Baking Buns
As I mentioned before, we had rain most of the day Thursday and Friday. Late Friday night it began to pour, and as usual when it rains heavy here, it began to run down the street, making a stream bed. As Roy lay sleeping, I watched the rain pour down and listened to the water gushing down the street beside our place. After a while I crawled under the covers into the nice warm cocoon and attempted to sleep as well. Dozed off for a couple of hours and was awakened by spinning tires right beside our bedroom window. Some poor young fellow coming home late had gotten too far over to the side of the street and his back tire had drifted into the stream bed formed by the running rain water. He sat and spun and spun and spun to no avail. I guess he finally decided that he wasn't going to get out by himself, so he got out of his truck, got out his cell phone and proceeded to talk to someone as he started walking. Not a nice night to have to walk home.
The next morning, he and some friends/relatives returned with a pick and filled in behind his tire until he was able to back up and get out.
I had thrown some stuff into the crock pot for beef stew for lunch yesterday and as it was bubbling and sending out its aroma, I said to Roy that some nice fresh homemade buns would taste good with it. He, of course, seconded this motion.
A month or so ago Nancy, the landlords daughter in law had come up and asked for my bun recipe so I had translated it and given it to her. She tried to make them one day and then brought one up to show me. It was small and rock hard. Roy took one look at it and laughed along with her and we decided that it would be a good missile, (to throw at Roy). I went down with her and we went through the process and couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. I thought perhaps her yeast had not been good, so gave her a package of mine to try. A few days later, she again called me downstairs to see the latest results. Same thing, rock hard lumps. She was a very good sport about the failure and we laughed about them, and she suggested that they be given to Roy, as he had laughed so hard over the previous ones. We again went through the recipe and couldn't figure out what the problem was. Unless her water had been too hot and killed the yeast. I told her that the next time I made them I would call her and she could come and watch.
When I decided to make them yesterday I went down to see if she wanted to watch. She did. She came up and watched the whole process and noted that she had dumped all the flour in at once which might have been the problem. By this time Irene, the landlords wife, had joined us and when I turned the dough out of the bowl to begin kneading it, they looked at each other and noted that when Nancy had gotten to this point the dough had been very duro, tough. She decided that she will try again and just add the flour a bit at a time. We will see what will happen the next time. Nancy is a very good cook and this must be frustrating for her; but she has taken it well, lots of jokes and laughter about what her resulting "rocks" are good for, again Roy comes to mind.
Today, it is still cool, so I may make cinnamon buns. Like I need the extra calories; but it is winter and you always bulk up in the wintertime. The newspaper is telling people to take precautions for the cold when going out, as the forecast is for extremes between 16C./70F and 25C/77F. Funny to us; although I am chilly also; but "extremes", that is going a bit far I think.
