greatest and if you don't have it now
you won't be in the know.
Of course they ignore that next season they will
say the same thing, different product.
It's not that I do not like new but that I do not like
how our society can not live in silence,
without images and sounds blaring.
That they cannot be OK with what is becoming or modest
but instead tend towards what is flashy or
unbecomingly suggestive.
*
It's like being in a room with a large loud TV and no icons.
It's like being in a room that is so full of stuff
but yet deplete of everything or of that which is essential.
*
It is no wonder to me at least why I have slowly
ceased to listen to much outside of classical or Orthodox music.
Or why lighting a lampada or two makes the whole day go better.
God can do wonders in our lives with very little on our part.
Sometimes I forget this.
*
Meanwhile, most of my shopping is done right here at home.
It makes me see, irony acknowledged,
why buying things online is so attractive;
which is quite new, really,
if one thinks about it.
Months back Mr. Husband and I signed up for
Amazon Prime when we realized that what we were ordering
the shipping would be near the cost of Amazon Prime for one year.
It is so convenient.
*
I remember when Amazon was new in year 1999-2000 and
giving email addresses, credit cards and passwords
were new and uncertain.
It was one of my undergrad friends, C., who helped me get an
account that year at his computer so I could order a book.
Well, now I order anything from books, folding tables,
GF flours to vanilla beans.
*
The latest thing I am gearing up to do is to make my own
vanilla extract.
I first heard of it from Rebekah's post and then again
by Katherine's.
 I got thinking more seriously about it when I realized that
not only was I running low on vanilla but the
vanilla I have was made with water, alcohol and corn syrup.
Now Crisco I can admit to using,
like in the cookies that are so like a brownie
that eating one is more than enough,
well at least until the next meal, ahem... ;)
And I think I paid good money for that vanilla extract!
So I am hoping to make my own since it will be better, save money
and, everyone says, be nice gifts to give out.
*
Speaking of those brownie cookies,
I am hoping to bake them again later with cherries in them.
Yum.
*
So it is nearing the Christmas Lent;
starts on Thanksgiving for us on the old calendar.
I am already thinking about things I need to get
baking wise ~
what do you do for baking?
I'm seeing recipes using apple sauce and
vegan margarine.
What margarine do you use?
*
It is a cloudy day here
but yesterday was so beautiful; the sun was out;
leaves were yellow; kids were playing.
Speaking of kids playing it took me sometime
to remember what we called them when I was a kid:
why, at least in Canada, are things we used to call
Jungle Gyms now called
Play Structures.
Seriously I see this as a sign of a very
confused society, drunk and stumbling with
a political correctness that well
does not work for me and seems at best confusing to
those younger than I.
*
I would be apt to say that I have been born in the wrong century
but I don't really believe this, if I am honest.
It was hard back then in ways I don't know that I could of dealt
well with... not to mention that I would not of
been able to do much if I had the same need for glasses
to greatly improve my eyesight  as I do at present.
*
Do I miss what we see as a more civilized past,
yes; though in listening to the book on Wilberforce
I see that things were poor then too;
I admit that I wish we had a
society of manners to lead our culture
back to where it should be.
*
Well, we start with bread and we end
with society.
They do go together.
*
We need Christ who offers Himself in
Bread and Wine
to us sinners,
surely needing better manners,
myself included.