I think we could do with another open thread

[dolorosa_12]

I know it's not Friday, and I know my current open thread is still ticking along, but I think we could do with another one, for reasons that will hopefully soon become apparent.

My practice of doing these open threads was very much inspired by the newsletter of author Amal El-Mohtar, who does a similar thing every week. Because of the time difference (she lives in Canada, so posts at a time which is normally very early Saturday morning for me), I tend to wake up to her newsletters every weekend.

This week's edition asks a question which I found helpful, and restorative, from a mental health perspective, and so I ask it here, again, for anyone who wants to respond:

Tell me about something you want to build or have built this week. Stitches, or baking, or tightening a screw, or writing a letter, or cleaning — something of any size that felt, to you, like building, or solving.


My own answer: I received my overseas ballot for the US election this morning. In the state for which I am a voter, it is possible to submit these by email, so I will be completing the ballot and submitting it in the next few days. When I think of this ballot, and building, it feels to me like building a fragile boat, out of paper, and launching it on a daunting journey across a hostile, unfeeling ocean. It is a hope as small and fragile as that. But still, it, too, is building.

If you feel you have an answer to this question, and it's one you feel like sharing, please do so.

Comments

[nerakrose]

I made sourdough slop and then sourdough bread and the whole thing took DAYS* and patience, and it resulted in an enormous and extremely tasty sourdough loaf.

*more like, 30 hours

[dolorosa_12]

Ooh, that sounds delicious! I seem to be the only person on the planet who hasn't taken up baking as a result of the pandemic, but I really admire people who have been making their own bread — it must be so therapeutic!

[nerakrose]

I never got into the sourdough thing, but that's at least partially because my housemates and I were lucky, and already had a decent store of yeast and flour before panic buying set in etc (by coincidence), and then our local little sainsbury's got flour and yeast back in stock AND (almost) NOBODY NOTICED. so even when the big tesco was sold out of everything for weeks on end, our local little sainsbury's usually had stuff. the only reason why I'm making sourdough now (faux sourdough, at that) is because I was making a specific Scandinavian bread that requires buttermilk-sourdough slop made the day before, so it's not like I made an actual sourdough starter that I now have to keep alive....I tried that a few years ago and just did not succeed.

i like baking and cooking to begin with and habitually make banana bread and banana cake (because I'm terrible at eating my bananas before they turn brown). then during lockdown, not having a commute or much of an external schedule (since all we did was write papers and then a dissertation, no teaching from march onwards and none of us had jobs), we got into the habit of making pizza every Saturday and focaccia every Wednesday, and I got into the habit of baking my own Scandinavian style crispbreads as well. for me it's not so much therapeutic (I mostly make no-knead breads as my wrist tendonitis makes it hard for me to knead) as it's just a nice thing to have fresh baked bread in the house, and it's so easy. just make the dough, let it rest while you do other stuff, put in pan, let rest again while you do other stuff, stick it in the oven, eat. I rapidly lose interest in fresh baked bread once a day has passed (it's never as good as it is those first few hours!!) but luckily my housemates, current and past, have never had that weird hangup about fresh bread, so they'll happily finish off the bread I make over the next few days 😂😂😂😂

....er yeah so I can talk about bread and baking forever, seems like. I'm baking sourdough bread again today because I had enough buttermilk leftover to make a second loaf.

[dolorosa_12]

I really should look into no-knead bread, because I, too, like fresh bread, but I'm intimidated by kneading, sourdough starters and the like (I'm a very enthusiastic and confident cook, but baking scares me). Especially given I've just been told that I should pause any plans to return to work in the library and continue working from home as I have been for the past six months, which will make baking bread really easy to fit in around my work.

[nerakrose]

If you want a non-intimidating focaccia (no-knead and all) recipe I can recommend this one: https://youtu.be/GsjyMnFynLw this is the one I make every time and it was recommended to me by my Italian flatmate :) IMO it’s suitable for beginners, so whatever your confidence level currently is I hope this one does the trick!

(I use the same recipe for pizza, basically, and just don’t do all the oil.)

Here’s to the second wave 🥖🥯🍞🥧🍰🥮🥞🥨🍪🥐🍩🧁

[dolorosa_12]

Ooh, thank you, that looks great! So far the only bread I've made during lockdown is this yoghurt flatbread, so it would be nice to add to the repertoire.

I love all the bread emojis!

[nerakrose]

those flatbreads look so good 👀 thanks for sharing, I'm going to try them soon! :D

[dolorosa_12]

It's really delicious — I hope you enjoy!

[forestofglory]

It's Rosh Hashanah today and I'm making apple honey challah (it's in its final rise right now)

Also today I posted the first chapter of a 20K fic I've been working on for months!

[dolorosa_12]

Oooh, I love challah (and I love seeing photos of people's homemade challah as well), and yours sounds particularly delicious.

Congratulations on the fic: that's a fantastic achievement!

Happy new year!

[likeadeuce]

I sat down last night and wrote on a very lightweight low conflict fanfic doc that I have been building on for a while, and occasionally sending snippets to people, but not with any energy to get it FINISHED. And I'm very much used to writing on a deadline (I am dealing with at least 2 different fic deadlines right now) so the idea of just having something I can dip in and out of and think about because it feels good to me (instead of 'oh i will never post this' being a predestined failure) is pretty dang nice!

[ETA: it felt nice to be building a thing for me! though i'm also building on my plans to phone bank in swing state senate races, so i think that being able to have both of those things going AT ONCE is a key piece of balance for me]

[dolorosa_12]

That sounds like the perfect mix of building for yourself, and building for others.

[singedsun]

Mine are simple: I'm working on a small altar/shrine in my office, we're moving my husband's office in the basement to a new area and putting it back together with some new touches, and I'm working on a flash fiction story for submission that I've actually overwritten and have to trim down and edit more.

[dolorosa_12]

That sounds like a great mix of lots of different kinds of building!