(Jamie Ford, on my Kindle). A poignant story about a Chinese-American, growing up in Seattle at the beginning of World War II. Henry falls in love with a young Japanese girl before her family is interned in a relocation camp. It a very secretive relationship because his parents would highly disapprove. The story goes back to the 40’s and forward to the 1980’s when Henry is in his 50’s and his wife (not the Japanese woman) has just died of cancer. The story pulls you in from the first page, especially when some artifacts are found in the basement of an old hotel which contain personal belongings from several Japanese families who were suddenly taken away back in 1942. You can see where it’s going, can’t you? I heard criticism of this book that it was just a little bit contrived. Halfway through I’m enjoying it very much.
(Kathryn Stockett on my Kindle); if you haven’t heard about this book, you should! It’s a novel written from the voice of the black servants and some of the people they work for, all residents of Jackson, Mississippi. In the 1950’s. The maids generally are disrespected, still have to ride in the back of the bus, and some are prevented from using the bathroom in the houses where they work. The story is about a young woman (daughter of one of the society ladies) who decides to write a book about the stories of the maids. Anonymously. But not quite, of course. So it’s not only the stories themselves, but about the society-ladies’ relationships, and about the stealth required to interview the maids and write the book. And the repercussions when it’s published. A fantastic read.
by Jetta Carleton (Kindle edition); 
by Susan Richards (Kindle edition); 
by Sally Gunning (Kindle edition)
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(Mario Batali & Gweneth Paltrow); 
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We don’t eat a lot of bread at our house – generally a half a slice each for breakfast. Once in awhile we’ll have a sandwich, but believe it or not, most bread gets moldy before we use it up. We freeze bread some, but I’m never very happy with it after it’s been in the freezer for more than 4-5 days. I wrap it in foil, then in a freezer plastic bag and still the edges seem to dry out. A few months ago we had just started using what we could, stored at room temp and throwing it out once it got moldy. But I was tired of the grainy, seedy bread we’d been having.
Since it’s Fall, I dug out my tried and true pumpkin yeast bread recipe and one day when I was home, and I made bread. Normally when you think of pumpkin bread, you likely think of a sweet quick bread. This is not that kind. This is a perfect sandwich or toasting bread. It’s NOT sweet, although it does have a little bit of sugar in it. It’s a soft bread – I use 3/4 white bread flour and 1/4 whole wheat flour. Our normal half-slice portion at breakfast has been upped to a whole slice each. It’s so nice with a little bit of butter. Here you can see the loaves just out of the oven.
If you’ve not been reading my blog for a long time, you may not know that I used to bake a whole lot of bread. When I was a young mom, trying to make some money, for a lunch out, for a babysitter now and then. I had a very small but thriving business, of sorts, baking bread once a week that I sold to friends and family. I was a stay-at-home mom, and enjoyed the process of making bread. I had a menu of about 10 varieties I made, including Stollen at Christmastime. And this bread wasn’t on the menu because I hadn’t discovered it yet.
Years later, when I was working full-time, I invested in one of the first bread machines, and we enjoyed loaf after loaf when our kids were teenagers. This recipe is one that I adapted from one of the bread machine cookbooks. But I’ve found that it works best to make it by hand. Well, you can mix it in the machine for the first round, but let it rise in bread pans for the second rising. It will become a beautiful tall loaf, worthy of the finest toasters or turkey sandwiches. This time I kneaded it in the Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook, and did the 2nd time by hand, kneading in the raisins and nuts as I worked.
This isn’t a new recipe to my blog – I posted it first a year ago. Although I’ve been making this bread a couple times a year for about 25 years. It’s absolutely the BEST with Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in a sandwich. Don’t be intimidated by making yeast bread – as long as you have a few hours when you can tend to the bread a couple of times, this is a pretty foolproof recipe. I’ve never had it fail. If you want, add different fruit (dried apricots, craisins) or nuts (pecans). Or eliminate one or the other if you don’t have them on hand.
Click here to get to the recipe.
I’ve submitted this recipe to Yeastspotting.
A year ago: Pear Crisp (ooh, was that ever good!)
Two years ago: Twice Baked Cauliflower Take Two
Susan/Wild Yeast
said on November 12th, 2009:
This looks fabulous! I can imagine it with toasted pumpkin seeds also. Thank you for joining YeastSpotting!