June 2015 – Into the Woods

Some doubts about the new “Poldark”

Ross Poldark and Demelza from the old 1970s series

I’m certainly not giving up on it after the first episode of the new “Poldark” was broadcast on PBS on Sunday. But I have some doubts about how well the screenwriter, the directors, and the cast really understand this story. I’m going to claim some standing to complain, because I’ve watched the old series from the 1970s many times. I’ve read nine of Winston Graham’s “Poldark” novels. I’ve even made my pilgrimage to Cornwall.

My biggest concern is that the new production is flirting with being a bodice ripper, aiming to capitalize on the success of the “Outlander” television series based on Diana Gabaldon’s books. (I’m aware that Gabaldon’s readers probably would not agree that her books are bodice rippers. I haven’t read them. But I did watch a couple of episodes of the American television production, and it sure looked like a bodice ripper show to me.)

Winston Graham was a different kind of writer. He certainly got involved in his characters’ personal lives, but romance was not really his theme. Nor are Ross Poldark’s relationships particularly romantic (though the new series is trying to make it seem so). There is never anything resembling real romance between Ross and Elizabeth. They bicker. They torment each other. But it’s not romantic. When Ross brings the young waif Demelza home as his kitchen maid, lice and all, that’s not very romantic either. One night some years later Ross gets exceptionally drunk, and …. But that, and Demelza’s confusion, are not very romantic. Nor is his marrying Demelza out of a sense of duty and responsibility very romantic — nor their struggle to make their marriage work with no social support, brutally hard times, Demelza’s temptations from the young Dr. Enys, and Ross’ going off to London after he was elected to parliament.

Graham does write very strong and complex women characters, but romance generally eludes them. The extraordinary Demelza character, whom the novels follow from the age of 13 to middle age, is a fine literary exploration of growth, complexity, and transformation. Elizabeth’s life is tragic. Verity, the embodiment of feminine modesty and virtue of that era, is too plain to be a romantic heroine, though she does find some happiness. The elderly and frail Aunt Agatha remains very much involved with life from her exile in an upstairs bedroom. Even the servant Prudie is a woman of many dimensions.

But “Poldark” is not a story driven by romance. Its themes are justice, inequality, social ossification, the rich, the poor, economic interdependence, the problem of aristocracy, the unfairness of life, the constant hope for a change of fortune. Winston Graham was a serious historian. I think that one of the questions that fascinated Graham was why France had a revolution (and nearly exterminated its aristocracy) while England did not. I think Graham’s answer to that question would have been: Because England’s aristocracy was decent enough (perhaps just decent enough) to not push the lower classes too far. There was no English equivalent of Marie Antoinette, no English version of Les Miserables.

One of the factors that makes “Game of Thrones” such extraordinary television is that the cast know their characters extremely well. I am wondering if the cast of the new Poldark have even read the books. I Googled for cast gossip in Britain (where the series has already been shown), and the gossip was pretty low-brow. If you watch the behind-the-scenes videos of the “Game of Thrones” cast, you’ll see that they love to sit around and analyze their characters. Whereas I get the impression from the new Poldark that the cast just parachute into Cornwall for a hasty shooting schedule.

I also question whether Aidan Turner knows his character very well (though it could be the director who is causing the problem). At times in the first episode, Turner’s Poldark comes across as mean or menacing, as though he struggles with a repressed demon. But Ross Poldark was not that kind of person. When Winston Graham’s Poldark was angry, it was almost always because of injustice or brushes with real wickedness (such as the wickedness of the Warleggans). The plot puts Ross Poldark’s man-of-the-Enlightenment character to every imaginable test.

Anyway, I hope I’m just being sentimental about the old series and that after a few more episodes of the new I’ll be hooked. It can take time for a cast to learn to work together. We’ll see.

Outdoor bagels

Making homemade bagels may seem daunting, but it really isn’t. It had been ages since I’d made bagels. Then it occurred to me that bagels would be excellent candidates for finishing off in a gas grill.

You can read various theories on what defines a bagel, including the use of barley malt in the boiling water. But, as far as I’m concerned, what defines a bagel is that they’re boiled before they’re baked. This boiling of the dough until the dough sets is what gives the bagel’s crust its “pull.”

Today’s bagels were a mixture of sourdough and yeast. The flour was about a third stone-ground whole wheat and two-thirds unbleached white flour. There are many recipes on the web (as well as YouTube videos) on making bagels, so I’d suggest starting with some Googling if you want to try it.

I really don’t think bagels are prone to failure. What happens when the dough hits boiling water is really more predictable than what happens when dough goes into an oven. Plus, bagel dough is not a delicate affair. A strong, less wet dough (which is easier to deal with) is fine for bagels. If the dough were too soft, you’d risk having it fall apart in the boiling water.

Managing them on the grill is a challenge, though. No spot on my grill seems to be exactly the same, so uniformity is a problem. I found myself frequently moving the bagels around to try to equalize their baking. Given that I had to shuffle things so much, getting perfect grill marks was out of the question.

The bagels were delicious. The crust was better than any bagel crust I ever had in San Francisco (which is not the best bagel city in the world). No one in his or her right mind would claim the ability to compete with New York bagels.

The rising is done, and they’re ready to boil

A bagel in boiling water

Brunch today was low carb — roasted onions and cabbage and a slice of vegan baloney — to help make up for bagels at supper.

After the daisies: black-eyed Susans

First outdoor bread

I was itchin’ to try the gas grill as a bread oven, so I made a loaf this afternoon. It was not perfect, but baking in the grill seems entirely manageable. And after some Googling, I see that plenty of other people also use grills for baking bread.

To add a margin of safety, this loaf was only about a third stone-ground whole wheat and two-thirds unbleached white flour. It was a mixture of sourdough starter and ordinary yeast, which has become a habit with me mostly because I like the taste. There was not much oven spring, but I have never been good at oven spring. Such oven spring as I got was not at the top of the loaf, where I had slashed an X, but around the edges.

My grill has a warming shelf several inches above the grill surface. I set my cast iron skillet on the shelf. To try to get some steam into the oven, I put a pan of water on the grill and let it come to a boil before I put the bread in the oven. The bread was still slightly too done on the bottom because of the high flame down there, but that was not a big deal. It didn’t burn.

The best part of this bread was its shatter-y crust — not a bit tough. There was a very slight whiff of flame in the taste, but not much. Here are some observations and some notes for the next attempts:

— Put the pan of water directly under the bread pan to keep the bottom crust from getting overdone. Use less water.

— Get a smoker basket and give the bread a teensy touch of hickory smoke.

— Throw an onion on the grill for the last ten minutes or so to give the crust a little roasted onion taste.

Overall, it was a fine little loaf of bread with a superb crust. I think there are two keys to getting a good crust. One, don’t use any oil at all on the dough either while it’s rising, or in the pan. Use only flour to prevent sticking. And two, get as much steam into the oven as you can. Steam is always the biggest challenge.

The normal failure of CFL bulbs

Note that the top of the base is slightly brown from heat, which may have occurred when the CFL failed. This is normal.

I happened to be standing right underneath a compact fluorescent bulb yesterday when it failed. It failed exactly according to the book: There was a quiet pop, about the volume of a single grain of popcorn popping, and the bulb went out. When I removed it and looked at it, the white base was slightly brown from the heat of the ballast failure. This was a completely normal failure in accord with the way CFL lamps are designed to work.

The bulb was one of four in my kitchen ceiling that light the countertops. The lamp was seven years old. It was one of the brighter types — equivalent to 100 watts of incandescent light at 23 watts power consumption.

Right-wingers who believe that any kind of energy conservation is a left-wing conspiracy have done everything possible to demonize CFL bulbs. A while back, a conservative friend on Facebook shared a propaganda post about how terrified some right-winger was when a CFL bulb made a popping noise and a blackish brown spot appeared on the base. If I hadn’t been home it could have burned my house down! said the Facebook post. Horse wash. Some of the earlier bulbs failed less gracefully, but they all eventually fail, and the failure is usually in the power supply. As the Wikipedia article on CFL lamps points out, one of the challenges of designing CFL lamps is designing in an inoffensive failure mode. And of course nobody wants to smell smoke. My CFL failure yesterday created no odor at all.

The power supply in the base of the bulb, by the way, is a small electronics board that first converts AC house current to direct current. Then transistors convert the direct current to very high frequency alternating current, which is fed to the bulb. It’s this circuit that normally fails, not the glass part of the bulb.

No one claims that CFLs are perfect. What we all want is cheap LED lighting with a natural sunlight color. We’re getting there.

You mean you can cook with fire??

My first primitive efforts at cooking with fire

The abbey’s back deck has been woefully underused in the seven years that the abbey has been occupied. This is because there was no furniture and no creature comforts. I had been on the lookout for deck furniture, but I never seemed to come across something that was simple, reasonably tasteful, reasonably durable, and reasonably affordable. Plus the projects list was always so long. And then today at Lowe’s hardware I came across a bistro set, on sale. I bought it. Then I went to a local store that had big umbrellas on sale. Suddenly the deck was furnished.

The temperature reached 96 degrees today. And yet I was extremely surprised to find the deck entirely habitable. The umbrella keeping the sun off, of course, made a huge difference. Plus, the woods are very close. If any breeze at all is stirring, cool air washes out of the woods.

As I sat at the bistro table drinking fresh-made lemonade and eating canteloupe, I realized that another dream was suddenly within reach: the dream of cooking outside with fire. I already knew the price of gas grills because I already had admired them at Lowe’s. The abbey is a small establishment. A modest two-burner grill would certainly do. And so back to Lowe’s I went.

I am a total novice at cooking with fire. My condo in San Francisco had a communal gas grill in the solarium on the roof, and I used it occasionally. But still I’m a novice. I didn’t really have proper roasting vegetables on hand, but I made do with potatoes, onions, and the last ear of the three-for-a-dollar Whole Foods corn.

Holy smoke! What is it about the primitive taste of fire cooking that speaks to our primitive natures? Was it Michael Pollan who called human beings “the cooking apes”? These covered gas grills are interesting devices. They can serve as ovens, and there’s a thermometer on it. It won’t be long before I experiment with baking bread in it — probably sourdough.

And on my next primitive trip to Whole Foods, I will certainly concentrate on roastable foods.

There’s a very practical side to fire cooking in this hot weather. It keeps all that heat outside the house.

Just as my roasted vegetables and veggie burger got done, a light rain began to fall. As often happens, the bulk of the storm went to the north. But a light rain and a refreshing breeze were making soothing ocean sounds in the woods, and the on-sale umbrella was keeping me completely dry at the on-sale bistro table.

I think I may spend the rest of the summer outdoors.

A bargain? At Whole Foods??

It’s extremely unusual to get a grab-n-growl bargain at Whole Foods. But I think the fresh corn yesterday, three for a dollar, qualifies. I suspect that anything that early and plentiful came from Louisiana or some such other place that has been getting all of our East Coast rain.

And the chickens sure do like to clean the cobs.

A bread for all seasons

I post about bread fairly often. It’s not that I eat a vast amount of bread. I probably eat less bread than most people. But I almost never buy bread, so, unless I bake it myself, there’s no bread in the house.

Hot weather is a challenge. I hate heating up the oven when it’s 90 degrees or more outside. The oven pours heat into the house that the air conditioning system then has to get rid of. So, it’s flatbreads to the rescue. Flatbreads can be baked, quickly, in a skillet. So the overall energy use, and therefore heat production, is lower. If you have an outdoor grill with a griddle, then flatbreads could be made outdoors in the shade. Flatbreads also would make good campsite bread.

Lots of cultures have flatbreads. Rather than calling them by a foreign name, why not just assimilate flatbreads into American culture and call them flatbreads. What defines a flatbread is that it’s not leavened. If it’s made from wheat (as opposed to corn), it will blow up like a balloon in the pan, forming two layers, each half of the starting thickness. I call this process “popping.” To be really good, flatbreads must pop. It will deflate, of course, after you remove it from the heat. But that’s OK, because the bread has split into two layers with a pocket inside.

To get your flatbreads to pop, you need a reasonably soft dough. The skillet must be hot. And you must roll the dough to the right thickness. If it’s too thick or too thin, it won’t pop.

All whole wheat flour makes a tough flatbread that, though good, won’t pop very well. Half whole wheat and half unbleached flour works nicely. The skillet must be hot almost to the smoking stage. There’s no oil in the skillet, or in the dough, so high heat is less risky. As for how thick to roll the dough, experience is the best teacher. The dough is just flour, water, and a little salt.

Flatbreads love to be lightly buttered while they’re hot. They’re great with summer curries and summer stews like ratatouille. If you’re new to flatbreads, practice your flatbread skills now, and you’ll be ready by ratatouille season. Flatbreads are also great with summer favorites like tuna salad or hummus.

A brief essay on day lilies

If you’ve seen one day lily, have you seen them all?

Not if you worked as hard as I did to get these started. They’re all individuals. I’d name them, like chickens, if I had time. They all are grandchildren of the 300 day lily sets that I planted here seven years ago. Their natural habitats are banks and ditches — places where you want to let nature run wild.

There’s something very sad about day lilies, though. They get only one day in the sun before they shrivel and die. And peak day lily season doesn’t last long.

“We Shall Not Be Moved”

There had been rumors of civil disobedience and disorder, so Stokes County officialdom was braced for that last night ahead of the meeting of the Walnut Cove town board. But, in the end, what the board got was a seriously serious tongue-lashing, followed by a packed house (plus 30 or 40 others standing outside and looking in the windows) singing “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Then everyone walked out.

The reason for the board’s tongue-lashing was its vote a month ago to hasten fracking in North Carolina by allowing the State of North Carolina (at taxpayer expense) to do core-sample drilling on town property, not far from a huge coal ash impoundment at Duke Energy’s Belews Creek Steam Station.

Here’s a link to a story in the Winston-Salem Journal.