Originally uploaded by anthony doyle

Actually, listening to Kate Miller-Heidke, especially in smaller scale concerts where, in fact, the audience is so spellbound that you can hear a pin drop, turns me into a hyperbolic, gleeful mess. But that IS the song’s title and the dance that goes with it is rather amusing.

Just spent the last few days up in Hepburn Springs, about ten minutes from Dalesford and an hour and a half from Melbourne. I went–with the patient and obliging L, who let me drag her all over the place as I traispsed through childhood memories–mostly to see the KMH gig, and was not disapointed. My photography, on the otherhand: disapointing.

(here’s ONE that I quite like):

I’ve always loved live music. I’ve always loved music, almost obsessively requring some combination of beat and lyric (and, preferably, a cascade of piano) to get through my day, mad as that sounds. I love live gigs, the force of a bassline hijacking my spine and breath so that, when the perfomer gets it right, I am, briefly, sound and pressure. Kate, even before listening to her songs became near-synonymous with all that is beautiful and sweet and funny, glorious and mundane, all that istwisted and poignant, and heartwrenching, about loving the alternate lexographer was a singer that took me out and upward, so I had no breath, and a heart that skipped so much that a new beat was formed from scratch. This gig–a full acoustic set at The Palais , with only Keir Nuttall accompanying on guitar and occasional ridiculous backing vocals–was almost as wonderful as the first time I heard Space They Cannot Touch on the radio and knew that yes, there were, sometimes (just sometimes), words for how I felt Ali. They weren’t my words, but they were perfect, and all I wanted to do was share them.

I still feel the same way. Especially now, when–although at a gig out in the country at twenty-three, rather than doing my homework in a now-demolished bedroom at seventeen–I can only share in degrees, with delays, what I wish I could simply pass on with a kiss, a look, hands held in the blackness beneath stage lights.

I’m sure it exists in Melbourne, but I have yet to find the right bakeries, and in the end my cravings for it overcame a long fear of any breadmaking that didn’t result in pizza bases. For years, while I’ve managed to produce more than half decent pizza from scratch,  I have also tried rolls and twists and loaves. These have uniformly become baked objects that, in a flagging world, might stand in as currency. Or shotput.

What changed this, it seems, was challah. More particularly, it was Deb’s challah, from the inimitiable Smitten Kitchen. (Seriously. This site is incredible. Go just for the food porn.)

Deb’s bread making tips are invaluable (short, warm risings? Leave a lot to be desired) and, while the results of my first challah were surely not the most professional to be seen–I can’t even braid my own hair, let alone heavily enriched bread dough–it was still delicious, consumed by my Hoard of a family in a matter of hours, and was a transformation from this:

to this:

So, as the first food post for this blog, I’d like to share the slightly adapted recipe.

Time: about 1 hour, plus 2 1/2 hours’ rising
Yield: 2 loaves

1 1/2 packages active dry yeast (1 1/2 tablespoons). Also known as instant yeast.

1/2 cup sugar + 1 tablespoon extra

1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for greasing the bowl

5 large eggs

1 tablespoon salt

8 to 8 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used a relatively high gluten baker’s flour)

1/2 cup raisins per challah, if using, soaked for 30 minutes in hot water (one tablespoon sherry added to the water is optional)  and drained

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and the 1 tablespoon of sugar in 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.

2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading.

3. Turn dough onto a floured surface, knead until smooth. This will take about ten to twenty minutes by hand, depending upon the weather and the amount of rage you’re feeling that day. If you can stretch the dough out thin before it tears, it’s ready.  Clean out bowl and lightly grease with olive oil, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a draught free area for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. (Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off.)  Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warmish place for another half-hour.

4. At this point, you can knead the raisins into the challah, if you’re using them, before forming the loaves. Place loaves on baking tray of choice.

5. Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either freeze breads or let rise another hour.

6. If baking immediately, preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius (that’s 375 to you Americans) and brush loaves again. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking.

7. Bake in middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden. (If you have an instant read thermometer, you can take it out when it hits an internal temperature of 87.5  [190-f] degrees, according to Deb. I, sadly, lack such gadgetry) Cool loaves on a rack.

8. Consume. Pour self a drink.

…past the tops of trees.

There were always photos to go with that poem

blanks waiting for word-fill, words fall

and fail, the landscape still and endless

an ocean without depth perception

blanks waiting for word-fill, words fall

away at the drop, past the tops of trees

an ocean without depth perception

Death perception on my tongue, after a slip.

Away, at the drop, past the tops of trees

Birds curl and cry and cringe, aware

Of death—perception on my tongue, after a slip

Just the tip of something others seem to see

Birds curl and cry and cringe, aware

And unfailed, the landscape still and endless

(Yet just the tip of something the others seem to see):

This. And this, and this, and this.

Cheers,

Rose.