Computerless

An update: On Tuesday afternoon my hard drive crashed. I´ve been procrastinating on typing up some retro blog posts, and now I´m wishing I´d done it earlier!

The tech guy at my school is going to try to install Linux because the computer´s shot to the point that reinstalling Windows doesn´t even seem to be working.

So until I figure out how to fix it or get a new netbook, my Internet access will be pretty limited.

Just thought I´d share.


In the meantime, in my new, computer-less life I´ve been pretty productive. My room is cleaner and more well organized than it´s been since I arrived, I made a scarf holder out of some yarn and an old paper towel holder, finished War of the Worlds, ironed and folded all of the clothes in my closet, polished my boots, went to the law library at one of the major universities in Madrid to study my Spanish grammar book for 4 hours, and went out for coffee with friends twice. I´ve also gone to the gym every weekday for the past 2 weeks, washed my dishes and my roommate´s dishes, painted and repainted my nails, watched some crappy programs like Room Raider, Parental Control, and Made on MTV, started a new book about the history of bullfighting, made lists of things to do without a computer and letters I should write, and slept for an average of 9-9.5 hrs every night.

We´ll see how the weekend goes...

Until next time.

Monday

Sarah in Spain

In Plaza Mayor in Madrid

My sister came to visit me in Madrid!

Here's the proof.





New Years Eve Party at Maria's House










Sarah in the Alcazaba in Sevilla










Me on top of the hill in Estepa (Andalucia)
























Thanks for a lovely visit, Sarah!

I feel nice. Like sugar and spice.

I'm listening to James Brown. Just finished making and eating a few snickerdoodles with a mug of cinnamon apple tea. They turned out a bit too crunchy (normal for our oven seeing as it's a piece of crap that burns the tops of things and leaves the centers uncooked) but good other than that.

My roommate, Emma, walked in as they were coming out. She tore a ligament in her knee after falling down yesterday and now has it wrapped up and immobilized in a type of half-cast. I made her try one, and after tasting it she said "I didn't realize how much I needed sugar until I had one!" and then proceeded to eat 4 more :) Nacho, a different roommate who's a good cook and therefore a bit judgmental about food. He had one and came back for seconds.

Thank goodness they ate some. I made enough for at least 8 people.

Which brings me to the title of the post. Snickerdoodles (aka sugar and spice and butter) make people feel good. And sharing snickerdoodles while eating them yourself makes you feel even better. I'm feeling great right now.

And to make things better, I came across this gem on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5HRzaOFhec


Enjoy.

This is a song that I sing when I'm scared of something...

Dragons... and why I like the metro

Three days ago I painted a picture of a dragon on an index card with a mix of instant coffee, old red wine, and charcoal, inspired by one among many video lectures I've been watching lately in a series of 10-20 minute talks sponsored by TED. (If you're interested, they can be seen here http://www.ted.com/talks) This particular one talked about video games, psychology, learning, and motivation. One of the games mentioned has the goal of teaming up with other players to kill dragons. I'm thinking about the role of games in "formal education" as well as in learning outside of a school building.

Then as I was leaving the metro on my way home from work, I passed by a man with a great sweater walking with his 3 or 4 year old grandson. Since I'm teaching elementary school this year, and more specifically 4, 5, and 6 year old kids, I find adults' conversations with children of that age more interesting than I ever have before.

The only part of the conversation I over heard was the grandfather saying, in a very driven tone of voice, the following:

Exacto. Es un dragon que podemos usar para....
(Translation: Exactly. It's a dragon that we can use to....)

And then I turned the corner up the stairs to exit, so I missed the end of it.

I've been thinking about it and coming up with possible endings all afternoon.

This is one reason that I like riding the metro to work. And dragons.

Dragon picture courtesy of Google images. This is NOT the painting I mentioned at the beginning of the post. My painting skills are not up to a feat like this. Yet. ;)

Adventures at home: Intuitive Sourbread Bread Making

Some people have pets to take care of and feed. Other people have children. I have a sourdough starter.

Although there are lots of types of bread that can be made with out one, some breads need a starter. Once it is active and healthy, a sourdough starter is a mix of natural yeast, water, and flour that has a consistency like pancake batter. I spend a few days during my first week in my apartment here in Madrid trying to activate a powder sourdough starter mix that my mom bought for me in Alaska by mixing it with water and flour and trying to keep it as warm as possible. In theory the mix would have started bubbling within a day or two. Mine barely bubbled, so I was worried it might be dead or unhealthy (or just inactive because our apartment was a bit cold, and while working during the day, it was hard to make sure the starter was warm enough while I was gone.)

Like a pet or a child, starters need to be fed. Once a week, I use about a cup of my starter and replenish/feed it with a cup of warm water and flour. After leaving it in a warm place for 3 hours, it now bubbles nicely. This feeding process keeps the yeast healthy and keeps the starter ready for whatever baking I might want to do in the following weeks.



BEFORE PICTURE: Risen dough. It's ALIVE....


To date, I have made 4 loaves of sourdough bread and one batch of sourdough pancakes. The first loaf was dark on the outside, less than cooked on the inside, and fairly ugly. After flipping it over and baking for twice the recommended time it was finally cooked but even uglier than before.

Since then, each loaf has turned out better than the previous one. Whether it's because I'm getting better at making dough, because the starter is more well-fed, because I'm figuring out the trick to working with my apartment's horrible oven, or just plain luck is unclear. (More about my oven in a post in a few days...)



AFTER PICTURE: Second loaf of sourdough bread. Before being devoured by Kim, Omar, and I with chicken and avocado. Followed by salsa dancing at Azucar near Atocha.




After the second loaf (seen above), I brought my sheet of sourdough recipes and some starter to brunch at a friend's house to make sourdough pancakes. I don't know what happened to it, but I haven't seen it since even though I'm sure I put it in my bag before leaving.

My latest attempt was 2 loaves at once. Small loaves since the last 2 were enormous. Since I couldn't find my recipe sheet and was too stubborn to look up a recipe online, I made the dough by what little I could remember and "intuition." A spoonful of sugar, a pinch of salt, some yeast, a bit of water, starter, and lots of flour. I added flour and kneaded until it "felt" right (not something I expected to do successfully since I had only made bread twice before in my life...)

They turned out wonderfully and were both gone within 2 days. My roommates helped.


Especially good warm with a spinach/herb cream cheese/onion spread that I mixed up as an experiment.

Yet another good adventure while at home alone.



Take home lesson: In baking, as in many things, using a combination of intuition, a sense of adventure, and experience often works out better than following the technical, no questions asked, step-by-step approach of someone else's recipe.