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As you can see, it's been a good long while since I've written anything here.
Somewhat unexpectedly, I've found myself in the middle of a semester with a
rather huge workload, despite taking only "three" classes. I was shocked to
find today that we're entering our sixth week of class. I remain mostly on top
of things, a commitment I made to myself. This semester, at least, I'm trying
to keep religiously current with my work, and actually get some sleep.
I'm up too late for that last to be truly possible, but I'm getting six
hours of sleep a night fairly reliably, and finding that I need it. Gone are the
days of my freshman and sophomore years when I could get two or three hours of
sleep each night, a bit more on weekends, and still be up and kicking in the
morning. Maybe I wasn't really up and kicking.
I am perhaps unduly proud of the fact that I've made time for life amid all
this work I'm doing. Death and computers are really the topics of my work this
semester: Natural Language Processing and Developmental Robotics fill in the
second category, and the first is filled by my New Testament class (yay Jesus)
and Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, which I'm analyzing for my senior
comprehensive exams in music. Life, though, fills the rest of my time. A basil
plant sits in my window, and though it's clinging tenuously to life, it hasn't
died yet. We've had long talks, my basil and I, and I think I may have convinced
it that I value its presence far too much for it to die.
And then there's the sourdough. It seems that I make a culinary discovery
each semester. Last semester was homemade pasta; the one before that was latkes
and other things one does with potatoes; before that came soups and rice. This
semester is sourdough bread.
I made it for the first time, you see. There's something appealing to my
unnecessarily frugal ingredient budget about bread for which I never have to
buy yeast. So I made some honey starter, let it ferment in my room for a week,
and have made bread at least once or twice a week since getting here. It was
especially strange at first--I'd never made sourdough starter before, and I
didn't realize that it becomes quite alcoholic. I arrived back at the dorm one
night, and smelled something, and thought that some hallmate of mine was getting
really intoxicated. Imagine my surprise when I opened my door and found that
I was the source!
Starter is finicky and picky about things, and it doesn't tolerate distress
too well. It's definitely the diva of the kitchen. Gotta keep it warm and well
fed, rather like the cat I've been missing. Lately I've been using my
microwaveable hot pack to keep the starter warm in its jar while it has a
tasty homemade meal of flour and water.
I never used to like sourdough bread--it was always too tangy, too strong,
too... something. I never realized that what I was calling sourdough bread was
the kind that comes in a plastic bag, that has lots of additives to make it
mouth-puckeringly sour, that has no crust to speak of and a crumb that would
make you cry.... I hadn't had the real thing. Real sourdough isn't necessarily
a terribly sour concoction, though it has a characteristic tang that's quite
nice and refreshing.
Sourdough is maddening at times. It will not rise on schedule, nor will
it play according to the rules you think it should follow. The analogy with the
cat feels especially apt, somehow. Like the cat, the results are never quite
what you expect them to be, and are worth it. Sourdough cannot be compelled,
though warmth speaks strongly in your favor.
And so today, I kneaded bread on the countertop downstairs (it's just the
right height for me!) and communed with it. I reworked my kneading technique
a while ago, and it works much better now. The bread and I played together for
a time, and then it was back into the bowl for another rise....
And the work and the stress and the backache seemed rather less important
in the face of it. I'll find out about the Watson Fellowship in less than a
month; research papers are due the same day; the Magic Flute will follow, three
days later; and a concert of Scottish music isn't far down the line from there.
I think, however, that I'll still be making bread. It does the spirit good.
Never underestimate the positive effects of living things on one's outlook.
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