Another cake for history.

For the final presentation of the History SIG (Special Interest Group), I decided to make a pecan cake based upon this recipe:

The substitution is simple:  10oz of slightly toasted pecan pieces in place of the black walnuts.  I think that pecans must be lighter than black walnuts, because that is a LOT of nuts in the batter.  It resulted in two pretty cakes, plenty for whoever is at our closing session.

And once again, I didn't stop for photographs, although I took one of the circular cake after it cooled:

My mother and I went to Chicago for a week, spending time seeing relatives and old friends (including all three of my remaining godparents), and I was too busy enjoying people to photograph the food.  Except this, my dessert one night:

The "Amarena Cherry Panna Cotta" - 
vanilla panna cotta, amarena cherry gelee,
compressed cherry (a bit alcoholic), pistachio

Of course we ate plenty of Chicago specialties, such as deep dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dog (my mother and I split a footlong at a White Sox game, which they sadly and badly lost to the d@mn Yankees, but ended up splitting the series with them - then the Cubs began a series with a close loss and a solid win, before another close loss), Irish soda bread from the Hearts & Flour Bakery tent at the Daley Center Farmers Market, true bagels and lox at a family brunch, and lots of excellent meals at friends' favourite restaurants around the city.  We brought local chocolates to the neighbors and are still nibbling our way through the cookies a friend gave to my mother.

Waterlilies for July.

This month's puzzle is finished with some days of the month to go!

I decided to finish the frame first this month.

Scarves and other uses.

Earlier this week I had to park outside for an extended period on a very sunny day, and my steering wheel was very hot when I got into the car.  Quickly I threw my "car scarf" over the steering wheel and I was able to drive safely.  The "car scarf" is a simple garter stitch project that I can pick up and put down quickly, and easily take with me when I might have a waiting period.

Yarn is Red Heart Super Saver in "Americana".

I've finished some others, a scarf and hat of "Flower Power" yarn, mostly used as a colourway with just three actual flower squares:

I also made a scarf with single crochet stripes out of bits of yarn a friend gave me.  I sorted the yarn into two sets, one of navy and cadet blues, and one of the other blues and greens.  Then I worked until I ran out, adding a bit of dark green at the end so it would be longer:

The bits are all different lengths.
Two-row stripes make carrying the yarn tidier.

I think the yarn is Caron Simply Soft and Simply Soft Paints.

As one ball ran out, I added the next colour from that side, with the last bit of cadet blue switching sides because of the dark green I added.  The scarf looks a bit pulled in at that point but should relax to the required width once washed.

Muster Gingerbread

For tomorrow's history group presentation, which focuses on the northern part of the colonies, I decided to make "Muster Gingerbread" from the Plimoth Colony Cook Book.  It is easy, has a good story (although I think more from the 19th Century than the 18th, but no provenance was given), and makes many pieces.

I forgot to take photos when I started the process, and just have one showing how I propped up the molasses jar to drain as much as possible.  Then I went for a walk.  After I returned, I added the melted butter and buttermilk, then mixed - very carefully, because the bowl was overfull.

That might be, in part, because I was doubling the recipe.  However, I used only a cup and a half each of molasses and butter, because the proportions seemed awry if you want cookies.  Too much liquid.  And I was right as I ended up with a fluffy batter, a bit thick but definitely more for cake than cookies:

Photo taken about fifteen minutes into baking.  The chemical reaction between the baking soda and the acid in both the molasses and the buttermilk caused the rise.  My other change was to increase the ginger to a full tablespoon each, and add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon per recipe.

[Historical note:  Baking soda is a modern addition, having first been isolated in somewhere between 1791 and 1801, but not available generally until the middle of the 19th Century.  It is more likely that pearlash was used, but even so, that might be post-Revolutionary War.  I decided to bake this recipe even though I have other gingerbread/gingerbrede receipts that would be more historically accurate, because I think the group won't care and they'd like the name and find it appropriate to the discussion.]

The gingerbread baked well but took longer than the recipe said, of course, since it was written for cookies.  I would have had to add a LOT of flour to make a cooky-rolling stiffness, and I didn't want to make THAT many cookies.  Maybe if I had thought to scale everything else to 1.5 times, or even doing just a single batch with more flour.  Experiments for another day.

These came out quite tastily:

The decorative pan made distinct designs which are not terribly visible except on the bottom right quadrant of the photograph, but the cake is a bit crisper than the ones baked in the other two pans.  I now have a high-piled platter of pieces of gingerbread for people to enjoy tomorrow.

Alternating exercises and the effect of reading.

I am getting into a routine of doing the weight circuit at the community center gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with long walks on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and yoga on Saturday.  This keeps me moving with different forms of exercise and I feel better than I have in a number of months.  If I go to the gym in the morning I see a few regulars and a couple of the older men (OK, almost everybody is older than I) helped me with form and we're getting to the chat-a-bit level.  If the weather is good I walk there and back, but if it's not (rainy, HOT) or if I have an early meeting and cannot afford the time, I walk both ways.  A couple days when I did that I added a short walk on a treadmill, both times when I had to wait for machines in the weight circuit to be available.  Sometimes I'm busy and go in the evening, and around suppertime the place is pretty much deserted.

I finished a book this morning, which makes fourteen for the year, so I am ahead of schedule for my stated goal of eighteen.  Three were very short children's books that I read before donating them to a friend's Little Free Library, as I think we should vet the items before they are available to the community.  I know that she will also do, but I can tell her I previewed the books.  I have another one to read while I wait for this month's SciFi Book Club selection to arrive.  I am not sure whether it will be the hold, something from Inter-Library Loan, or a secondhand copy I purchased that has a different name but seems to be the same book - I'll find out.  I did NOT want to spend $40 for a new copy, or (sometimes, much) more as it seems to be in demand.

Something interesting happened on two different nights as I was reading in bed: my fitness tracker sent a warning, because my heart rate (pulse) had dropped to 47 beats per minute.  Maybe fewer.  I guess that's a sign of how calming reading is for me!  When I had my annual checkup recently my PCP commented that my heart rate is nice and low, but she is not concerned.  Neither is my cardiologist.

250 years of celebrating Independence

Technically, the birthday should be on July 2nd (something John Adams argued for until he died - on July 4, 1826) because that was the day the delegates voted, but the document was signed on July 4th so here we are.  And many people of all political viewpoints have been reflecting on "where are we" and "will we be here in another 50 years?" and "what will the United States of America resemble then?"  [Some wonder what it will look like after the midterm elections in November, or the next Presidential election, or if anything happens to change the country's leadership before then.]  Like many of my friends and my parents' contemporaries, I remember the Bicentennial and how it was recognized and celebrated.  It was so different from today's celebrations, and not just because so many are being cancelled, rescheduled, or limited because of the dangerous heat wave and drought across the country.

Ten years ago, as part of the "We Are America" series, wrestler and actor John Cena made a video that I think resonates just as much today.  We're still wrestling with the aftermath of slavery and the treatment of the indigenous peoples and immigrants, and the late granting of the vote to women (which some people think they should cede to their husbands), but we are still here, and many of us are trying to fight to continue the country we believe in, built on "truths [that are] self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Halfway Finished

I kept meaning to finish the June puzzle.  I wasn't avoiding it because of pink, and roses, and pink roses, because I didn't open the box until yesterday.  {People who know me well know pink is my least favourite colour, and I am allergic to roses.}

LOTS of flower shaped pieces in this puzzle.

My two favourite of the unusually-
shaped pieces.

I managed to finish before June ended, in short bursts through the day.  This is the sixth of the year of small round puzzles, so I am halfway through.