Today Day 9: Strangeness of a Day Off

The rains are back last night, and it is drying out in the day. I heard it was raining all night; I had to prove hydration twice last night. The fear that I had kidney issues is gone, and I can tell you they work; they work too well. It is my day off, and of course, being the fierce corporate warrior I am, I joined a staff meeting anyway. My first day off since 27Nov. I do the quick meeting and then close my Nike laptop, and I do not plan to open it soon.

My sister got her new computer; her old one was failing (I used less friendly language and deleted that). I ordered a cheap but nice Windows laptop on Amazon for her. We split the cost as it is Christmas. She seems to like it.

The two flag poles I ordered were delivered. The boxes are huge, and each pole is boxed in its own box (?!). I try to keep one extra, and I need to replace the pole on the house as the existing one has issues and pieces missing.

I wrote the blog for Thursday already, so I spent the morning surfing the Internet and not getting much done. I do the dishes. I make two poached eggs as I am also starting to bake. I make a tangzhong (flour cooked in milk) while letting my eggs cook. I also watch John Wick 2, the one set partially in Rome. I add the hot tangzhong to my mixer bowl and then add the milk, flour, sugar, salt, yeast, and room-temperature butter with the dough hook. The mix becomes a stiff blob that you have to push down so that the hook on my hulking KitchenAid will do the kneading. It looks good after a while. I get another bowl, grease it, and put the dough in it. I wash my KitchenAid bowl and hook.

I don’t get dressed and eat my late breakfast/lunch of poached eggs on toast with the last of the liberal coffee I made in the French Press this morning. I wait for the laundry, which I started, and the dough to proof. I then go off the recipe and use the King Cake filling of fruit cake filling and pecans for this instead of the cinnamon roll filling. The house fills with the pleasant Fiori di Sicilia odor. I roll out the proofed dough and sprinkle the now aromatic dried fruit and pecans on the rectangle I rolled out on my dough working mat, lightly prepared with flour. I then roll up the dough into a log and then use dental floss, which I keep in the kitchen for this use, to cut the slices. I place them on a half sheet of parchment paper (greased). Once all cut. I put dried cherries and almonds on them and let them rise for ninety minutes. A light load of laundry is also done at this time. With all this done, I shower, likely removing flour and the hint of Fiori di Sicilia. Dressed and ready, I finished the movie and found a new Batman animated movie (well, it is from 1993), and it has Mark Hamill’s amazing Joker in it: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Excellent.

I baked the rolls and had to put them in for an extra five minutes. I like them a little more brown than the recipe writers. They looked great. I decided to frost them with the cinnamon roll icing, but I made less and made it thinner. I brushed it on to lock on the fruit and almonds. I tried one, and it was excellent–not the overwhelming sugar of the usual, but a fruit and pecan flavor. The fluffy dough was wonderfully soft. I loved them. I only had two.

I packed up three rolls on plates, found the cookie containers I had saved from Leta for years, and put rolls in them. I put a card on one, walked it over, and left it for my neighbors. I also did the same for Dondrea, Z, and their family. I drove across Beaverton and delivered it. They, too, were not home.

Air Volvo took me halfway back, stopped at Cedar Hills McMenamin’s, and I then sat at the bar after de-Volvo-ing. I had a beer and Captain Neon Burger (bacon and blue cheese) while writing the blog.

That takes me to the current. Hope you are having a lovely holiday with scents like Fiori di Sicilia and cooking tricks like tangzhong. Saturday, I have to deliver some gifts for the Dungeons and Dragons folks. I have the last Heifer Project items to acquire.

Thanks for reading!