DREAM HOUSE

     Daily bread, daily dogs and cats, and daily living

 

Luna Loves Bread

      Some of the best parts of my life have happened in spite of my resistant, or by accident.  For instance, dogs.  And for instance, building a house, which happened by accident.  Or, more accurately, by a series of misadventures.  
     When Steve and I got engaged and he decided to move from Connecticut to upstate New York, we started looking for a house to buy.  We wanted a few acres, and didn’t mind a fixer-upper, so when I saw an ad for a 250 year old house with six acres, not too far from where I was teaching, I made an appointment to go view it.

     The night before I went, I had a dream - a very happy dream - about an area of scattered houses with lots of space between, but all connected by intricate paths through woods and over open meadows. Each house was different, some old and some new.  I saw it all from above, and liked what I saw.   

     The next morning, as I drove up the winding road toward our possible home, I kept seeing houses I’d seen in my dream.  Later, when I took a friend to look at it, she mused, “Wow.  This is weird. I’ve dreamt about this place.” 

     The land of dreams.  As a writer, I always felt I belonged just there.  So surely this must be my dream house, right?

     When I got to the door of the plain white farmhouse with a big old Maple tree in front, I was greeted by two women, mother and daughter, one in her sixties, and one in her eighties.  They were only the second family to live here in all of its 250 years. They’d bought it many years ago, when they worked in their family circus.  

    That’s no metaphor.Their family owned a small circus, and the two women once worked as tiger tamers and horse trainers. From that moment on, we referred to the place as The Circus House, and the name was entirely appropriate.

     As it turned out, they’d added six rooms to house the circus people. You know - the contortionist’s room, the trapeze room, etcetera. Unfortunately,  the circus went bust before they finished, so the top floor was just framing, with fireplaces and wiring that was nowhere near code.  When our inspector came to look at it, he showed me how he could bounce on the roof like a trampoline act, and how the septic system was oozing out the lawn, and how the three different heating systems (oil, electric, and gas) weren’t working. My Dream House was a nightmare.

    Still, we were besotted, and willing to work, so we made a lowball offer. It was rejected. The circus ladies would accept nothing under full asking price, and if we combined that with repairs, we’d be joining the Circus of the Damned. 

     We walked away, but the nightmare continued. For the next year every attempt we made to buy a house led to strangely disastrous results.  One ended with the owner screaming at me for reasons I never  understood. Then there was the house with dead mice in the hot tub, the one with water pouring out the electrical fixtures, and the houses that seemed perfect, except they were right next to a railroad track, or had an electrical tower in the front yard.  And finally, there was the beautiful post and beam.   

      It was just down the road from the Circus House, and within budget. Everything looked solid and secure, until our inspector said the well might be running dry.  He suggested we get a well guy to test it, and we did. 

    The date we set for the test was September 12th, and the year was 2001.

    Yes.  Really.  The day after the towers fell.  

    So imagine me, on the day after 9/11, gearing up for a well inspection.  I’d spent the previous day and night with my students on UAlbany’s campus, watching in horror as the towers fell, not sure if the attacks were going to get worse.  Then, first thing the next morning, I put on my leather jacket, my best sunglasses and boots, and made my way up the hill under a silent sky, to meet with a well inspector.  I had to be tough, prepared to meet men who might lie or bully me.  I had to not think about how the world was falling apart.

     As I pulled in the driveway, the home owner and well inspector were at the well.  I got out of my car and walked tall.  When I got to them, before I could say a word, three gunshots rang out.  

     I stood very still.  Nothing else happened, and I wasn’t dead.  I pulled my shades down and stared at the owner.  “Who’s he shooting at?” I asked mildly.

     The owner got nervous.  “That’s just my neighbor,” he said. “He likes to pop bunnies in his garden.  But don’t worry.  He’s got cataracts and can’t see anyway.”

     Right.  And that’s a good thing? 

     As it turned out, the well was no good, and the owner wouldn’t negotiate, but if he had, I didn’t want to live next door to a blind bunny popper.  The year had enough violence in it already.  

      So again, we walked away and, and for a while, we just gave up.  Even our realtor suggested we should, um, ‘take a break.‘   Then, after a while, Steve and I talked about maybe sorta kinda looking at land. Not that we meant it or anything, but we had to live somewhere. I made appointments to view three parcels. The first was too expensive. The second was too small.  

      But the third one - ah, the third one. 

      I arranged to meet Bill West at his house, a log cabin that belonged to his family.  He was a tall, rugged man dressed in the flannel and workboots common to the area, and he had the country friendly attitude that was also normal here.  He took me down the road to walk the boundaries of the land, which was dry on top, a bit boggy behind, and wooded all around with about a hundred acres that he owned, and used mostly for hunting during deer season. From where the house would sit, I could peer out over the Heldeberg escarpment.  An old Shagbark Hickory was centrally placed in what might be the back yard. I liked it. When we were done walking around, we stood on the road and talked.   

     As we did, a car went by, and Bill shook his head.  “Dammit,” he said.  “That’s the third car in an hour.  Traffic around here is getting heavy.”

     I smiled. That was just what I needed to hear. 

    There were good reasons I wanted to live on the hill.  But building a house?  Really?   Was I ready for that?  Did I have a clue?  Not at all.  But I’ve learned that when you follow your dreams, generally the first stop along the way is a place called Trouble. 

      Fortunately, Steve is the kind of guy who swore he would have gotten me off the Titanic alive, and I believed him.  He always had a plan.  So we strapped our seatbelts on, and got ready for the ride.  This land was ours.

    You can read a fictionalized version of The Circus House in my novel, Something Unpredictable, an environmental romantic comedy, with turtles.     

    Accidental Bread

    I made this bread by accident.  The original recipe was for rosemary and olive oil, which you can substitute because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!  However, I was out of olive oil, so I used a really good truffle oil instead.  Now, it's one of my favorites.  

You’ll need to make a starter - the kind called biga.  Don’t be afraid.  It won’t hurt you.  But  make it at least a day ahead, or even up to a week.  The longer it sits, the more flavor it develops.

Biga

Shhhh.  It's resting

2/3 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/3 cup flour  (I use organic bread flour. You can use all-purpose unbleached flour, or a mix of white and whole wheat.)

Mix all this together until a dough forms, knead it a little bit, and put the dough in a covered container.  Let it sit at room temperature for an hour, then refrigerate it for at least overnight, and up to a few days, until you’re ready to use it.  

Bread Dough

1 1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

3 1/4 cups flour (again, all purpose or bread flour, and you can mix in some whole wheat, but you may have to add more water if you do.)

1/3 cup Truffle Oil  (Or mix truffle and olive oil if you prefer)

1 tablespoon fresh finely chopped rosemary

2 teaspoons sea salt.

And a teaspoon of pepper won't hurt it at all.

Take the biga out of the fridge and put a cup of it in a Big mixing bowl (A really biga mixing bowl.  Ha!  Get it?)  Pour the water over it and break it up with a spatula.  Add in everything else, and if you’re mixing by hand, get to it!  If you’re using a mixer, use the dough hook, and mix it on medium until it’s silky, smooth, and elastic - about 10 minutes.

NOTE:  If you’ve never made bread before, the idea is to knead and pummell and flop it, stretch and mush it and stretch it again and smack it around some more until the dough is elastic, silky and smooth, holding together welll.  If you want, you can buy bread dough at the store and just feel it, so you’ll know the right texture of it all.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl or container and cover it, leave it to rise at room temp until it’s doubled in volume.  That’ll be an hour or two, so you can go write something while the dough does its thing.   

When it’s risen sufficiently, divide the dough into two loaves and shape each into a log about a foot long.  Get a piece of parchment paper or a cookie tray and lightly oil it, dust it with cornmeal, and put the dough on it.  Cover lightly with plastic wrap or a clean dishtowel  (if you don’t have a clean dishtowel, go wash one, and explain to your mother, not me, why you had to do that.)

Let the logs rise at room temp for about an hour.  While they’re rising, heat up your oven to WAY HIGH.  I mean, 500 degrees.   If you have a baking stone put it in the oven. 

When the dough is risen and the oven’s really hot, slide the loaves in, turn the heat down to 400, and close the oven door.  

(Or, if you want a thicker, crunchier crust, put a cast iron fry pan on the oven floor and drop in some ice cubes just before you put the bread in to cook.  The steam does something to the crust.  Don’t ask me to explain what.  I can’t. )

Bake until the bread is nicely browned, and sounds hollow when tapped.  Don’t let it burn, for pity’s sake.  Not after all this work.    

When you take it out of the oven, the smell will be rich as all our lives should be, and you’ll be tempted to cut into it right away.  Let it rest for at least 10 to fifteen minutes.  It’ll  cut better, and be just the right temperature for eating all of it.