KNEADING MEMORIES AS IRAN TRAVEL BECKONS

Last week at the Kneading Conference West was a huge treat. I like being physical, and the bread- and cracker-making that I did for various workshops – along with wonderful Dawn Woodward of Evelyn’s Crackers, with whom I co-presented – was satisfying, and tiring too of course. We did a lot of baking for a tasting of (freshly milled whole grain) single varietal wheats, so interesting. I can't wait for next year's tastings. 

Meantime there were lots of other pleasures: exploring the amazing orchards at the Agricultural Research Center in Mount Vernon; talking, eating, and drinking with friends old and new; and cooking too. Best flavours? Hard to say, but the Alchemy apple that Dawn and I shared, forbidden fruit from a survivor tree at the Center, ranks very high. (It has Cox Pippin in its ancestry, so a firm-crisp bite, but it also has a sweetness and complex flavour. Just a dream.) High ranking too for the freshly shucked kumamoto oysters at Taylor's, that we ate sitting by the water last Saturday afternoon….

Now I’m back in Toronto, the moon is about to be full, and my trip to Iran via Istanbul is less than two weeks away. Can’t wait. But meantime, as the moon shone straight into my room through a crack in the curtains at 4 this morning, I started to run through the to-do lists that whirl in my head but that I still have difficulty remembering to write down. They include small things like shopping for black socks and a manteau or two for Iran; larger issues like learning a little Farsi, and preparing some language pages on the (old laptop) computer I am planning to take with me; urgent tasks like preparing for the talks and presentations I am giving this weekend at Savour Stratford, some of them Burma-related, some wider; and travel detail issues like what bag will I take, how much money to bring (there being no access to cash once I am in Iran, just like Burma until recently, so at least I have an idea of what’s involved), what shoes? and the trivial fusses that go along with packing decisions.

Hmmm…no wonder I sometimes feel scattered.

Yesterday morning though I had a wonderfully focussing experience. I went for a heart ultrasound to give my doctor a baseline (and yes, I have an active-person’s slow pulse and good blood pressure, and all looks very healthy I gather). Have you ever seen images of your heart beating? Or listened to the wonderful syncopations? It was thrilling and awe-inspiring to watch the regular pumping, see the “flapping” of the valve (can’t tell you which one), look at the heart’s structure from different angles. And there was a bonus: The very nice and experienced cardiology tech was teaching a student as she did the tests, so I learned a little about what they see and what they watch out for. As I walked out of the hospital and down the sunny street I was exhilarated, as high as I was when, years ago, I walked home from having a pregnancy ultrasound.

Life is mysterious, and the heart in each of us keeps us going. Best to have respect for it, treat it well, and keep it healthy, for it’s working without a break…

Now, as I round the corner on this blogpost, I look up and realise that there’s bright sunshine outside, and blue sky. The cat is asleep in the corner, in a patch of sun. It’s time for me to get moving. The writing and other sedentary “activities” of home, after the lovely physicality of the Kneading Conference, leave me feeling flat. The obvious answer is to remember to get my blood moving. And so I’m heading out now, heeding the call of the lovely September sun and the always interesting life on the streets of Toronto.

HEADING TOWARD NEW HORIZONS

Once more I’ve left a long-ish gap between posts. It’s strange the rhythm of writing and communication of ideas in general. Sometimes I feel rich with all that I want to explore in writing. Other times my concentration gets scattered by other projects. That’s what has happened this week, in part. I have been assigned one small entry in what will be a large comprehensive volume from the Oxford University Press in the US called The Oxford Companion to Sweets. Like everyone else who is involved in writing one or more entries, as I imagine it, I’m finding it slow-going, and frustrating too, for my word limit is under 1000 words, and in that I am supposed to talk about Southeast Asian sweets.

I’m not here to rant about that, just trying to let you know what I have been cluttered with. I’ve now got a good draft written. It is always interesting to be forced into taking a fresh perspective on a region or a cuisine. In writing this I’ve had to characterise the general approach to sweets and also to their evolution. Influences include of course trade, colonisation, conquest, immigration, etc. But all I can do is skim over it all, while tryig to give specifics about sweets in each of the countries. It’s a bit of a grind. And of course not paid, I mean, the pay is under $50…

So why do it? Well, I like a challenge, and I am of course learning as I think through it all and do research.

But I’ll be glad when it’s done. My deadline, the one I’m setting for myself, is the end of this week, so that the Labour Day weekend can be clear of deadlines and I can start look forward to the longhouse event put on by Molly O’Neill on September 6 to 8 in Renselaarville, and after that the kneadingconferencewest in the Skagit Valley in northern Washington state (September 12-14). It’s time to think about packing and cooler weather, and planning out the baking schedule for the Kneading Conference.

In the meantime I have been waiting to hear about my visa for a trip to Iran in October. I heard from the agency ten days ago that they expected to get word on my application by the middle of last week. And then finally two days ago I heard it was approved. Yes!! The deal is that with the visa application is approved in principle, I fly to Istanbul, hand my passport in to the Iranian consulate, and pick it up three working days later. And from there I can fly directly to Iran, a short-ish hop.

I have now booked flights to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines and have five days booked at a centrally located air bnb in Istanbul. So pleasing to have a few things sorted out.

I really hope this Iran trip can work, and not get derailed. The massive sabre-rattling that is going on in the west about Syria can only be terrifying to ordinary people trying to live their lives in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria, Iran, and southern Turkey. They become statistics, or numbers, in the headlines, rather than individuals with culture, education, humanity. And of course Iran has now become a kind of unnuanced idea of threat to the US and I am sad to say to Canada too.

In the meantime, I have found advice on how to deal with clothing requirements in Iran. I need one or two manteau, a coat-length long-sleeved garment. And I need some headscarves and long pants and comfortable shoes. It all seems very manageable.

And so like any other trip or project, this one breaks down into the practical details and preparation, and vast imaginings and endless reading…  

NOTES FROM THE SKAGIT VALLEY

There’s a beautiful adorable seven-month-old chlid sitting with his parents in the seats in front of me. And every other seat in the plane is full too. Welcome to the direct Seattle-Toronto Air Canada flight on Sunday September 16.

This morning in the Skagit Valley, as we started to drive south to Seattle, there was soft mist along all the contours of the landcsape, the hills and mountains that frame the valley were outlined in softly shaded blue like a Japanese watercolor, and a thick layer of pale mist obscured the wide valley, so that the hills seemed as if they were floating on a sea of mist. Lovely. 

It’s always nice to head home, but I have to admit to huge regret at leaving beautiful Skagit country, and the welcoming hospitality of the people in and around Mt Vernon who hosted and animated the Kneading Conference West these last few days. Like the original Kneading Conference in Skowhegan Maine, (the sixth annual one there took place in late July) the Kneading Conference West (this was the second annual) brings together millers, bakers, farmers, oven builders, and scientists for two full days to talk about grain and bread and milling, about sustainability, the bakery business, the farming business and more; to argue and discuss many issues around all these topics; to make and taste breads and crackers and other grain products; and to build ovens.

I’ve learned a lot. And hopefully people have learned from me too. I worked with Dawn the baker, my good friend Dawn Woodward of Evelyn’s Crackers, me assisting her with her two workshops, and she helping enormously with my two. We got there a full day ahead to prep and discovered at the Washington State College Ag Research Station a sense of anticipation and a wonderful preparedness. 

The whole place is set in a remarkable garden like a Garden of Eden, especially at this time of year, with pears hanging heavily on beautiful espaliered trees, vegetable bed of greens and vines and more, and endless educational plantings of all kinds. Signs on the beautiful fruit trees ask visitors to please not pick the fruit (they need it intact for research purposes). And so in another way too it also had a garden of Eden feel, loaded as it was with temptation!

Our main job on that first prep day was to make plain crackers, flour and salt and water crackers, out of as many whole grain single varietal wheat flours as possible. Steve, the director of the Station milled some flours from small stocks of unusual varieties that he had available. Others we’d brought with us from Ontario, and others we took from the huge array of flours sitting in large sacks in the baking room.  Along with the wheats, we had several spelt flours, an emmer, several ryes, and a barley to make into crackers. Altogether we had eighteen different samples to work with.

The idea was to have a tasting, to try to identify taste characteristics of not only different varieties but also of the same wheat grown in different locations (we did this with Red Fife, comparing three different ones; and with spelt).  But to do the tasting we needed crackers to taste. That involved hand kneading and hand rolling a lot of small batches of dough. We managed to stay organised about our labelling, a good and necessary thing. And there was a four deck stack oven to bake the crackers in.

In the process of making them we discovered huge differences in the aroma of the freshly wetted flour, in the kneading and rolling out characteristics, in the taste of the fresh crackers, and then, the next day, in the taste of the day-old crackers. The session was fun, as people came up with descriptors for the tastes and aromas they discerned. It made us realise how much more we could do next time. (And it confirmed both of us about the remarkable deliciousness of Red Fife wheat.)

The tasting was perhaps equivalent to a first stab at tasting different red wines, if you had only ever drunk  blended batch wines. We searched for descriptive vocabulary, and we didn’t all agree - yes, both exciting and a little daunting!

Dawn’s other workshop was a cracker one, which took place at a wood-fired oven with a big crowd. Crackers are a new idea for many people. They’re a great way to bake with whole grains and a blend of grains. But anyone who has made crackers knows that because they are very thin, they bake unevenly and thus baking can be tricky. It’s even more so when you’re working with a wood-fired oven. But Mark, the guy whose oven it was, wasn’t fased and helped make it happen without stress. We relied on him too for both my workshops, one on leavened flatbreads, and one on sweet baking with yeasted doughs. 

The flatbreads were diverse: a version of snowshoe naan using yogurt and a partially whole wheat dough; a barley bread from Finland made with yogurt, pearl barley and barley flour and no wheat flour; pittili, the Pugliese loaf made with an extremely sloppy dough that is a little tricky to shape and delicious to eat; and finally, my first time out in public with a recipe from the BURMA book, the bread called nan-piar from Burma. Fun! We had a large crowd, people very interested in flatbreads and in the possibilities they represent for more flexible baking and for baking with whole grains and non-wheat flours. 

The sweet baking doughs we’d made well ahead. We made one kouignaman (delish Breton butter cake) the night before, so we could have samples ready at the workshop. Then I shaped a second one in front of the crowd. We also made a cake flavoured with currants, fabulous local walnuts, and some coconut; a version of sweet anise crispbreads; and about five fruit tarts, using local fruits of course.

The tarts were a wow, topped with sliced pears (Red Crimsons) or chopped apple (can’t remember the variety right now, sorry), or sliced purple plums. There’s nothing better than a yeasted dough enriched with butter, as the base of a fruit tart. And no-one seemed to disagree. The tarts vanished down hungry gullets. No leftovers to cope with. And then the conference was over.

I should mention too the stimulating talk I heard about flour and bread science. It was much too short. I wanted to hear each aspect explored in detail. The geek in me likes to understand the minutiae; that’s how I can understand best, from the basics up. Just to give you an idea: we heard about the starch structure in wheat flour (amylose and amylopectin, as in rice), and about amylase and beta amylase; (the enzymes that break down starches). We got a glimpse of the complexities in the discussion about the temperatures at which they are most active, the interaction of proteins and starches in the absorption of water; what all of it means for the baker, and on and on. It was enthralling and left me hungry for more.

See you there next year, perhaps?

SEPTEMBER BEGINNINGS

After complaining last week that I was not at all ready for summer to end, I feel very grateful for the continuing beautiful warm weather we've had. Tuesday as children headed back to school we had torrential rain (no other word starts to describe the downpours that arrived off and on all day) and I felt my limbs heavy from the wet, and a queasy feeling in my gut, the shadow or echo of years of nervous anticipations of the first day of classes.

Now that's done, and the first difficult week of adjusting to the new school rhythm is over.

Meantime at the university campus just up the street the frosh have been cavorting and following orders...It's always a little disturbing to see large groups of young people obediently trooping after a person with a bull-horn, and doing as they're bid. Last weekend it was the engineers, painted purple and wearing yellow hard hats. This week it's been Arts students in T-shirts singing silly songs and shouting things.

I see the young ones in the bank too, without the protection of the crowd. Then they look like their true selves, unsure, very young, and finding their way, opening a first bank account for example. Soon enough they'll settle into jaded cool, studying, knowing their way around, able to read the urban signals about clothing and caste and group at a single glance.

But for now I'm loving the naivete of the frosh, all wet behind the ears and trying not to show it, even if it comes with group behaviour.

Some good news this week, in no particular order: more lovely pods on the okra plants, and more ripe tomatoes; yesterday a lovely guy named Tyler, widely travelled all over, but whom I know from Burma, dropped by and gave me useful advice about the Burma tour I'm taking in this coming February (details soon on immersethrough.com); news that the copies of BURMA: Rivers of Flavor have now reached the warehouse; confirmed venue for a book launch party at Supermarket in Kensington Market on October 15; nice anticipatory reviews of the book in various blogs (there are links to them on my Facebook fan page; and a very interesting film today at the Toronto Film festival, called Ship of Thesus, or something like that, set in India and beautifully shot.

Also today had a visit from Lejen, who lives in Toronto and Beijing. She brought over some treats and  took away with her a huge melon to try, one from my neighbour's vine. Every year the vine comes vigorously over the fence and spreads all over my garden. And every year there are large rounded stripey green fruits hanging from it. This year I donated one to Lejen. She made inquiries in Chinatown and reports that it's a Shark's fin Melon, cucurbita ficifolia is the Latin name. The seeds are especially prized, according to Wikipedia. If I learn more I'll pass it on.

Next Tuesday I head out to Seattle to go to the Kneading Conference West, at Mt Vernon. I can't wait. I'm carrying out a load of Evelyn's Crackers for my friend Dawn. And that means I need to abandon my usual goal of no checked luggage (the crackers have to be hand-carried). Ah well...