What We Do, Week of 2024-12-16

A quick first effort at getting into a weekly recap groove… this might be a bit messy as I’m still playing with formatting in this template.

The first half of the week was all about wrapping up grading; I literally don’t know where Monday and Tuesday went.

Here are a few other things that happened this week:

Books

Finished:

• John Demos’s outstanding The Unredeemed Captive (1994). A narrative exploration of the history of Eunice Williams and her New England family in the early to mid-1700s.

  As a child, Eunice was captured by the French and their indigenous allies and ultimately incorporated into an indigenous Catholic community; she ultimately stayed with that group even after having the chance to return to her family. Demos very intentionally tries to tell this with a focus on narrative/storytelling without sacrificing scholarly attention and concerns.

  This was a terrific read that feels as fresh today as I am guessing it did when it was first published forty years ago. I’ll write something up about this soon.

Started:

• A collection of Sarah Orne Jewett’s stories, including her most well-known piece, The Country of the Pointed Firs. Read the preface of this particular collection - by Willa Cather no less! - and started the titular story today. Quite fun already.

Baking and Cooking

Not a ton of interesting baking OR cooking this week!

This week I baked:

• the herbes de provence/heart of wheat loaf that I showed off in the blog’s inaugural post…
• I’ve got a loaf of sourdough, with about 25% pumpernickel, currently tucked in for a long overnight bulk ferment — riffing on this King Arthur Pain de Campagne recipe.

But this coming week, there will be a bit more action, thanks in part to the holiday.

This coming week, I’ll make:

• Rose Levy Berenbaum’s Dinner Rolls (from The Bread Bible) — a holiday favorite, made many times.
• A streamlined cherry/almond panettone from King Arthur. We did a demo of the overnight panettone last week that was pretty successful — not as elaborate as a fully-throated, pasta-madre-started, two-dough panettone, but I figure we’ll work up to it.
• We’ll be making Samin Nosrat’s Big Lasagna from the New York Times to take with us for a holiday dinner - along with the dinner rolls - and possibly some sort of vegetable side. Or dessert. Or both…

Music

Very light listening week, too.

A few albums I enjoyed include:

• Anna Butterss - Mighty Vertebrate - jazz/improvisational music, bass-forward with notes of funk and minimalism.

  A favorite of the year for sure.

• Rebecca Trescher Tentet - Character Pieces - jazz/improvisational, big band (but not big band) and big sound, unexpected directions.

  This was a first listen.

• Common and Pete Rock - Auditorium, Vol. I - hip hop, hard lean toward boom bap.

  One of my favorite records of the year by one of my favorite MCs and one of my favorite producers. Keeps getting better with every listen.

• R.A.P. Ferreira - 5 to the Eye with Stars - hip hop, strong spoken word influence, beats range from boom bap to slightly avant.

  Top-notch outing from 2022, a bit more laid-back/reflective than some of his other LPs… “And I know epic poetry keeps the cosmos orbiting…”

Re: R.A.P. Ferreira, he dropped a new record via Bandcamp on Friday that I’m looking forward to checking out. Otherwise, was a pretty quiet new release day (typical for mid-December).

Need to move on to some other end-of-the-night tasks, but not a bad week!