Today I came up for air from this crazy novel-writing escapade long enough to bake a loaf of bread. Jim has not complained at all about my being stuck at the computer all night every night typing away. In fact, now that I think about it, he seems quite cheerful about rarely seeing me.
But he has complained, in an increasingly bitter tone, about not having fresh bread. Since I hit 18,000 words yesterday, I thought I could bake some bread. Nothing fancy, though. I remembered I've been meaning to try the recipe on the King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour bag, and when I read the directions, I saw that it was just dump all the ingredients in a bowl, mix them, let the dough rise, shape it, rise again, and bake. Simplicity itself.
I've found that I prefer a mixture of whole wheat and other flours instead of straight whole wheat, but the King Arthur bread is a pretty decent loaf of bread. We both had two slices while it was still warm (and it's hard for warm bread to be bad), and I had some toasted for breakfast. Tonight, I'll use more for grilled cheese sandwiches.
In my novel, the main character, who's a vegetarian, goes into a restaurant called Sir Beef, looking for the owner, who may or may not turn out to be a bad guy. The only thing she can eat on the menu is a grilled cheese sandwich. Since she's also kind of a food snob, she talks them into adding some sliced tomatoes and fried onions to her grilled cheese. That sounded good to me, so I decided to try it myself, along with some soup that doesn't take more than about five minutes to put together.
I'm hoping to get up to 22,000 words today. I need to get ahead so I can take Thanksgiving off and go to Chicago for a couple of days at the end of the month. If I could manage to get up to the magic number of 50,000 by Thanksgiving, I'll tell you what I would be thankful for: I would be very, very thankful that I was no longer writing this damned novel.
10 comments:
Marie,
I used that very same whole wheat recipe as the basis of my whole wheat recipe! I did a few adjustments, including the same mix of flour (like you I thought the all wheat was bit more than I like).
Good luck on getting to the 50,000 word mark!
You're back...kinda. As usual the bread looks divine.
Jim will be thankful you have more time for breadmaking and Thanksgiving pies.
wow, good luck with the novel! the bread looks so clean-cut! lol!
Breadchick,
Thanks for the good wishes. Yesterday I passed the 25,000-word mark, which makes me feel that I will get it done. My chapter today will just have my heroine making raspberry brownies while she ponders what she's learned so far--I'm actually looking forward to writing that chapter.
The bread is a nice basic bread, isn't it--and so easy to mix up. But I think I'll try substituting bread flour for part of the whole wheat next time.
Melinda,
We're actually going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving this year because I announced that I could not devote two writing days to making dinner. No pies for Jim until after Thanksgiving is over.
Pinknest,
This bread is positively Eagle Scout-ish.
wow marie, you are really doing this novelicious thing.....i used that term because of course you couldn't avoid a foodie as a protagonist. i am quite impressed and vow to attend the first local reading of your best seller. :)
Jini,
No, you're right--I couldn't avoid food. I told the woman I based the character on (loosely) that I had turned her into a baker. She was impressed with herself for baking the Greek cookies.
The best seller thing....let's just say you may have a long wait.
hey, have a bit of confidence marie! you DID bake 82 kinds of bread in a year, you DID survive the re-do of your kitchen, you ARE writing the great american novel. practice saying that!
Jini,
Okay--that will be my new mantra!
Lots of good wishes your way for the novel...it sounds exciting enough already!
Thanks Nabeela--I'm almost at 30,000 words, so I'm beginning to think that I might finish it.
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