When I was a kid, my mother used to make (or at least, a few times she made) oatmeal bread. Now, I consider myself a pretty fair bread baker, but I’ve never been able to make bread I like as much as I used to like my mother’s oatmeal bread when I was a kid. …
Author Archives: deanb
Ice
Thompson Lake is frozen solid enough to walk on, at least in most places. We didn’t venture really far on it. There was a small village of ice fishing shacks near the far shore. People who (we hope!) knew what the limits were had driven cars and pickup trucks out on the lake. We’ll leave …
Aunt Lee Pix
I wrote in the Feb 22 entry about Arlene’s Aunt Lee making a big batch of potato salad. She was also knitting a sweater for her daughter Diane, from some eyelashy yarn Diane bought in Toronto, I think, in 2001. Lee doesn’t like knitting that yarn, (you can barely tell the knit side from the …
Another project in the works
This is what a stepstool I made back in January looked like before I put it together. We had seen a stepstool just about like this in a store (Home Coming?) in Newton Centre that was going out of business in November. We asked about it, but it wasn’t for sale. I looked at it …
Bridgton Brook
This didn’t turn out like a real calendar picture, but for any Californians who happen to be watching, it’s authentic New England winter. It’s in downtown Bridgton, Maine, maybe December 18 ’05. The stream flows out of Highland Lake, past the site of the late lamented Magic Lantern movie theatre, and south to points unknown.
Claiming the mailbox
This is a picture I liked — or even more, I liked when it was taken. It’s from back in December, just after we closed on our vacation house. I’m putting our name on the mailbox in self-stick letters from Home Depot. Oh, that was the most snow we’ve seen there so far this winter.
Quick Koleinu notes
We had a guest conductor tonight, Matti Lazar, one of the biggest names in Jewish choral music. He’s in town for an event at Temple Emanuel over the weekend. He rehearsed us in Pischu Li (the Sholom Secunda setting of some of Psalm 118), a setting of By the Waters of Babylon (ps 137), and …
Plum Island Etc
We stopped in Newburyport (waving to Julia as we went through), first at the Mass. Audubon Joppa Flats visitor center, then at the Parker River Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island, then, well, not really Newburyport but Amesbury next door at the Chain Bridge. The Audubon place at Joppa Flats is a couple of years old …
Church Supper
We went to the church supper at the Casco Village Church last night. It’s the kind of thing Garrison Keeler talks about on the news from Lake Wobegon, with lots of noodle casseroles (“tuna pea wiggle”) and some sea foam jello molds with colored mini-marshmallows, and four kinds of baked beans. Turns out they do …
Potato Salad
We had a big birthday party (a big birthday, as well as a big party) for Arlene last weekend. Her sister and brother-in-law came up from New Jersey (with their daughter and a full complement of grandkids), her brother came from NJ also, and her aunt Lee flew in from Buffalo. I baked a double …