I’ve tried to get off their list …

I have little to report today.

It was my “day off” — a Tuesday, no teaching, just dissertation work … supposedly. February 13, the day before my least favorite Hallmark Holiday of the year. My colleagues and I have discussed it a bit, and we mostly agree that we really only “celebrated” it when we had to in elementary school, when we had to fill out cards for every student in the class. This was not a bad requirement, we realized — without such a mandate, the unpopular students would have received few if any cards.

The point of celebrating it at all, though, still escapes me. You know there is something wrong with it when you talk to friends who have significant others, and, for the most part, they are thinking of ways not to celebrate it — or, as one recently said, get out of it.

As if it’s an unwelcome obligation, and by “getting out of it” you are also circumventing the rules. A type of guilt is associated. For twenty years, however, I have not celebrated it, and for most of those I have barely thought of it.

Today I went for the no-knead bread posted at the NY Times back on November 8, 2006. Google “no-knead bread” and you’ll find it, along with a zillion blogs. Foodies everywhere have been wetting themselves over this simple recipe. It’s pathetic — the response, that is — but I felt a desire to bake the bread myself, so last night around one in the morning I started it, and this evening I took care of steps 2-4.

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery

Time: About 1.5 hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

Directions:

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1.5-pound loaf.

My loaf came out well, if a bit flat. I could have perhaps let it rise a bit longer near higher heat. It is tasty, not too yeasty in flavor, and the texture reminds me of European white breads of all sorts.

“It’s so simple a caveman could do it” — well, except then I’d have those poor Geiko cavemen on my case. I’m finishing up Fforde’s Something Rotten, which features some sympathetic cloned Neanderthals.

As for the subject line of this “blog” — years ago I somehow managed to get on an email list for all the folkies in this city. It likely happened due to a Marta Sebestyen concert — and if you have a chance to see her and/or Muzsikas live, you really owe it to yourself to do so. I tried to unsubscribe from the list before, but it has never worked. Now I just ignore their emails for the most part. I’ll pass along information about an upcoming concert or two, though:

Debut appearance of internationally renowned ensemble VERETSKI PASS
Saturday, February 17
8 pm, Morphy Hall, Humanities Bldg (455 N. Park St., Madison, WI)
This concert is FREE and open to the public.

With unique arrangements of old folk tunes and new compositions, Veretski
Pass carries on the tradition of eastern Europe’s village musicians, with a
recognizably Jewish sound. The group takes its name from the Veretski
mountain pass in southern Ukraine through which many emigrating Jews crossed
on their way to new homes in the Carpathian basin. Those numerous travelers
influenced the music of the region, and those influences and more can be
heard in the trio’s repertoire.

And:

Yid Vicious & Friends — 11th Anniversary Spectacular
Friday, February 16 — 8:00 pm
Mother Fool’s Coffee House
1101 Williamson St. (Madison)
$5 admission

Yid Vicious, rambunctiously turning eleven years old, plays klezmer, and
klezmer music is good for you! Yid Vicious will double its firepower, joined by extended family members including Anna Purnell (vocals/trumpet), Ariella Bohrod (keyboard), Bob Jacobson (trumpet), David Austin (trumpet), David Spies (tuba), David Kantor (clarinet), Jon Pollack (percussion), Matt Appleby (guitar), and unpredictable drop-ins.

Fans are advised to get to Mother Fool’s early, before the band’s sheer mass absorbs the best seats.

I would like to go to both, but won’t. I might make it to the Saturday one, but on Friday evening we’re celebrating Mike’s 29th birthday, and even though Mother Fool’s will be close both to me and to where we’re going, I’ll miss out. For those in the neighborhood, though, I recommend it. I’ve heard good things about Yid Vicious.