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LittleBittern of Bliss
Apr. 16th, 2020 10:19 pmSnow was on the ground this morning again, and again faded away mostly before the end of the day. Just a few crystals remained in the darkest shadows. I was determined to go out, even though I hadn't slept very well. It was blustery and cold again, but not as much as yesterday, and there were occasional gleams of sun. At one point, I saw a swift shadow gliding over the ground, and looked up to see two beautiful hawks circling overhead. I think they were redtails, because I saw the sun shine through the tailfeathers of one, and it glowed with that beautiful russet color. They spiraled gracefully up and up, and I watched them until they were out of sight.
I made some experimental cookies today. I realized I had a stash of self-rising flour--which is just flour with chemical leavening agents already mixed in--and thought I'd try that for cookies, saving the more versatile regular flour for other baking, like bread. I also found a couple of chocolate bars that I thought were a bit old, and might be tastier if they had the benefit of being melted in the oven, so I chopped them up and added them to part of a bag of chocolate chips and put them in the cookies. They came out pretty well--a bit puffier than my usual, due to the flour having a larger proportion of leavening in it than I'd normally use. The chocolate additions were entirely successful. Perhaps too successful, because now I want to eat them!
We found a new dementor-repelling thing to watch, in the form of the BBC 2008 version of "Sense and Sensibility," which for some reason I never saw before. I'm enjoying it very much. In some ways, it's better than the movie--more faithful to the original, I think--although nobody can match Alan Rickman's Colonel Brandon. The coastal scenery is beautiful. Although "Pride and Prejudice" is my favorite, I think "Sense and Sensibility" reveals Austen's genius of characterization even better.
I made some experimental cookies today. I realized I had a stash of self-rising flour--which is just flour with chemical leavening agents already mixed in--and thought I'd try that for cookies, saving the more versatile regular flour for other baking, like bread. I also found a couple of chocolate bars that I thought were a bit old, and might be tastier if they had the benefit of being melted in the oven, so I chopped them up and added them to part of a bag of chocolate chips and put them in the cookies. They came out pretty well--a bit puffier than my usual, due to the flour having a larger proportion of leavening in it than I'd normally use. The chocolate additions were entirely successful. Perhaps too successful, because now I want to eat them!
We found a new dementor-repelling thing to watch, in the form of the BBC 2008 version of "Sense and Sensibility," which for some reason I never saw before. I'm enjoying it very much. In some ways, it's better than the movie--more faithful to the original, I think--although nobody can match Alan Rickman's Colonel Brandon. The coastal scenery is beautiful. Although "Pride and Prejudice" is my favorite, I think "Sense and Sensibility" reveals Austen's genius of characterization even better.
