01.10.02

World’s Biggest Biscuit?

While writing this, I am attempting homemade onion loaf.  Instead of using my bread maker, I’m working the dough in the bread machine, then plan to bake it in the oven.

As I work I’m listening to the radio.  There is astonishment about the Enron bankruptcy and how it appears that the managers may have made billions engaged in insider trading and robbing the employee’s pensions in the process.  As I stir yeast in with the water, sorghum, and other liquid ingredients, radio commentators are speculating about whether any business people could ever do such a thing.  Well?

I am waiting for these geniuses to mention that this is the same Enron that wrote the energy policy for the new Bush administration and then cornered the market on electricity last summer soaking Californians for a few billions.  G. W. Bush couldn’t be involved in something like that!  Could he?  Just say it ain’t so, Joe!!

As I add onions to my dough mixture I wonder if am the only one that recalls one of Geedubbya’s brothers partnered with Frank Keating in the Silverado Savings and Loan failure— the huge 1980s savings and loan scandal that cost the taxpayers a couple hundred billion dollars to bail out.  Of the partners, only Keating went to jail.

My mixer is done and the dough is sitting for the first rise.  Instead of using a bread pan (which I have none on board), I plan to pour the mixture on a flat sheet and bake like a farm loaf.

Writing to report that things are going just fine doesn’t make for as good a read as a disaster tale, but no complaints from here about that.  After an extremely mild December, on 12/23, winter in Michigan hit like a hammer.  As temperatures plummeted from mid 40s to the mid teens, I fired up Prairie Schooner went south.  I was actually waiting for the cold air.  The mild temps were wind blown and from the south.  I figured the cold front would come through and the wind would shift to the north and give me a good push, but that is not what happened!  The cold air rushed in, but the wind stayed steady and hard from the south.   I had to beat against the wind.  I could have been gone sooner, but lingered for that wind shift.  It didn’t seem fair somehow.  When the temps are in the teens, the wind is supposed to be from the NW!!  If I’d left sooner, at least I would have been warm— instead of cold and bad gas mileage.

Though nearly an antique, my old land barge runs great.  One annoying problem however, the engine heat quit working while still north of Ohio.  My feet froze driving.  But I have a new furnace that works well— except that it runs the battery bank down.  Rolling through the bitter cold, the battery bank for the furnace lasted about a day and a half.  Stayed cold the entire way south, so I often ran the generator to charge batteries and warm up.  A couple electric heaters and an electric blanket helped thaw my feet.  The propane part of my propane/electric water heater fritzed.  Being too cold to want to fix anything was another reason to run the generator— and get some electric hot water.

Waveland, MS area

I drove all night.  Following a few bathless days alone on the road, I figured a couple hours of generator would charge batteries and provide plenty of electric hot water for a warm shower on a cold cold sunrise— not.  After a tepid shower on a frosty morning, my electric blanket felt like heaven!

The dough has risen and I pour it on to a pan for the second rising. Now media wise men are debating the resurgence of the federal budget deficit being the result of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut mostly going to already rich folks.  I shape the dough into a nice round ball and paint the top with olive oil before letting it rest again.  I figure giving the store away is the Republican Way.  It’s what GW did as governor and it garnered him a billion dollars for a presidential quest— a significant portion coming from his Texas Enron buddies.

After the dough doubles in size, I’ll throw it in the oven at 400º for 10 minutes, then 350º until done— about 45 more minutes.  I shut off the radio and wonder who is more two faced: the fellow rescinding requirements for more efficient auto engines, then insisting for drilling under the Alaskan preserves and Great Lakes to get enough oil to run the county, or the media motor mouths acting surprised by it all…

Somewhere in TN I went over a RR track and half the exhaust system busted loose- too cold to fix that too, so I rambled south with a rumbling 454 announcing my comings and goings and hoping I won’t get arrested in some small southern town in the middle of the night.  The alternator isn’t working right either.  It screams when the lights are on and doesn’t recharge the engine battery.  Quite a duet!

I stalled in the middle of large intersection during rush hour somewhere near Nashville.  Looked pretty dumb blocking traffic 5 ways while I started the generator, grabbed a battery charger, opened the front grill, and got myself going again— all the while chicken necking from side to side praying I wouldn’t get run over!  Surprised me that no one honked.  More than one kind of southern hospitality I suppose.  Could have called a towing service if charging hadn’t worked, but somewhere north of Kentucky my phone went dark— the CB wouldn’t turn on either; probably an incestuous relationship deep in the dash board; busted the heater controls from their mounts digging around trying to find the problem.  No heat no phone.  What’s that called?  Hurtling set backs or something?

Checked the bread and it has doubled in size, but it has doubled out, not up.  I think I might be working on the world’s biggest biscuit! Slit the top in case it does rise and put it to bake.

Had to get all the way to the narrow microclimate along the Mississippi Gulf Coast before temps finally clawed there way above freezing.  Felt right tropical to me after freezing my ass off.

Spent New Year’s week with a girl I knew in junior high school.  She and her husband teach at an Indian school in NM, but have a vacation home just off the beach in Waveland, MS— an old fishing village on the mend— reminds me a lot of Depot Town, Ypsilanti 25 years ago when things were improving, but there were still a lot of cheap properties.  I found myself looking around, then decided that I shouldn’t settle in the first town I visit after leaving the farm.

Know what I mean?  There’s a lot to see!  Still though, had a nice visit with my friend and her family—  played a lot of games and music and ate some great Cajun cooking.

My onion biscuit, or what ever it is baking in the oven is starting to smell pretty good.

Next I hove-to for a few days unmoored behind the VFW in Bay St. Louis, MS— just 2 blocks from the beach.  Nice for walking Bucky and bike riding and tending to some deferred schooner maintenance.

The heater was easy to fix— only a broken wire under the dash (though fallen into the dash, the controls still work).  The H2O heater had a plugged pilot light orifice. Another five minute fix.  The furnace bank needed a new charger.  I might have trashed the batteries repeatedly draining them down to nothing then trying to restore them using a bum charger— but at least they are still under warranty (new before I left) and it’s warm enough now that the furnace doesn’t run much.

Ripping the dashboard apart will require some shore time.  I’ll need to find a comfortable anchorage where my Prairie Schooner can toss out her shore cords and take on electricity, water, and perhaps cable a phone line— whatever is available.

My bread is done and has risen perfectly!  A perfect onion loaf— nice and brown and round— big and smelling good too.  I’m slicing some hot with butter and wolfing it without waiting.  Yum!!

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