My joy in baking

Since Peggy was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, I’ve become quite excited about the possibilities of barely processed grains, and am going through every book I can find on the subject. I’m also buying things like sorghum, buckwheat, pot barley, and teff, grains I have never used.

I began baking yeast breads in the mid-seventies. My mother made yeast biscuits, but she never made yeast loaves, so I was the first person I knew to do it. A few loaves didn’t rise as much as I would have liked, but I didn't see fit to throw them out. Of course, the only whole grain I could buy in rural Mississippi was wheat flour.

Over the years, my baking interests turned away from yeast breads and toward whole grain crackers, biscuits and cornbreads. Biscuits and cornbreads were Southern staples that I had always made anyway, but crackers were entirely new and exciting, and appealed to me aesthetically and by virtue of their toughness (you could throw them against the wall without hurting them) and longevity. Peggy and I were traveling a lot at the time, and I would bake enough crackers for a two-month camping trip, and they would keep without refrigeration. My first recipe was for whole-wheat communion wafers and was given to me by an Episcopal priest. I baked them for the church until someone with throat cancer objected.

After fifteen years or so, the thought occurred to me that maybe I didn’t have to stick to the recipe so religiously, and I began experimenting with various oils, flours, sweeteners, etc. I discovered that it is really hard to muck-up a batch of crackers unless you burn them, Unfortunately, that is easy.

I’ve seldom baked a cake, rarely a cookie, and I only bake pies at Peggy’s insistence, but crackers, biscuits, and cornbreads have retained my passion. I eat the last two with molasses or sometimes maple syrup.

People who don't acknowledge others

A man with two white dogs just walked by. I’ve seen him almost daily for years. His dogs are longhaired yet always clean. He is in his forties, and has the build of a runner. He never makes eye contact, almost never speaks, and he and his wife are known for an unwavering coldness that easily turns to rudeness. The one time he spoke to me, Baxter—who was off-leash—ran up to his dogs to say hello. Bonnie was close behind. “If you don’t control your dogs, I will,” the man said. “Fuck you,” I retorted in the sure and certain knowledge that hurting my dogs would not bring anything good into his life. “That was constructive,” he replied, and walked on. Three years have passed. I had seen him almost everyday for at least the preceding seven, and I’ve seen him almost everyday since.

I feel more curiosity than hatred. Why are he and his wife so unfriendly that their neighbors refer to them as “those hateful people with the white dogs”? And how does he keep his dogs show room clean? Most of all, why does he never make eye contact?

There is another man in the neighborhood who I have seen almost everyday for fifteen or more years. He is bald, but hasn’t shaved in decades. He rides a cheap bike at walking speed, and collects cans and bottles for the nickel deposit. He is fit, clean, in his fifties, goes hatless in any weather, dresses simply, and appears intelligent; but he too never, ever makes eye contact. Are these men self-contained or just self-absorbed?

I think back to Harry, who I knew in college and considered the coolest, most self-contained person on earth. He too never made eye contact, and I rather wished that I was like Harry because, except for having a wife and child, Harry was like the lone drifters in Western movies. One morning, Harry shot his wife and baby girl as they bathed, and then shot himself. This made me doubt my ability to judge cool. It also made me wary of—and intrigued by—men who are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of others.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.

Behavior at the library, the rewards of kindness

I go to the library several times a week, and have consistently found its environs to contain the most insane, criminal, and otherwise desperate people in Eugene. Yesterday, a wild-eyed man leapt in front of my bicycle and screamed, but I expect such things and was not startled. Mostly I am invisible to the crowd, and am therefore free to look and laugh at their appearance and antics.

Today, a young and attractive woman inside the library laughed at me, and I knew why. I wore a helmet with a yellow rain cover; gauntlet-length yellow mitts hung from my neck; the right pant’s leg of my thirty year old trousers (I stocked up) was rolled halfway to my knee and secured by a rubber band (to protect it from the bike chain); my shoes were paint-splattered; and I wore no less than one sweater, one fleece jacket, one windbreaker, and one rain coat beneath which a large daypack protruded.

I remembered my own youth and how ridiculous I thought older people looked. I pitied them because I assumed they were so out of it that they didn’t know any better. Now I see that that they were exercising the very nonconformity on which I so falsely prided myself—my own attempt at individualism consisting of long sideburns and a sleeveless military shirt that I wore unbuttoned over my regular shirt. My friends were identically individualistic.

As there are always several people entering or leaving the library when I am, I usually hold the door open for someone. Older people are more likely to acknowledge my courtesy than younger, and women are more likely than men, but most pass without recognition.

Such discourtesy offends me as do the times people in cars cut me off on my bike even when I have the right of way. I know they do this intentionally because they hold eye contact as they await my reaction. Sometimes, I reward them with obscene words or gestures, but mostly I go my way as if they were ordinary road obstacles, which in a way they are.

"Once your have determined that your fellows are unprincipled buffoons, and that you yourself are nothing to brag about, why then should you be shocked and outraged by their bad behavior? Should you not instead exercise compassion, and thereby endure them as best as you can given your own pathetic nature?" Marcus Aurelius

Such thoughts are a great help. I attempt to treat people as if they possess every virtue, not because I believe they do, but because it is a way I can make the world a little better at no cost to myself. In fact, being kind infuses me with kindness.

Winter mountain biking

Often, during our trips to the woods, Peggy has wanted to hike farther or stay out later than I considered safe. Last Sunday, we biked five miles up roads so steep that she had to walk in places, often in dense, frost-laden fog. We are new to winter biking—in the woods, I mean, our bikes being our primary transport in town—and despite our efforts to dress adequately, our hands and feet were slowly getting colder. In addition, we were in an area unknown to us; it was mid-afternoon; and our maps were woefully inadequate. We had planned to do a loop, but we still hadn’t come to our turn, and we probably wouldn’t be able to tell for sure when we did come to it (most of the logging roads being either unnumbered or numbered differently than on the map). What’s more, we would have no way of knowing whether our turn was passable.

The decision to turn back was a no-brainer as far as I was concerned, so I was surprised when Peggy wanted to continue. I told her of my reservations and, after much discussion, we turned back. As we re-entered the fog, the chill factor increased dramatically, and its effect was heightened by the fact that we were going downhill. Despite the bad roads and having to go at schnauzer speed, we reached the van in less than an hour. By then, Peggy was in tears from the cold.

I had told her during our discussion that I felt badly about always being the naysayer. She said I should take comfort in the fact that we have always made it home safely. I do. A young and fit math professor disappeared three weeks ago during a day hike on Olallie Mountain, an area that we love. He left his extra clothes in his car, probably because the day was fairly warm and the hike only six miles each way. The search-and-rescue effort was scaled back to a search-and-recovery after a week, but when his guidebook was found, a renewed effort was mounted. No other trace has been found.

Every winter brings such stories, and every winter I ponder the suffering that is taking place somewhere nearby, somewhere that I love. Being just a little bit cold and disoriented when darkness is falling is such a horrible experience that I cannot imagine what it would be like to multiply that horror many times over and continue it to death.

I assumed that mountain biking would be much like mountain hiking but have found that it imposes entirely new challenges. For example, we can’t carry as much. We initially thought to wear our daypacks, but discovered that the extra weight on our butts was torturous, and that the high center of gravity was a safety hazard. I purchased large bike bags, but they are far smaller than our packs, so we take both, placing heavier items in the bags and extra clothing in our packs. Still, we are obliged to leave most of our emergency gear at home in favor of tools and an air pump.

Despite having taken a class, I’m largely ignorant of bike mechanics. Also, my Reynaud’s Disease is sufficiently bad that my fingers often turn white just from taking food from the freezer. So where does this leave me? I have neither the knowledge nor the physical capacity to repair a bike of any but the simplest malfunctions, and my bad knee would make it difficult for me to hike out over steep terrain. If we were not on a gated road, one of us could go for the van, but we usually are on gated roads, and I don’t like the idea of separating anyway.

Peggy was so miserable on Sunday that she vowed to give up cold-weather biking. Perhaps, she will, but I think it more likely that we will carry even more “extra” clothing, and that I will learn more about bike mechanics. If the latter doesn’t help, at least it won’t hurt.