My True First Look at; Vincent Price

Although I have known Vincent Price to be a king of cinema, I just watched Dragonwyck from 1946 where he stars opposite Gene Tierny as a cold-hearted, eccentric Dutch lord in the late 19th century who kills off his petulant, gluttonous wife in order to marry the governess of his daughter, against whom he holds great resentment. Although gaining a son to carry on the Van Ryn name is ostensibly his goal, the plot (and his character) spiral into a dark, confused maelstrom of rage, drug abuse, and a Henry VIII-like propensity to dispense with wives in the hopes of gaining a son. The undercurrent of family-bred psychosis adds another manic thread in an already Cosby-like sweater of a movie.

What strikes me most about seeing Vincent Price in this earlier movie is one: his HEIGHT! The man was 6' 4" in the 1940's!! His contempt for everything from such a great height, his flashing eyes and drug-addict stubble dressed in such narrow, sweeping dressing gowns is awe inducing. Secondly is the subtlety with which he plays out emotions - pretty unusual for actors of his time who invested heavily in exaggerated gestures and body postures. And although he is a murderer, and although he is a sociopath, and although he is terrifyingly tall, we (I'm pretty sure it's not just me) actually come to feel badly for him towards the end when we see a man struggling with a drug addict's mind to re-claim everything he has known and everything he had been told from boyhood he would have. He has lost control of his tenants, spurned his daughter, lost his infant son, and lost the control and respect due to him as patroon of his land and died indignant, confused, and alone. Just flipping brilliant.

SoCal Bread Experiments - Part One

So since moving here to Santa Barbara, I have had painful pangs of withdrawal from my baking life. So I began a starter from organic raisins which has proved to be just the catharsis I needed. I have since made two different batches of bread from my lovely starter we have named Kavanaugh.
The first batch was dense and...acidic. The intense, almost acidic flavor was obviously due to my very potent starter paired with the standard amount of commercial yeast we used at The Bakery. I talked to Cameron and we agreed that to get a wider, more open crumb (more holes in the bread) I needed to use a wetter dough, and proof (rise) more. This second batch had a perfect crumb, but what unfortunately was under-baked and since I forgot to slash it prior to baking (which leads me to my next point - don't drink and bake) it split down the side and that also probably contributed to how moist and borderline gummy the crumb was, since there wasn't much release for the steam. I also eye-balled the amounts of everything since I was using only my starter this time and not any commercial ADY. As a result, I under-measured the salt because I was afraid of the detrimental effects on my starter-only bread, since salt can kill yeast easily. So my resulting bread loaf was gummy and underflavored - a result of undercooking, not slashing, two little salt, and not letting it proof enough before baking to develop flavor.
I believe that using one tsp of commercial ADY will help my bread develop the CORRECT amount of flavor (neither too strong, nor too plain) as well as walking away from the proofing process and getting out of the house so I'm not so tempted to shape then bake too early and loose crumb and flavor.
SO excited! Am making the Hubby two loaves of Challah tonight - all ADY though; I don't have a Challah w/starter recipe, though I think it would be fun to work on one, since Kavanaugh is so prolific that's he's starting to take over the kitchen.
Can't wait to try again and post Part Two!!

Probably Watching Too Much TV

Whew! A lot has happened! I hope to be using the blog a lot more - this and my other one.

SO! Chris and I have moved to Santa Barbara - 390 miles from my sleepy hippy farming town. I miss my friends and my family and my perfect pastry job but I'm adapting fairly well. I JUST got a job after about a month and a half but I haven't started working yet. I'm hoping that when I do, I'll be less apathetic about everything and that I'll watch a LOT less TV (Cats 101 just having finished at Big Cat Diary just beginning).
We cleaned the apartment very nicely today as my Dad and my little brother John are coming for a visit tomorrow on their way to see Dad's parents who are vacationing in Palm Desert. I'm really excited to see them but I wish I could see my mom too. Hopefully I'm going home the weekend of the 28th and I'll see Mom and Grandma and Cameron and Yaya then. I have multiple Dr's appointments to do then and I wish I had started working sooner so I could ask for a three-day weekend. I have to get some blood work done but maybe I can ask my dr to delay it for two weeks. It would be hard to put off going home, but I might rather go home when I have time to see everyone I want to see.
Hopefully I start working soon and we don't have have to choose between food and laundry!! :-p

ARGHHHHH!!!!

BLURG!





(Where the frak did I get that phrase!?)

Job 1 & Job 2

I don't know what I was thinking, really. A full-time job + a part-time job + part-time school + attempts at a relationship... = insanity.

Oh yeah - Chris and I are dating again...wish me luck. :-)
Yesterday I went on a big, four-mile hike on my property...some really beautiful pictures came of it. And one very tired 'me'. I was glad to have done it though - exercise is good...I think I'm going to need it to clear my head and keep me healthy with this second job. My first night was five hours. three of which were on my own :-p
I'm working reception at a swanky hotel here in town - beautiful rooms with fireplaces and hand-sewn quilts. I love that hotel, but it can be deadly boring. At least at the bakery I can have the radio on to a volume where it distracts me...at the hotel, that's exactly what's NOT desired. But in addition to checking in the three rooms 'on the books' for tonight, I rented two other rooms to passers-by. One at the full, weekend rate (shhh... poor customers only know what I tell them. In this case - the room was $130. :-p) and the other at the sad, week-day rate PLUS his AA discount, which came to $90. The first guy was AAA too, so he was $117. All total I made the hotel $207, and she pays me $85 so it's alright. Plus the other $310 from the already-made bookings brings it to $422 in profits. Tomorrow I'm at the bakery all day - Wednesdays have been going more quickly with Cameron and Paige there. I'll miss Lindsay, though. She left this past Sunday to begin her new life as a freshman at Uof O. Tear! :'-( She was a great employee...and we'll lose our other great, young employee to Northridge College later in July... I guess they DO have to grow up, but I DON'T have to like it. *pout!
Posted is the view of my small town from the highest point on my property..and I'm pretty sure the highest point in town.
-A

Darling You Send Me

So I was on Prednisone for awhile for my asthma, excema, and allergies and while I was on it, everything was great - I had a little bit of allergy issues but the rest was GONE! And now I've been off for about a week and my life is shot to shit again. The inside of my elbow is currently broken out into big, angry hives as my face was earlier. My most persistent patch of excema is back on my hand and my allergies have me tired and worn out. I really hated Prednisone and I SO don't want to go back onto that stuff. I was hoping my Dr had some new ideas. I guess the only way to find out is to email him, but I'd hate to get a response that that's my only hope.

My friend Wesley's wedding was Sunday she (yes, she) looked so beautiful and everything went off without a hitch! I can't WAIT to see the photos! I wish I could remember the photographer's last name!!! I just did a few searches online and can't seem to find it.

My ex is in Norway and largely, I'm happy about that; I want him to be able to see his family etc but I definitely wish I could be there!! Plus he's being ambiguous enough to suit him while being direct enough to placate me as to what choice he's making regarding the purchase of a certain cow vs. getting the milk for free. So we have a date set up for when he gets back. I think a lot of things hinge on the next three weeks...

A guy I thought was into me was apparently being polite... the second I mention to somebody that a guy I like is emailing me and planning to come see me, I see neither hide nor email from him. I always seem to jinx myself like that. Oh well. I should really get thin again before I try any rondezvouz with anyone new.

God even my scalp has hives. I should probably get that taken care of before I meet someone new, too. Foreplay: "Rub this cortisone all over my body" Erm...no thanks.

Besides (Mella might kill me here) I don't actually WANT anybody new......

Probably not the Best Way

I've become uber addicted (again) to 'Heroes'. Now, specifically, it's Justin Baldoni (um, yum?) ---->
who plays Claire's love interest Alex in season III. And there's Adrian, and Sendhil, and Milo with his crooked mouth. But alllll these boys have one thing in common - that which they are not: Zachary Quinto (Um, super yum!?). Of course its all well and good and exciting that he was cast as Spock in the remake of....something Star Trek related. But SciFi bimbo that I am, I can't get behind the blue people and the pointy-eared people and the Beaming. I CAN however get behind another excuse to watch Z.q. as my finite number of episodes of season 3 is waning. Isn't there a blue guy in star trek? He looks vaguely Japanese, and 100% sad. Who am I thinking of? *Shrug. Dunno

Back to reality -

I'm on prednisone for allergies and asthma (told you - I'm a dork) and this shit makes me dizzy, tired, confused....so many things all at once. I wish I could sleep through the 15 day cycle - work is unbearable like this. Time seems to crawl and then all at once its over and I can't remember the entire day - including anything I may have talked about. The up-side is that my imagination, my Day-Dream-Drive, is in over-time and I dream of scenarios in which I charm the pants off Z.q. - Literally. Which in itself is not a problem. And I happen to think that Justin Baldoni will join the ranks tonight. Also not a problem :-p
It COULD be problematic that I plan on watching WallE as I fall asleep and if a cockroach named Hal interferes with my becomming Mrs q in my dreams.... so help me Andrew Stanton I will kick some ass on Emeryville.

(<------Quinto)