Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Is For Anadama



Motivation is a strange  and elusive state of mind.  When it hits, fo-gittaboutit, nothing can stop me, and all else is deprioritized and of little import.  Cleaning the house, reading a book, working on a play, perfecting a recipe, it is all fair game for tunnel vision and a mad whirl of activity.  (Usually accompanied by statements like, "This is gonna be great!...I love this!...I gotta get this done!...This is the best idea!...Now!  And, or course, lots of exclamation points!).  Productive, stimulating, imaginative, and a tad bit manic.  Yes, suffice it to say that the line between motivation and obsession is quite thin.
On the flip side, because life is filled with big buts, there are times when motivation is hard to muster.  When sitting on the porch and flipping through a magazine is about as creative and devoted to a project as I can get.  When life and synapses seem still and sluggish.  Waiting for the next bolt of motivation to strike.  Authors would probably say that these are periods of writer's block, and those with a decidely artistic bent may call it waiting for the muse...though I hardly think that dusting, vacuuming and mopping require a muse...a fire under one's rearend perhaps, but not a muse. 
The philosophically-minded may spin this toward the positive, believing that the mind continues to work even when the body isn't.  Those lovely do-nothing afternoons on the back porch are not periods of dormancy, but rather are moments when the internal processes are still doing their thing...the mind is percolating and motivation and imagination are recuperating and regenerating, getting ready to burst to the surface in another flurry of something-or-other. 
Again, the cleaning-the-house test raises its dusty head...does the brain really need to cogitate and shoot off chemical fireworks just to get the floor mopped?  Obviously it does not. 
But...another big but...hmmm, consider that motivation may just be energy (mental/physical/spiritual/whatevah)...free-floating energy looking for an outlet.  So, if the house is dirty (and four dogs and an acre of mostly dirt means the house is usually dirty), that energy gets applied to a mop.  If I am thinking about a play, or a book, or a recipe, and coincidentally my mind has dumped a surplus of this ambiguous energy into the psyche...2 + 2 = new obsession. 
Example:  the other day, sitting on the back porch, flipping through magazines, that funny feeling starts poking at me somewhere between the brain and the spine and the stomach and then it hits...blogblogblogblogblogblogblogblog, wait, wait, maybe, I could, whatabout, Yes, I like it...The ABC's of Baking.  And so we begin...

A is for Anadama Bread. 
An old-fashioned bread with a silly story behind it (suffice it to say the name supposedly derives from the phrase "Anna, damn her" said with a New England accent).  It is a nice, easy bread that I always think of in the fall, perhaps because it has molasses in it, which, in my mind is a colder weather ingredient.  Nik is not a fan of molasses, so I twisted the recipe a little and used brown sugar (which does contain molasses) and honey, which results in a notably lighter (and I think, better) bread.  Anadama dough also must have cornmeal in it (according to the Bread Police?).  And because I still have several bags of cranberries from last year in the freezer, I added some of them (and some orange juice) to the dough as well. 

Makes 2 loaves
Active Dry Yeast........................2 1/4 tsp
Warm Water............................1 1/4 cups
Orange Juice............................1/3 cup
Butter....................................2 Tbl
Honey....................................1/8 cup
Brown Sugar.............................1/8 cup
Salt.......................................1 Tbl
Cornmeal................................1/2 cup
AP Flour..................................4 cups
Whole Wheat Flour.....................1/2 cup
Whole Cranberries......................1 cup

1.  Rehydrate yeast in 1/4 cup water in small bowl.
2.  Combine 1 cup water, orange juice, brown sugar, honey, and salt in small saucepan and heat over low until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted.  Let cool to barely warm.
3.  Combine yeast mixture and sugar mixture in mixer bowl. 


4.  Add the flours and mix with dough hook 2 minutes on low speed.  Dough should be soft but not wet - add more orange juice is it feels too dry.  Mix an additional 2 minutes on second speed.  Turn dough out onto lightly floured counter and briefly knead in the cranberries, a few quick folds should do it. Form into a ball, place in a buttered bowl, cover with plastic and let rise until doubled (about 2 hours).

5.  Butter two loaf pans.  Divide the dough in half.  Pat each half into a rectangle shape, then fold two sides over each other (as with a letter).  Roll each piece into a log and place, seam side down, in the buttered pan.  Cover and let rise until nearly doubled.
6.  Preheat oven to 375.  Just prior to baking, using a sharp thin blade, score the top of each loaf with a long cut.  Bake for 40-50 minutes, until lightly golden on top.





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