Where to start?

There are so many stories of the vacation that it is hard to know where to start. And so, rather than starting at the beginning, the middle or the end, I'll take my cue from my blog, and talk about the bread.

The plan was that I would make bread with the children the whole week. This plan, while well thought out, had three fatal flaws. First, the space in the kitchen in the beach house, while fine for one person in the kitchen, left much to be desired for four or five, and there was only one chair suitable for a sprog to stand up on. Second, the sprogs, for most of the time, were either much more interested in the beach, or were already exhausted by the time that breadmaking came around. And lastly, the schedule of breadmaking was so soothing to my soul, so relaxing for me personally, that I was loathe to share it with the children!
Truth be told, I did spend several hours the first day after we got there with Boo and Skibo and their friend B, during which they counted quarter cups of flour, water, half-teaspoons of yeast and salt, and took turns mixing the batter then the dough at great length, so that we could have bread for the evening.
And it turned out great.

The next day, I started in on the cunning plan -- I would not tell anyone, but I was going to keep using old dough, and either no yeast or just a little yeast each time, until the bread was basically a sourdough. This went on, Tuesday, Wednesday, until Thursday evening I started a batch for Friday morning: B's uncle and six-year old cousin had flown in from Houston the previous evening, and courtesy of TS Erin they had arrived about 13 hours late --- and I thought that good bread baking the next morning might take the edge of the beginnings of a much-shortened vacation for them. I let the dough rise overnight, and it was perhaps the best bread I have ever made: the crust was crispy, with a crunch, yet chewy, and the insides had the best open crumb I've yet to achieve. This bread comes close to earning me a temporary "extra" to go with the "ordinaire", I think.
I wasn't quite as careful with the batch for Saturday morning, so it came out just really good. Saturday evening I cooked up a regular batch, together with a little yeast in the interest of time, and then made it extra crusty to go with a rather nice little low country boil (shrimp, corn, kielbasa, potatoes, carrots, beer and seasonings) that I just threw together. A beach feast indeed.

Yours, an extra, temporarily,
N.