Remember Podcasts In The Kitchen?

Recently I read an article on the popularity of podcasts. It reminded me that I listened to them back, it appears, in 2016. I listened to podcasts while I was binge cooking on weekends. I eventually got tired of them.

• I wasn't interested in just sitting and listening to a podcast, and it was difficult to concentrate on them while doing something else. For instance, baking for three hours.
• I also found a lot of them back then more interesting in concept than in execution. 
• Hosts often thought they could say anything and it would be entertaining. They were wrong.

Dipping into the archives, I found 10 podcast and cooking posts over a year period from November 1, 2015 through October 16, 2016. As part of my 20th anniversary observance, I'm rerunning one that pretty much expresses what happened for me with podcasts. It discusses a podcast I liked and that still exists. (Not all the podcasts I listened to back then do. Hmm. Do they come and go like blogs?) 

At the end of the post, you'll see a reference to a blog called Beth Fish Reads and a round-up of cooking posts from other bloggers she did called Weekend Cooking. Beth Fish Reads still exists, focusing on food-related books and cooking. The Weekend Cooking round-up is now hosted at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader. The Children's War, which I also mention at the end of this post, also still exists.  

Today is Saturday. I do have some cooking to do. I'll try listening to The Memory Palace to see how that goes these days.

Sunday, May 22, 2016 Another Cooking Binge, Another Podcast: "The Memory Palace"

Podcasts Losing Their Attraction For Me

Last week I was just about ready to throw in the towel with podcasts. I'd been interested in listening to them while working in the kitchen as a way to take in work-related material while doing an unnecessary creative act. I did pick up some good information, particularly on content marketing, but I was trying and discarding a lot of podcasts. Things I liked the first time I listened to them got old fast when I tried them again. When pods involved more than one personality, the ratio of chitchat to important content was often pretty high. I guess you can tell you're an introvert when you can't even take listening to others having a good time.

Big Cooking Binge

But I really like something going on sound-wise when I'm working in the house. Music is a definite option. Nonetheless, last weekend, I was embarking on a big cooking binge and thought I'd take another quick look on-line. Somehow, I stumbled upon The Memory Palace.

All About The Story

The Memory Palace's creator, Nate DiMeo, describes his podcast as "a storytelling podcast and public radio segment about the past." He takes isolated historical events and creates a written narrative about them. If you go back to the early days of the podcast, the story is often just an account of something that happened. But eventually his pieces began to include something on the event's significance. For instance, in his story about nineteenth century singer Jenny Lind, he talks about a major difference between her time and ours. In her day, before sound could be recorded, before recording sound was even thought of, you could only hear music during a performance. In many cases, you would never have another opportunity to hear a singer. Did people even give that a thought? Or was it just a normal part of life?

The significance part of these stories is important. History isn't just a list of facts. It means something. And in terms of The Memory Palace being a storytelling podcast, meaning is huge. Many times without including an understanding of a real event, all a storyteller/writer is doing is passing on a list of things that happened. What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? brings a piece of writing to another level.

Another thing that's neat about these podcasts is they're short. So far, I don't think I've listened to one that's more than fifteen minutes. DiMeo is "interested in keeping things small because I was interested in the smallness of those things" (the historical "moments" he finds) "and the way they added up to a larger picture."

These short podcasts are like flash nonfiction. They are intense and complete. They give listeners an opportunity to see how someone finds meaning in an event in  a quick, concise way. They have the potential, I think, to become a painless model for looking for and finding stories.

Hope I still like them in a few weeks.

I heard about Weekend Cooking through blogging buddy Alex Waugh of The Children's War.  I most definitely cook on the weekend, and it is often somehow connected to writing or reading, as is most things in my life. So this weekend I am taking my first shot at joining the weekend cook/book people at Beth Fish Reads.

More Of This Year's Essay Reading

This year I've done a couple of posts on books of essays and other short form writing that I've been reading in support of my 2019 goal to work on short-form writing. (If you are one of my Twitter-followers, you've noticed that I've been posting links to other short-form reading I've been doing nearly every day. You have noticed, right? What am I thinking? Of course, you have.)

Well, today I'm going to do another one of those posts. I chose to read Shauna Niequist's Bread & Wine, A Love Letter To Life Around The Table, With Recipes, because it was a Kindle sale book sometime this past year, it was a book of essays, and it was a book of essays about food. I am interested in trying my hand at writing some essays about eating. Not food writing, which is a totally different thing. I'd have to know more about food than I do and eat better than I do to write about food. I want to write about eating, for reasons I will spare you now.

In Bread & Wine, Neiquist does what I'm interested in doing. She writes about eating, but in relation to something else. In her case, we're talking eating in relation to connecting with others and spirituality/faith. She would probably be described as a Christian writer rather than a food writer (she has written other books that appear to have nothing to do with recipes), and Bread & Wine was published by Zondervan, a Christian publisher. If you enjoy reading about someone living their Christian faith, you'll enjoy this book. If you'd really rather read about food, you'll enjoy this book. Because Neiquist comes across as one of your seriously Christian friends who prays for you but doesn't try to convert you. I will be very surprised if you don't have at least one of those.

What kind of freaked this introvert out about Bread & Wine was not the religious aspects of the book but the number of friends Neiquist has. And how often she gets together to eat with them. And she often gets together to eat with large numbers of them, at once. For a large part of the book, I felt as if there was something wrong with me, because I don't live like that. But by the end, I'd turned around and was thinking, "What is wrong with these people? Don't they ever stay home? How about dinner in front of the TV once in a while folks?" And then I felt better.

The book was definitely a good choice for my purposes.

Gail And Bread

It's been a long time since I've included any cooking pictures in a blog post, but this one involves a book called Bread & Wine, and I used to be a serious bread baker, so I think a photo is appropriate. I've been off gluten for a year and a half now, which has tossed a wrench into my bread baking, though I do have one gluten-free bread machine recipe I make a couple of times a month. Also I am surrounded by wheat-eating philistines who prefer brown-and-serve rolls to bread made in the kitchen. You see why I'm interested in writing about eating? About eating bread, anyway.

So, at Thanksgiving I tried a peanut butter twist recipe. Did not go over well. As one person said, "It's essentially a peanut butter sandwich. Why go to all this work for a peanut butter sandwich?" Yeah? Well, next year they can eat peanut butter on their brown-and-serve rolls!

I put half a pan of these twists out on a rock for the sweet little woodland creatures. The next day a flock of crows came for them. They also took most of the artisan bread I made for Christmas. My giving up gluten is the best thing that ever happened to the local crows.

The Tuscan toast triangles you see to the right of the twists turned out better, by which I mean someone will eat them, though not me. (I do gluten free Tuscan toast.) 

I'm also taking part in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads today. Haven't done that in a long time, either.

Mmm. Writing about eating. This feels good.

Combining Two of The Best Things About Life, Bread And Books

I made my first loaf of bread when I was a teenager. Bread baking was not something I learned at my mother's knee. She didn't make bread. None of my relatives made bread. I didn't know anyone who made bread. This was just before making bread became a thing. You couldn't walk into a library back then and pick up something like "The Big Book of Baking Bread." I must have just found a recipe in my mother's one cookbook. I think she only had a bread pan because she used it to make meatloaf that I wasn't fond of.

I have no idea what I was thinking. Why did I make my first quilt back then, too? I don't know. My guess is that I read about baking bread and making quilts in books. Novels.

I have baked a lot of bread over the years. In college I worked summers in a kitchen, for the baker. Later, I baked elaborate tree-shaped and teddy bear-shaped bears at Christmas time. The braided bread with with hard boiled eggs at Easter. Cinnamon rolls. Sticky buns. Lots of those. I made stuffed sandwiches of various kinds. Yes, stromboli. I worked out how to let bread rise overnight so I didn't have to do the kneading and some of the rising the day I wanted to serve the bread to guests. (I didn't want to bake the day before, because, you know, day-old bread.) I've done Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I have a stone for baking. I have  peels for getting bread into and out of the oven. I'm on my third bread machine. I have a baguette pan.

Which brings me to my point.

Baguettes And Books

I was walking through my local grocery store last spring and passed the book section where some children's books were prominently displayed. What do I see, but Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems? I see that it's a beautiful book. It's shockingly cheap. And it's about bread!

Well, right away, I mean in...stan...taneously, I knew I could do things with that book.

As it turns out, Nanette's Baguette is a terrific story about a trip to a bakery to buy a baguette and the tempting splendors of this marvelous bread. It's a really fun read, particularly if, while reading it, you're eating baguettes. And you have a guest to eat them with.

With the help of that bread machine I mentioned earlier (and my baguette pan) I made baguettes the morning I was expecting company for dinner.

The baguettes were a big hit with my visitor, as was Nanette's Baguette. So much so that I froze the leftover bread, brought out it out the next time he came, and, since the book was still in the dining room, he ate bread, and we read again. (Frozen, reheated baguette is a little limp. Still.)

Love baguettes. Love Nanette.

Today I'm taking part in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.

A Rare Weekend Cooking Post

I binge cooked yesterday afternoon, as you can see. I used to listen to writing and literary podcasts while I was binge cooking, then I'd post about the whole experience here. You haven't heard from me recently about that because I burned out on podcasts around a year ago. Plus I'm trying to be all mindful and focused and the multi-tasking with podcasts and cooking is all anti-mindfulness.

So why am I telling you about my cooking experience yesterday? Because while I was working away, doing one cooking task after another with just music on in the background, I thought, Hey, Megan in the YA Thriller Project could cook. And that was exciting.

Though, then I started thinking, she's the only girl in that situation. How can I have her cook without being stereotypically female? Should I have someone else cook?

These characters have to eat. Someone ought to cook. On the other hand, everything a character in a work of fiction does should be for a reason. It should show character or be necessary for the plot. It should do something. So if I'm going to have someone cook in this thing, I've got to come up with a compelling reason why s/he should.

I've created a Pinterest board about how this character dresses, in order to help me visualize her. Perhaps I should do another about what she cooks.

And How Are You Coming With Your NaNoWriMo Prep?

This has something to do with writing

For many years, my family took part in a forestry management program conducted by the state of Connecticut. Every fall, we would cut and remove two to four cords of wood in a designated state forest area. We had four weeks to do this, which, for us, meant four weekends. It was a little intense. To prepare for the festivities, the week before we got started I'd make a big pot of spaghetti sauce for us to eat over the days we were working. Because in my family, that's the way we roll. We want to make sure we're going to be able to eat. 

Bread, cookie dough, and pear cobbler

This year, getting ready for National Novel Writing Month was no different.

 

 

 

 

What I've Been Doing These Last Few Weekends

Yes, I've been working on developing chapter blueprints, so that when I sit down to write next month I will, presumably, be able to write fast because I'll know what I'm going to write. But on weekends I've been loading the freezers with an array of things, just as I used to load them with spaghetti sauce for woodcutting.

Pasta bake and vegetable beef soup

It wasn't something I planned to do. At some point, maybe when I made those three loaves of honey wheat bread you see above, I realized I was doing it and ran with it.

It's not as if you didn't know I get a bit obsessive about cooking on weekends. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I'm Going To Argue That This Isn't A Bad Idea

 

Carrot soup, tortellini soup

Look, that wood cutting experience I told you about was the perfect training for National Novel Writing Month. It was a lot of work that had to be done in a limited amount of time. And we didn't even have the full amount of time to do it, since we were limited to working weekends. It was a ridiculous amount of work to be doing with that restriction. What if it rained, you ask? We went out in the rain! What if someone got sick? No one dared!

More cookie dough, pear crisp, more soup

The main thing I learned from cutting wood in that way is that if you're going to work like that, that's all you can do. You have to do everything else some other time.

Yes, NaNoWriMo Is Like Cutting Wood

Frozen biscuit dough...for the soup

I'm doing NaNoWriMo very much like I cut wood in that I don't have the full amount of time to work. I'll be off on family business at least two week days most weeks. I'll be off to a NESCBWI program one Saturday and to visit family another. I expect guests from two different states over Thanksgiving weekend. If I'm going to work like that, I have to try to make sure that that's all I do, just as cutting wood was all I did when I actually did it.

And that, my lads and lasses, is my excuse for having gone off the rails cooking these last few weeks.

Today I'm taking part in the Weekend Cooking Meme at Beth Fish Reads.

 

Your Next Baby Shower, Planned

Last week I started a two-part food post on a picture book-themed baby shower. Here's Part Two, pictures of food, food, food.

No, this wasn't my idea.

First I must admit that all the lovely food arrangements you see here had nothing to do with me. I brought my dish and a couple of others that were on the list, so I could make a show of pulling my weight. But the other hostesses did all the Food Network/HGTV-type stuff. Seriously, I am not being modest  here. When I gave a baby shower, myself, five years ago, I did it at a restaurant and asked the mother's sister to co-host it so she could do the decorating. So you can be assured that I did not provide the layout for the appetizer table you see to your right.

Not my idea, either.

I did, however, offer to do the vegetable platter that went along with the Peter Rabbit book that is on the left of the App Table. (The other two items are a Very Hungry Caterpillar fruit plate and a Stinky Cheese Man plate.) My computer guy came up with the idea to make the platter look like Mr. MacGregor's garden by laying the vegetables out in rows and making stakes with the veg names. He came up with lining the whole thing with waffle pretzels to look like a fence, too. I did do the actual work, though. There's that.

Blue lemonade

Then, of course, we had the ever popular Make Way for Ducklings blue lemonade set up outside, too. This was really clever. On the other side of the deck was the wine station, which I didn't take a picture of because I don't think there's a picture book about wine.

Pasta something

Back inside, the first item in the buffet layout was the Strega Nona...ah...I'm not sure what that was, because I haven't read Strega Nona. A pasta salad? Is Strega Nona about pasta salad?

Chicken salad

It was followed by a Count Your Chickens chicken salad.

Seafood and turkey sandwiches

And then a couple of sandwiches, one seafood one some kind of chicken. No, I don't know what books they were connected to.

Green eggs, no ham

The quiche was inspired by Green Eggs and Ham. This was another item I volunteered to make a week before the shower, because I was feeling guilty about doing so little. Not many guests were interested in meat, so I was asked to lean on the green part. I just threw the better part of a bag of fresh spinach into my usual quiche recipe. Except I accidentally bought a bag of fresh spinach with some other green. It didn't make any difference as far as the taste was concerned, but it certainly made the green eggs green.

Spaghetti sliders! Also, pesto sliders.

Then we came to my sliders. They had a spot to themselves right above the oven because they were hot. Yeah. Hot.

There was a bowl of goldfish crackers (One Fish, Two Fish) on the other side of the room, but I missed getting a picture of that.

Once again, not my idea.

Which, of course, leads us to the dessert table. The centerpiece was a cake with a book opened on top (because, remember, this was a picture book party). Additionally, there was a plate of blueberry squares (Blueberries and Sal) and...

Very good cookies, by the way.

...some lovely Goodnight Moon cookies. Not sure who made those.

That IS a Star Trek kids' book.

To work the picture book theme just a little further, guests were asked to bring a picture book for the new child's personal library. A bucket of books is as attractive as any dish.

Today I am taking part again in Beth Fish Read's Weekend Cooking Meme.

I'm Baaaaack. With Food. And "Company's Coming."

Today is Sunday, a day when I sometimes blog about food, and since I was saying when I left for what I'm calling family leave that this summer I was going to help give a baby shower, one with a children's book theme, I'm going to begin my return to blogging with that.

Now, if you go to Pinterest, you'll find that children's book themed baby showers are a thing. You frequently see some of the same books mentioned over and over again, and the other hosts of our shower, who were more on top of things than I was, picked up four or five of them right away. This left me going, What shall I do? What shall I do?

I have no recollection of how I came up with this idea, but to cut to the chase, I decided to cook something related to Company's Coming by Arthur Yorinks with illustrations by David Small.  I don't think you're going to find this one on any of the Pinterest baby shower boards or in a board book edition for baby readers. But I love this book, it had a big impact on my life, and spaghetti and meat balls figure in its story.

This almost alien invasion story most definitely deserves to be a baby shower staple.

Spaghetti Sliders Are A Thing, Too

So we're talking spaghetti and meatballs at a shower that was not planned as a sit down affair with a plate on a table. Meaning a thoughtful host shouldn't be forcing a messy meal choice upon her guests. How could I make spaghetti and meatballs into finger food? You know, like a sandwich?

Well, somehow I got from spaghetti sandwich to spaghetti sliders.

Feasibility study.

My computer guy had some serious doubts about this project and suggested I check out its feasibility. So the first step was the feasibility sliders, which I think I took to someone's house for some event, though I can't remember those. It turned out, spaghetti sliders are, indeed, feasible.

You, Too, Can Make "Company's Coming" Sliders

Spaghetti sauce, in case you can't tell.

When shower time came around, I began the sliders by making sauce. Instead of meatballs,  I used ground beef. Though Company's Coming describes meatballs, I didn't think they'd fit on a slider roll with spaghetti.

I didn't use slider rolls, either. Even if I could have found them, I thought I'd go nuts filling mini rolls. I used hot dog rolls instead and then cut them into sliders after they were filled.

I broke the spaghetti up into small pieces before cooking it, because the feasibility batch of sliders taught me that I didn't want enormous strands of sauce covered spaghetti dangling out of little rolls. Then I mixed it with some sauce before making the sliders.

Start big, then go small.

I scooped some bread out of the rolls to make a hollow for the spaghetti. I also brushed the rolls with some margarine and Italian seasoning, though garlic butter would be an option, too. Then I filled the rolls, put them together, and cut them into thirds, so they looked slider-like.

Finale.

I buttered the tops with some more seasoned butter, covered the baking dish, and brought it to the shower site where I heated it  just before serving. No, I don't know what I set the oven temp for or how long I kept the dish in the oven. But, come on, this isn't brain surgery. Heat the sliders at some temperature or another until they're hot enough to suit you.

Next Sunday: All the children's book shower food.


For the first time in nearly a year, I'm taking part in Beth Fish Read's Weekend Cooking meme.

Cooking Isn't That Different From Writing

No cooking today. I didn't even make meals, living off leftovers from take-out and Friday night's trip to a restaurant. After serious cooking the last two weekends and then taking part of Friday off to prep for a family event yesterday, I was finally able to get my couple of hours of sitting on the couch and reading. I didn't get nearly enough done, but that's life, right?

Unnecessary Creativity

I started writing about my cooking here because I consider it unnecessary creativity. "...creative acts--making something, anything, that didn't exist  before--that are unrelated to an individual's work. "...something about engaging in the creative act on our own terms seems to unleash latent passions and insights." In other words, creativity spurs creativity."

Sure enough, last weekend I had a creative thought over a pot of spinach soup.

Like A Rough Draft

Pre-pureed spinach soup

Okay, so I was interested in trying spinach soup. Why? I like soup, like to eat it several times a week, particularly pureed soups. I was getting tired of carrot and squash and heard about spinach soup somewhere. You know, like when you've been writing in the same style for a long time and you want to mess with structure?

So I found this recipe that called for zucchini as well as spinach. Well, I like zucchini. The recipe didn't call for very much stock, but I've been making soup regularly for a few years now, so I thought I could add more. And where was the thickener? I'm an experienced soup maker. I threw in a quarter of a cup of rice.

Post-pureed serviceable spinach soup

Pre-puree the soup wasn't anything I wanted to show to anybody. Post-puree, it was...serviceable. It was a serviceable soup, like a serviceable piece of writing. I could think about the soup for a while. In fact, I froze it in batches so I can keep trying it and thinking about it for quite a while, the way you should think about a rough draft for quite a while. I have rough drafts I've been thinking about for years.

Also, I've lost the recipe I used. And even if I had it, I made a lot of changes that I don't fully recall. Talk about a work-in-progress.

Finding Treasures In Your Filing Cabinet

Well, it's cookie dough, anyway

I make a big effort to keep my drafts organized and labeled so I can quickly put my hand on them. Should I want to. But, it never fails. Something always slips through the cracks. Like the container of cookie dough I found in one of the freezers last weekend. (I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that I have two. The one in the garage is like a tank. You can't do anything to stop it.) I thought it was cookie dough, but what kind? It was in the freezer because at the time I started it, I couldn't finish. Now I could do something with it. But what was it?

I was able to turn it into something

It was mint chocolate chip! And, yes, I was able to finish the job.

Baking...Writing...Baking...Writing

Like outlining for later writing time

After a little research, I came up with something fantastic this weekend. Turns out, you can freeze raw scones and then bake them the day you need them so they'll be fresh! This is major. And even more major? I found a recipe for yeast rolls that could be made and shaped the day before and then baked when you need them. I had recipes to do this with sweet rolls, but I wanted savory ones. If you have to bake yeast bread the day before you need it, you are serving day-old bread, my friends.

Okay, okay. I was experimenting for a family event. A birthday brunch. For an eighty-nine-year-old. But I'm used to experimenting. All writing is experimenting. Right? I mean, unless you do the same thing all the time. Experimenting is what I do.

I just write and cook and write and cook.

Another weekend, another Weekend Cooking post.                                         

History In The Kitchen

After last Sunday's kitchen work, I didn't think I'd be doing any cooking this weekend. I was looking forward to cleaning my office desk, because I've been working in the sun room this past summer and have been using the desk as a dump spot. Also, there were a few personal things I was hoping to do, stretching out on the couch and reading being right at the top. But my sister and I are running a birthday brunch next Saturday for our elder, and I needed to get started on some baking for that. And, hard though it is to believe, I still needed to stock up on soup. Soup is a thing here.

Saturday's Soup Making Podcast (I Got Started Late In The Day)

On the Media: How The "Fake News" Gets Made This was a discussion with representatives of some of the cable humor news shows. (I'm a fan of Samantha Bee, myself. Kind of lovin' the rage.) I can't say I got a lot out of it, until some guy said that they couldn't just write jokes. That's how I feel about all humor. Yes, this probably has something to do with my 12th grade English teacher dissing Bob Hope for just standing on a stage telling jokes.

Sunday's Cake, Cupcake, Bread, and Cookie Baking Podcasts

Backstory: Untrammeled: Americans and the Wilderness. This was terrific. You could say that it's a history of American beliefs about wilderness. And there are some real eye openers here.

My Favorite Murder: Sidebar Nation.  I found My Favorite Murder on a list of humor podcasts. I chose it because of what someone had said on the On the Media podcast I listened to on Saturday. You can't just write jokes. I wanted to listen to humor about something. It ended up being one of those podcasts where the hosts laugh and laugh, so listeners think something really funny must be going on. It was an hour and sixteen minute podcast, and they didn't get to the first murder until around the 40 minute point. And then things weren't all that funny. The hosts sounded shocked, which seemed odd because they run a podcast on murders. Wouldn't they have heard a lot of this kind of thing before? If they just read newspapers and on-line news sites, they would have heard similar things.

You're probably thinking, Gail, why did you think a subject like murder had any potential for humor, anyway? Hey, I roomed with nursing students for a semester when I was in college. I raised my kids next door to a NICU nurse. My sister is a nurse who's been around. These are women deep into dark, dark humor. Now, those are some people who could have done a funny murder podcast.

So What Are You Going To Do Next Weekend, Gail?

Well, after spending Saturday celebrating three birthdays, I'm hoping that on Sunday I'll finally get to the couch with some reading. But if I'm cooking, I expect I'll be doing it with some history podcasts.

If I'm able to crash on the couch reading next Sunday, I hope to visit some of the participant blogs in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.

You can check out my other weekend cooking and podcast posts at my Podcast in the Kitchen Pinterest board.

Hit Some Fine Podcasts While Cooking Today

When last we discussed the issue of my need to listen to something while cooking, things were not going well. The sci-fi and horror podcasts I'd found were not grabbing me. I definitely couldn't take any more writing process podcasts or writer interviews.

Well, today I needed to do some restocking in the kitchen after having been away from home for nearly three weeks. It got a little bingie, because I made two types of bread without a bread machine, since I lent mine to a family member before I went on vacation. And, by the way, I've still got what it takes to do 8 minutes of kneading...twice. Booyah!

On top of that, I hit the old motherlode with podcasts. These were actually from two podcast series I subscribe to. I just hadn't listened to them in a while.

The first two episodes came from Eric's Guide to Ancient Egypt. I was interested because I'm revising what I refer to as the mummy book. The material I listened to was terrific. 

• The Birth of Egyptology. I assumed this would deal with nineteenth Egyptology. It did, and more. A nineteenth century Egyptologist plays a part in my book.
• Women in Ancient Egypt. Yup. An ancient Egyptian woman figures into my book.

There are a number of other episodes I want to listen to because they relate to my book. I don't know how I missed them. I think I recently downloaded a bunch of new episodes, and the goodies were in there.

In addition to two batches of bread, you can see from the picture above that I also made a cake, some potato stuffing (meh), and began a batch of Amish chicken pot pie. That's in the white kettle, because Amish chicken pot pie has nothing to do with pie. All that took a while, so I went on to:

• Backstory. Contested Landscape-Confederate Symbols in America. In the early part of this podcast, a historian from the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia spoke. I was there last month. Monument Avenue in Richmond was also discussed. I was there, too. 

I'm feeling a lot better about podcasts right now. And I'm set for bread for a while.









I'm taking part in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. You can also take a look at all my Podcasts in the Kitchen posts through my Pinterest board.