Music to Bake By, Baking to Sing By

Night three of Baking Marathon '05. On Sunday evening, I made four of a recipe that will remain nameless since one or more people who will be receiving the results may read this. These . . . things contained milk that needed to be heated to a certain temperature, so I used my candy thermometer. When I was cleaning up, I discovered that the glass surrounding the actual thermometer was broken -- some chips of glass were missing. Since there was no way of knowing if the shards were was lodged in my freshly baked items or had ended up in some previously baked good -- years ago? -- or got washed down the drain, I couldn't in good conscience give these products to loved ones. So into the trash went all four, and I started from scratch again last night with a new thermometer. I finished up that recipe just now, with a full complement of six of said (or rather unsaid) item.

No big deal -- I consider it part of the process. Last year at this time, I had to throw out two or three loaves of bread that didn't rise no matter what I did. As I type, the next recipe on the agenda is sitting mixed and waiting for its turn in the oven.

I really enjoy this time in the kitchen. I brewed a pot of tea and put on Mahalia Jackson's Silent Night: Songs for Christmas (on vinyl, which somehow seemed just right). Her powerful, slightly spooked-out gospel voice survives even the obligatory bland 1950s choir that strong-arms its way into every song. I'm now listening to perhaps my favorite Christmas album, Emmylou Harris's bluegrass-tinged Light of the Stable. (Mine is on cassette, a format toward which I have no emotional attachment -- it's just all I happen to have this album on. The remastered version on the link here contains three additional tracks. Must . . . replace . . . tape.) The title song -- with backing vocals by Neil Young, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt -- is transcendent. I can listen to it over and over.

See, I don't like only carols I grew up with, despite what my December 12 post may have implied to some; Emmylou's album didn't come out till 1979, the year I graduated from high school, and I didn't become a groupie till years after that. New versions -- even new songs -- are fine, as long as they add to the canon and don't just repeat, desecrate, or simply aggravate.