#2 - Loaf With Me
Flowers for the Ladies; Bake it ‘Till You Make It; Tachai!
Hello, my friends,
Welcome all 28 of you to the second issue of HMF! I’m tickled that my subscriber count has doubled since this time last week. Will this edition smell as fresh and clean as last week’s? I guess you’ll have to sprawl on this pile of warm laundry to find out.
Flowers for the Ladies
Certainly March is Women’s History Month, but for me the month of March starts with March 8th, International Women’s Day, my grandmother’s favorite holiday. In the Soviet Union, she used to gush, the 8th of March meant that all of the women walked the streets holding flowers.
I wasn’t old enough when my family left Ukraine to recall such a scene myself, but every March, I imagine ladies with flowers beaming as they go about their day and think fondly of my grandma who died over a decade ago.
Like many of her generation, she was a prototypical Soviet Woman, meaning her days were approximately thirty hours in length, probably longer. She was a pediatrician, a mother, wrote poetry, and was a bit of a social butterfly organizing parties and plays with friends. In the Soviet Union, women were literally expected to be superheroes! And some were! And so, please help me wish a happy March 8th to Fanya Fuks. Wherever she is, I hope it’s with flowers.
Bake it ‘Till You Make It
I’m not much of a trend follower; during the Pandemic, when flour mills were backlogged because everyone was punching dough, I mostly baked banana bread, as I had done well before COVID. Last year, at a dinner during the California Library Association (CLA) conference, I got into a conversation about bread-baking with a fellow librarian. “It’s easy!” she said, and gave me the website to a baking supply store. I was sincere in my interest though I wasn’t sure it was as simple as she claimed. But guys! Guys! Over the past few months I’ve been baking bread and it’s not hard!
It started in earnest with the gift of a book. My sister-in-law Autumn gave us Sofia Nordgren’s The Nordic Baker, a vegan Swedish cookbook. Well, some weekends when nearly-4-year-old Michael and I are home together, I let him peruse cookbooks and choose what we’ll make together. Past feats include tonkatsu from Everyday Harumi by Harumi Kurihara, crepe cake from Pancakes with Findus by Sven Nordqvist, and Lyxig Kladdkaka (see below) and Spelt Loaf from The Nordic Baker — why yes, bread!
When Michael insisted on the Spelt Loaf, I was not confident we could pull it off, but I tucked away my fear, went to Sprouts to pick up yeast and spelt flour, came home, mixed the stuff, left it on the balcony to proof, and baked it. Admittedly, I mixed up the baking temperature, and yet it still came out looking and tasting exactly like bread. Not only that, but it was so delicious that we couldn’t stop eating it! For the next loaf a few weeks later, Michael and I even churned some homemade butter (under the brand-name Baby’s Bottom Butter™) to go with it. A decisive victory!
I’ve been baking bread every week or three since then having recently shifted to the White Bread recipe from my favorite cookbook, Joy of Cooking (75th anniversary edition). For the last few, I’ve been improvising a bit and tossing some herbs in with the dough, which has turned out well until this last loaf. This last loaf was not good. Too salty, too many herbs, didn’t come together right, kept giving me heartburn. I know for sure it didn’t turn out because three days later half of the loaf was still there…So today, I threw it away.
You can’t learn from your mistakes unless you bake them!
Tachai*!
My friends, the March sumo tournament is starting this Sunday! These 15-day tournaments are an fun interlude in my life six times every year. But what is it about sumo? Besides the craftsmanship of the matches with their variety of strategies and kimarite (or finishing techniques), I’m drawn to the stories. Each tournament has its own drama with leaders changing daily, fan favorites drawing our cheers or dashing our hopes, and then there are the unexpected winners like when bottom-ranked Tokoshoryu achieved a miracle victory three years ago! And it’s the extended narratives, too. Sumo fans have long memories. They recall the glory of past Yokozunas (the top rank) and those who almost got there.
Currently, there is only one Yokozuna: Terunofuji. This exceptional person entered sumo in 2011 and rose to the second-highest rank, Ozeki, in 2015. Then, hampered by knee injuries, diabetes, and kidney stones in 2019, he dropped to the second-lowest division. For context, that’s like an NBA player getting so badly injured that he’s forced to shoot hoops in the adult league of the local Y. Most others would have retired at this point — there are hundreds of wrestlers to content with in the lower divisions and only 42 top division spots, with for going to Ozeki and potentially four for Yokozuna — but not Terunofuji. He overcame his injuries, thrust his way to his former rank of Ozeki and performed well enough at the pinnacle of his sport that the Sumo Association promoted him to Yokozuna in 2021 just as the greatest ever, Hakuho, was retiring. And that’s just one amazing sumo story!
There used to be several YouTube channels that showed sumo tournaments, but their status is currently uncertain. The NHK-World website or app are probably the most reliable ways to watch sumo at the moment, and the English commentary is great for beginners, too. Maybe you’ll peek into this upcoming tournament? Though, sadly, Terunofuji is injured and unlikely to compete.
* Tachai is the giant bonk at the beginning of a sumo match when the wrestlers lunge at each other.
