The weather is frightful, windy rainy and 75 degrees, the roads are puddles and the decks around the house are covered in a sheen of rainwater. This is very good as it puts more water into my cistern and keeps me away from reverting to the aqueduct's chlorinated, briny product, but its hell for a motorcyclist enjoying his first day off in four, long days of police dispatching. The Monday after a holiday weekend tends to be busy as revellers get back in the swing of complaining against their neighbors. Some occasionally have real emergencies.
I took a call from a woman giving birth to her first, premature, baby, which was a bit sweat inducing until I realised the contractions were far enough apart the new arrival would probably show up after the paramedics. Then a few hours later a child called explaining her mother had put her arm through a window and was spurting bright red blood across the room. Both calls required a fair bit of pre-arrival instructions as it took the ambulance a few minutes to get across town and take over. I had a trainee with me and I had been telling her we rarely give much in the way of pre-arrival instructions in Key West as the island's size means we rarely wait long for the responders to get on scene. Fate proved me a liar as I told the woman's daughter to apply pressure as her mother squealed loudly down the phone. The kid was great and prevented her mother from bleeding out. "There's so much blood.." I heard her mother moaning as the kid pressed the artery and kept her mother alive. Ah, life, so tenuous!
All this drama and then the carbon monoxide detector went off in a hotel where a guest was poisoned last year, putting me in mind of bread making, which gives one's nerves a much less stressful pounding. Bread gives off gas as the yeast cooks and later the loaf itself fills the house with that delicious waft when you open the oven. The perfect antidote to CO poisoning.
In the Ikea store in Fort Lauderdale a couple of weeks ago my wife and I bought a bag of ingredients to make two lingonberry loaves, a coveted Swedish delicacy I'm told. So, as my wife created a beer baked chicken masterpiece for Turkey day I turned my hand to making bread.
Its not a well known fact but I am something of a past master when it comes to home made bread. My wife and I sailed to Key West in the late 1990's from California and we made the trip eating bread that I baked the whole (grain) way. I discovered during all this pioneer-ish Central American baking that creating a loaf of bread is a very inexact science and homemade bread is a product that will struggle against all the odds to come to fruition. You can screw up the proportions really badly but some indefinable yet edible lump will appear from the oven despite your worst expectations. If disdaining proportions and precise quantities is your style you are a homemade bread maker, by instinct.
Its not a well known fact but I am something of a past master when it comes to home made bread. My wife and I sailed to Key West in the late 1990's from California and we made the trip eating bread that I baked the whole (grain) way. I discovered during all this pioneer-ish Central American baking that creating a loaf of bread is a very inexact science and homemade bread is a product that will struggle against all the odds to come to fruition. You can screw up the proportions really badly but some indefinable yet edible lump will appear from the oven despite your worst expectations. If disdaining proportions and precise quantities is your style you are a homemade bread maker, by instinct.The Swedes at Ikea made it fairly easy. Heat some water, add the yeast to the water, my first deviation from the printed instructions on the packet, and let the yeast limber up and start bubbling gently, creating a sweet, beery gas.
Then pour on the flour and mash it all up so the flour gets wet and the active yeast gets distributed through the mixture,
but don't mush it endlessly as it will resent too much handling. As will you.
Cover with a cloth and let it rise for 30 minutes or as long as you can stand.
Then pour on the flour and mash it all up so the flour gets wet and the active yeast gets distributed through the mixture, but don't mush it endlessly as it will resent too much handling. As will you.Cover with a cloth and let it rise for 30 minutes or as long as you can stand.After a while cover your hand, and arm as it happens, in flour and with a little extra flour (2 cups?) thrown in to absorb the extra moisture start kneading the dough,
which should be moist but not too sticky.Set in a couple of well oiled bread pans and let rise as long as you feel like. 
The more it rises the less solid will be the loaf if you kneaded it thoroughly, but not too much (go figure- it comes with practice). 
Bake for around 40 minutes (with a pan of stuffing for a side dish if you like) and stick a knife in it, when the blade comes out clean its ready to set out and cool for ten minutes before being dumped on the Thanksgiving table.Eat soon as it has no preservatives to keep it "fresh."
which should be moist but not too sticky.Set in a couple of well oiled bread pans and let rise as long as you feel like. The more it rises the less solid will be the loaf if you kneaded it thoroughly, but not too much (go figure- it comes with practice). Bake for around 40 minutes (with a pan of stuffing for a side dish if you like) and stick a knife in it, when the blade comes out clean its ready to set out and cool for ten minutes before being dumped on the Thanksgiving table.Eat soon as it has no preservatives to keep it "fresh."We buy commercial lite bread these days but I am not really sure why. I think this will have to change. Release all that stress into a big wet bowl of mush. Nothing better, I find. And it tastes pretty good too, even if it is Swedish.
