A Week (almost) with George

Husker's brother, George, spent 4 days, 5 nights with us, arriving Tuesday evening of last week, and leaving Sunday morning.  Husker really does love his brother, and the feeling is mutual.  They are remarkably close.  George made himself very useful during his visit, assisting with his sick bro, and doing small things around the house for me.  Such as change out the AC filter and fix a sticking gate.  Gotta love that.

George came from Omaha on his Harley.  Those things are bigger than you think and there was no space for it in the garage along with our two cars; so, we parked it in the atrium which is a covered and gated entry courtyard at the front of our house.  It made a perfect Harley garage.  I stupidly did not get a shot of the Harley in the space, but hopefully, you can use your imagination ... the space is 6'6" x 10'.  The Harley barely squeezed in! 


My knitting has been in the doldrums with lots of yarn and ideas to work on.  So many new yarns await!  I need to make baby caps for the local children's hospital, socks, Christmas gifts, etc.  But now I have gotten started with a new pair of socks, Catherine, a Gansey pattern of diamonds, by Kate Blackburn.  The yarn is Knit Picks' colorway, Lake Front.   My foot is narrow (AAA), but this pattern required too many stitches cast on, and reducing the CO was going to be a big charting adjustment.   Not in the mood to do that.  So someone is going to get these for Christmas.  Whom do I know that has a medium width foot?

Meanwhile, it rained for 4 days while George was here.  It started out with a drizzle and progressed to a steady gentle shower that came down more than it did not during the 4 days.  Three inches' worth at our house.  We are happy to have it, and grateful that it did not become a flood.  Sections of west Texas flooded such as Midland and Odessa, but you have to see that area to understand why it would flood.  It gets so little rain there that when it comes, there are no gullies and creeks big enough to handle it.  It is Flat with a capital "F".  Even the desert country of the Big Bend experienced some flooding, but they have mountains, and routes for the rains to follow to the Rio Grande.  Meanwhile, the water pours over mesas, into gullies, washes out roads, etc.  They won't see another drop for months.  My niece was in San Angelo, midway between north Texas and the Big Bend, and she said they had a "ton" of rain. 

The Field Lab's Olive Beer Bread

I have never purchased a can/bottle of beer in my life -- until today.  Do you have any idea how expensive it is?!  The price of wine is looking better, and that I should know about.  Mind you -- I have had a few sips of beer here and there -- not much because I don't really care for it.  So what brought about this turn of events . . .

I picked up on John Wells' adventure in sustainable living (aka "The Field Lab") in the Big Bend that first appeared in the New York Times, and was repeated the next day in some Texas newspapers, including our local paper.  Seems that John, a New Yorker, decided at mid-life that he was going to chuck it all to live off the grid in the middle of the far western desert of Texas.  The Big Bend is about equi-distant from Los Angeles and Dallas, so you can see that it is a long ways from anything, let alone New Yawk City.  Curious, I found his website, and was instantly entranced by his 3 year old experiment.  One of the things that quickly got my attention was his solar oven baking of beer bread.  I like to make bread occasionally, too, so I asked for his recipe, and he quickly obliged.

That meant that I must buy a 16 oz. can of Budweiser Chelada beer.  Did you know that you cannot buy just one beer?  I guess this means that I will make this bread 4 times:)  Or learn to like beer.  With clamato juice.   

I mixed the dry ingredients with the Kitchenaid Mixmaster, then added the chopped olives, and mixed it all together.  Finally, I began to pour in the beer, but should have stopped at about 3/4 of the can.  As a result, I had to throw in about a handful more of flour.  Much too wet for dough.  Finally, I put on the dough hook, and gave it a few spins.  Still too wet.  Poured it all out onto the pastry board and added another handful of flour.  I was finally able to handle it a bit although it was still very wet and sticky, but it was definitely too much for one bread pan, but not enough dough for a  2nd  bread pan, so I put the remainder into a bread pot.  For those who are unfamiliar with bread pots, these are for small loaves of bread, but a standard clay garden pot can be used.  Mine is a cute little bread pot that I found many years ago in my wanderings. 

John's recipe makes 1 standard loaf.  (I think I ended up with too much because I dumped all the beer into the batch without gauging the wetness of the dough.)  John cautioned me that his solar oven worked at 275 degrees and took 3 hours to bake.  I experimented at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  The results are very slightly underdone, so next I will try cooking it longer.  The house smells great, and the bread tastes delicious.  Thank you, John!


I have included a pix of the bread pot next to the beer can in order to give you a sense of the pot's diminutive size.  


By the way, John, are we supposed to drink the rest of the beer with the bread?