Rewilding the Landscape

 

This video presents the British project by Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex to change the type of agriculture from one driven by farmers using fences, fertilizers and current agricultural practices into one that allows the land to revert naturally to a wild state, having mixed livestock, cattle, horses, pigs and deer cohabiting and roaming the entire property, with open access to forests, streams and grassland. 

It seems a very brave thing to do, given how farmers live with so little profit from their land. I'm sure there are differing opinions about the project and downsides to it not mentioned in the video but I still wonder if this could be a model for future sustainable agriculture and the recovering of our beautiful planet from over- and mismanagement by humans.

If you are as enthusiastic about this project as I am, you might want to watch other videos here: Knepp Rewilding Project.

To Parents:

I saw this on Twitter last week and thought it was a good thing to be reminded of.

The Anthropocene

April 22. Earth Day. More important than ever. Our perception of how to save the earth will, as time marches forward, be seen through the global pandemic lens. Is it possible that the inconvenience of this pandemic might be the environmental reset that our planet so badly needed? Will it help?

For now, here's a video well worth watching: How to Save Our Planet.

Some Isolation Humour

People around the world are managing to keep their and other's spirits up with creative humorous ideas. Here are a few. 

A couple weeks ago the Getty Museum in LA put forth a challenge to recreate famous works of art and share them. Here are some examples. Many many more (dare I say, hundreds? they're flowing in!) wonderful recreations can be found @getty on Twitter.

Honestly, there are so many of them I'm having trouble reining myself in. Also, check out this website. Enjoy!!

I made the photo of the bookshelf below X-Large in hopes that you'll be able to see it properly and get the joke. 😂

Did you get it? Here we need to attribute the creator, Phil Shaw, a UK printmaker whose work above has been widely shared on social media. Shaw has a website and states: 

I've always been fascinated by the possibility of creating the impossible. In life we all know deep down that magic just ain't possible but at the same time we all wish that just once something magical might happen. Just beyond the surface of a picture, the membrane that separates reality from fiction, we are able to experience the impossible. My world, the world beyond the picture plain, abound with strange coincidences, contradictions and paradoxes; it's where I live. 

My world is a place where humour is a serious matter, and its purpose is not simply to raise a laugh but to call attention to the puzzling absurdities and the dangerous myths that permeate all our lives.

Yes, his work is photo-shopped and he makes prints of the works to sell.

Finally, a non-coronavirus joke:

Keep Smiling!!

Isolation Strategy

Here's a message from the Ohio government about the effectiveness of physical distancing. 

Finally,

Dona Nobis Pacem

Happy Easter! For some breathtakingly exquisite choral music, listen to this. If you're reading this in your email, click on Barber: Agnus Dei. Note: audio only. 

There's lots more music on the VOCES8 YouTube Channel.

Bagels

Martin's Bagels

Last week I made bagels. 

There seems to be an upsurge of home baking during this pandemic, especially at our house.  

(Have I shown you the Cherry Cream Cheese Danish Braid I made a couple of weeks ago?)

Who hasn't noticed the huge number of videos on Facebook and Instagram of people showing how to make any number of wonderful things, right in our own kitchens. And who hasn't noticed the empty grocery store shelves - never mind toilet paper, there's no flour, not much sugar and no yeast - as well as all the people complaining about the lack of baking supplies on social media.

As long as I'm not trying to cook for a crowd, with a deadline, I find kitchen activity meditative - I just get in a groove - as well as an outlet for creativity. I especially enjoy baking something I've never tried before.

Actually, I have tried making bagels once before, maybe 25 years ago and I only recall that they turned out rock-hard and almost inedible. But last week I saw Martin Philip and his lovely young son Arlo demo the making of bagels in his own kitchen on IGTV. And thought: I can do that!

      

Martin, as you can see, in addition to being head baker at King Arthur Flour, is a cookbook author. He and Arlo are creating regular videos on IGTV - besides bagels, so far, there are pitas and doughnuts, tortillas and bread, with more to come. Arlos's sister, Anthem is the videographer, and the series is surely a learning experience for both of them while schools are closed.

Martin made the bagel process seem, not quick and easy, exactly, since it's a 2- or even 3-day event, but interesting. So I tried my hand at it, using Martin's recipe which you can find on the King Arthur Website.

King Arthur, by the way, is a large Vermont-based US flour mill that apparently has flour in stores around that country, at least whenever there isn't a global pandemic going on. 

It seems that the shortage of flour products in stores is due to a fault in distribution, not processing, so shortfalls should soon be resolved, as long as shoppers don't binge-buy. I have never seen King Arthur products for sale in Canada but I note that they have a very interesting website with tons of fantastic recipes and tips as well as videos that could keep us occupied into eternity. Of course, Canadian wheat/grain is the best in the world, so why would we even want to buy from the US! I do think our flour companies could take a page from King Arthur in promotion and customer relations.

Anyway, on to the bagel process. I'm not putting the recipe here - if you want it, click on King Arthur Website.

First, the poolish, a mixture of flour, yeast and water that is mixed together and then left to itself for 2 - 8 hours. I left mine overnight. And in the morning, it looked like this.

Doesn't that look amazing??

The next morning I added more flour, yeast and salt along with more water to make what is described as a soft shaggy dough. It then went into the fridge overnight and the next morning looked like this. See that bubble about to pop? 

By the way, all the measuring I did was with the new digital kitchen scale that I recently "purchased" using AirMile Rewards 😊👍

This is it: 

It's lightweight and versatile, with a tare function that makes it easy to add each ingredient right into the bowl, choosing from grams, lbs, and even millilitres or fl. oz. for liquids. My kitchen has been revolutionized! Also, I can now easily bake recipes from the rest of the world. 

On the second morning, the dough came out of the fridge and sat at room temp for a couple hours before I formed the bagels. Forgot to take a photo of that process in my excitement about the next step which was to boil them in this odd-looking mixture of water, salt and molasses. The recipe called for malt barley, not a staple in my kitchen so I substituted, as suggested, molasses. 

  

Into this boiling mixture and after one turn, about 90 seconds later, the infant bagels were dipped into a plate of sesame seeds on their way to a parchment-lined baking sheet, scattered with cornmeal and into a very hot oven - 475F for 20 minutes.

Here's the proud moment. They were toothsome and crunchy on the outside with a soft interior. Edible and delicious! It was a baking adventure!