bagels!!!!

so while browsing the book section at our local grocery store, rémy came across this lovely book. i flipped through it and fell in love. marc grossman, the author, is an american living in paris and the creator of bob's juice bar and kitchen (both restaurants in paris). apparently when he first came to france he missed bagels as much as i do & decided to do something about it. years of trial & error led to this fabulous book.

i highly recommend this book to anyone, although it is written in french. i'm not sure if there is an english version available, but with recipes it's pretty straight forward anyway.

i will not be sharing the amounts required, you've gotta buy the book for that. but i will show you the steps on my very own first bagel-making journey!

the ingredients:
the bagels: flour, wheat gluten, yeast, salt, tepid water, malt syrup or molasses, olive oil
for the baking sheet: corn flour, butter
for poaching: water, potato starch, malt syrup or molasses or brown sugar, salt
as garnish: poppy seeds, sesame seeds, garlic, onions, salt, whatever you want!

directions:
mix up the dry ingredients.
(flour, salt, yeast, wheat gluten)

mix up the wet ingredients.
(water, molasses, olive oil)

mix the wet into the dry.


knead, twist, pull, punch for a good ten minutes.


form ten even round little balls.


roll each one into a nice thick worm.




wrap it around your fist and gently pinch the edges together.
(if the dough is too dry, you might need to add a bit of water to make the ends stick.)

your rings should look something like this.

place them on a well-oiled sheet, cover them with a clean dish towel & let them rise for an hour or two, until they're about 80% of their final size.

add all the poaching ingredients to a big pot & bring the liquid to a boil.
plop a few of the uncooked, risen bagels in there. after a few seconds they'll float to the surface.

let them poach for one minute, then flip them over for 30 more seconds on the other side.

butter & corn flour a sheet of wax paper (which you'll use to cover the baking sheet).

garnish the still-wet-from-poaching bagels with whatever you fancy.

here we have (from l to r) natural, poppy seed, sesame seed.

and onion (top) & garlic (bottom).

preheat the oven, pop those babies in there & let them cook for 20 - 25 minutes,
until they're nice & golden brown.

ta-dah!!! my first attempt at bagels was a major success!!!

delish!

homemade plain bagels with homemade chive/coriander cream cheese.

rémy thinks they're mmm mmm good!

then we made delicious tuna melts.

after two giant bagel tuna melts, mateo was pretty satisfied.
(& might i add that mateo had never tasted a bagel before mine...)

too many bagels!


the next morning, a deliciously toasted homemade bagel with delicious homemade chive/red pepper cream cheese.

honestly, they take a bit of time (with the kneading & rising & poaching & baking & all), but they were SOOO much easier than i had expected and turned out absolutely fabulous. i fell in love with baking bread a few months ago, and i do believe i have just fallen even more in love with making bagels. it is so definitely worth it & i highly recommend giving it a try!

happy baking!

jusq'au bout du monde

We went to see a young couple speak in Beaumont last night about adventure cycling. Claudine Arnaud, 33, and Olivier Borot, 30, are in the middle of a three-year trip around the world on bicycle. They have completed the first of five very distinct legs of their journey, following parts of the Silk Road for seven months in 2009.

We chatted a bit with them after the talk. They rolled out their bikes with their gear for everyone to see. Rémy & I have the exact same bikes as them. The exact same bike racks on the back. The exact same mud guards. The same odometer. It was crazy. It felt like looking at exactly what I want to be doing at exactly this moment. It has started again, that flame, that slow burn that drives me to travel.


Of course their trip was different from the route we want to travel, and their budget much different from ours. They traveled by plane and train several times, as they will continue to do throughout their adventure. They stated that they often stayed in hotels, which we will most likely avoid. And this leg was much shorter than what we plan on doing throughout Eastern Europe and Asia. But the principle is very much the same. Leave on bicycle. Travel the world. Tell others about it.

Of course I spent most of this morning reading other bicycle adventure favorites, specifically Peter Gostelow's journeys. In 2005 he decided to return home to the UK from Japan, where he had spent a few years teaching English. His three-year 30,000-mile journey across 30 countries, is documented as A Long Ride Home, which he updated from the road. It is witty and engaging, incredibly clever, and his photos are simply stunning. Plus it covers quite a chunk of the countries we are planning on visiting on our own journey. He travels closer to our style; low-budget, lots of wild camping & pasta-eating with limited to no shower time.

He is currently back in the saddle, this time heading south across Africa. He is still in Europe for the moment though his days there are limited, as he should be reaching the Strait of Giblraltar any day now. This time his journey is not solely for the thrill of the ride; he is hoping to raise awareness (and funds) about malaria in Africa. One in five child deaths in Africa is directly caused by malaria. He is helping fund and distribute mosquito nets throughout his trip.

Which leads me to our trip. Almost two years in the making now, and set to take place in yet another three, we still have much work to do. Rémy & I have been trying to decide on a cause for our own journey. Originally it was to help organize, network and fund The Global Education Organization, a non-profit we were supposed to help set up with some friends. Unfortunately that seems to have come to a dead end, and we are back at ground zero. For the moment, all we really know is that Rémy wants to make a documentary about human relations, I want to photograph and write a book about our travels, and we need more money. We would love to add a cause, sponsors, newsletters and a valid webpage (ours is quite sad at the moment). It's still in phase one and I am itching to move on to the phase where we've already decided all the ground rules and really get to dig in. Hopefull we'll get there soon.

In the meantime, I suppose I'll just keep dreaming, researching, planning & reading other adventurers' tales. May their time in the saddle be worth their while! Happy riding!

(Other favorite's are anything by Willie Weir or Joe Kurmaskie, as well as The SolarCycle Diaries and Revolution Cycle, though there are many out there worthy of a glance or two.)

nous

we held hands
& the light was bright
too harsh
on my closed eyes.
and you kissed me
brushed my cheek
told me my scars were barely visible
& i knew you were lying.

i simply
cannot believe
that i have you.
that you will have me.
i keep waiting for the sun to fade this feeling
to wash you out
for the colours to change
wither & drop with the autumn leaves
but you are vivid
vibrant
and oh so alive.

if i touch you
at night
it is only to make sure
you're still real.

domesticated.

I have been quite the productive little homemaker of late, and I'd thought I'd share my latest cooking discoveries.

First I made a delicious blackberry pie with fruit from the farmer's market.

suffice to say, it went VERY fast...

Next Rémy & I invested in a bread maker and have made some delicious homemade bread. This here is multigrain.






I have also ventured into the realm of wine-making. Well, I've made an attempt at least. I won't know for 8 months to a year how it turned out, but I'm excited to see science at work!!! It's the coolest experiment I've done in a long time, and I'm learning a lot about how things work. Such as the fact that alcohol is just what's left over when yeast reacts with sugar. In the process it lets off a LOT of oxygen, hence the balloons (to keep the carafes from exploding).

these are my babies in a dark, cool cupboard on day two.
i wish i had taken a picture on day one because the color has changed completely.
i used fresh strawberries & white grapes, so the first day it was very pink.

up close you can imagine the strawberries, but the color has changed quite a bit.
yes, it's quite freaky looking for now, but it will eventually clear in a few weeks.

And last, but certainly not least, Rémy & I made homemade pasta yesterday!! It's really simple, actually. Just 1 egg for every 100g of flour. We rolled it out & cut out circles to make ravioli which we filled with mushrooms, eggplant, garlic & onions sautéed in Spanish olive oil. It was time-consuming, but I have NEVER in my life tasted ravioli so damn good.

all 52 of 'em.

as you can imagine, it took quite some time
to do this all by hand.

but boy was it worth it!

struck.

So I'm commentating a soccer match in Clermont last night. Arles/Avignon made the trip to our city to take on our team, and as I'm pedaling the half hour to the stadium I look to the skies to see if the weather report will hold true. Apparently there will be more ridiculously stormy weather - ceaseless torrents of rain with thunder & lightening that frightens even me, and I like thunder.

But at the moment the skies seem to be clearing. Not even the tiniest puff of wind and you can almost see blue peeking out in certain spots between the thinning clouds. Perhaps the ginormous umbrella Rémy and I just bought was unnecessary. Oh well, I think. Better safe than sorry.

As the match starts there are even small pools of sunlight dancing near the goalposts. I'm sitting behind the goalie for Arles, up in the top row of bleachers out in the open, at the mercy of the elements, and it looks like perfect weather for a game both for players and spectators. Especially on a beautiful grass field like we have in Clermont.

Fastforward to the second half. The ref barely blows the whistle to restart the match and I look to my right and see giant black clouds rolling in. And they're rolling in quick. I can suddenly feel a strong wind coming from behind me and can see the streaks of rain hazing the horizon off in the distance. I open my umbrella and try to concentrate on the game. As a commentator I am not allowed to lose sight of the field while the game is in play for even a second or I risk being penalized. Luckily my giant rainbow umbrella could probably fit a large Mormon family under it, so I was not worried at all about staying dry. Spectators started to file out of the area seeking cover, but I stayed put. I was determined.

Then the lightening started.



At first it was in the distance, but with rain that pounded even harder, the lightening began to strike closer and closer. I assessed the situation. Here I was, alone, at the top of metal bleachers with a giant umbrella in the middle of a thunderstorm. I felt about as smart as Benjamin Franklin with his kite & key. Was there anything else as tall as me? Yes. The giant lights for the stadium at each corner of the field, two of which were at either end of the bleachers I was sitting on. Good. At least it won't strike my umbrella, I thought.

As if mocking my assessment, a huge bolt of lightening suddenly struck from the sky, with earsplitting thunder shaking the entire stadium at the exact same moment. I could feel the electricity running through the metal rod of the umbrella, and didn't have to look to know that the lightening had struck the very light I had just been examining, a mere fifteen feet to my left. I shuddered and mumbled something incomprehensible to my contact on the phone. I. was. terrified.

I obviously was not killed; I was certainly not injured, but I was definitely marked. A few bucks is definitely not worth getting struck by lightening, and next time I don't think you'll find me counting so readily on luck.