December 19, 2004

• self-control

  I have just been making dough for pizza crust.  Doug likes pizza,
  and doesn’t like tomato sauce, so we’ve been planning to make pizza
  using an alfredo sauce, lots of cheese and several meats: 
  pepperoni, chunks of “breakfast” type sausage, slices of hot links with
  reindeer meat (’tis the season to eat reindeer, y’know), and
  hamburger.  He has no interest in vegies or fruit on his
  pizza. 

  I had been thinking it was about time to use up the wheat flour I’d had
  on hand when I stopped eating wheat two years ago.  Anyhow, I
  found some packets of yeast in the fridge with freshness dates in 1999,
  last century’s — the past millennium’s — leavening.  I think
  this was something Jono and Sarah left here at the time we moved into
  this place in ’98.  To my surprise and delight, it is still alive
  and active.  The sponge rose nicely in the bowl on top of the
  woodstove.

  I added the salt and oil then and the remainder of the flour and
  kneaded it in the bowl for ten minutes before placing it back on the
  woodstove to rise again.  What I did NOT do, and what motivated me
  to sit down here and boast a bit, was this:  I did not pinch off
  any of the lovely soft fleshy-feeling yeasty wheat dough and stick it
  in my mouth.

  Mama always told me that eating raw dough would give me parasites in my
  intestines.  Since mama told me many fibs and shared a lot of
  misinformation with me during her lifetime, I chose not to heed those
  warnings.  Now I know better.  I gotta tell you the stuff was
  tempting.  It isn’t just the taste, but the mouth feel of all that
  gooey gluten.  I’ve always preferred raw bread dough and pastry
  over the finished products.  But I battled systemic yeast
  infections for years.  I’m not going back there again by my own
  hand.

  See ya later, all.  I shall be back in a while, with another Christmas blog.

  

  • 8:28 pm
  • 2 Comments