eat | bagels

so i have this obsession. 

with bagels.

the chewy, denseness of a bagel drives me insane. and the cream cheese. jesus christ! i won't even get into that...

unnaturally, i needed to make some for myself ever since my obsession began earlier this year during our bike tour. since we are guided by zero waste living, i haven't been able to get myself to buy bagels because they usually come in a plastic (non-recyclable) bag. so months ago, i said i would make my own and i've finally gotten around to it. 

i looked around briefly for a recipe and found chow's and trusted it rather immediately for one reason: because they did the work by "baking nearly 100 bagels"... and they're "confident that [their] recipe produces the best in the west." awesome! i love their confidence.

the first time i tried the recipe, i rushed the process. the bagels came out a little...how do you say...small and overcooked. the flavor was nice, but the experience of biting into a chewy bagel was lost. and that's at least 50% of the experience. below is chow's recipe, but structured and written in a way that made a little more sense to me.

step-by-step instructions

step 1

ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of water (100°F-105°F); 2 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast

place water in measuring cup and dissolve yeast, put aside.

step 2

ingredients: 4 cups of bread flour; 2 tbsp malt syrup; 2 tsp of salt; 4 tsp granulated sugar

combine and mix these ingredients together. then add the yeast mixture until the dough is "stiff, smooth, and elastic." since i do this all by hand, it takes about 8 minutes or so, to incorporate everything. i found the dough will be dry and somewhat stiff when it's ready for the next step.

step 3

shape the dough into a ball, place it into a large oiled bowl (i drizzle a little canola oil into a stainless steel bowl), and roll it around to coat the dough ball. cover the bowl with a damp flour sack and let it rise for about 20 minutes (i put the damp cloth right on the dough). place the bowl in a warm place in your home. after this first rise, it should be "noticeably puffy and spring back when you poke it." 

step 4

prepping your station

• heat oven to 425°F (or 400°F in a convection oven) and place a rack in the middle of the oven. 
• get something (a pot or shallow pan) that will hold about 2-3" of water and bring it to a boil. reduce it to a simmer and cover until the bagels are ready for their hot bath.
• use a silicone liner (to reduce waste) and place on a baking sheet
• set a metal cooling rack on another baking sheet, near the simmering water (you'll put your bagels on it after you fish them out)
• get a small bowl of water ready for making bagels

step 5

get the risen dough on a clean and dry surface. divide it into 12 equal pieces. (i cut mine with a serrated knife.) place the dough pieces under that same damp cloth to keep it from drying out. 

step 6

get one dough chunk and roll it out to about 9 inches. moisten the two ends, overlap them, and press to join. (i found i needed to shape the ends so they form one cohesive uniformed circle.) widen the hole the size of a quarter. place it back under the damp cloth and let it rise for about 10 minutes. it won't get a ton bigger. repeat to the rest of the dough chunks.

step 7

by the time you're done with the 12th one, your first few will probably be ready to go in for their bath. stretch out the dough to maintain a hole (the size of a quarter). then place 3-4 into the simmering water. (you will likely need to raise the temperature of the water to maintain a simmer.) let them bob around for 30 seconds on each side. fish them out and place on the cooling rack. i used my iphone timer to help keep track of time. 

(ps. the oil in the pic below is remnant of the oil from the first rise.)

step 8

ingredients: 1 tbsp water; 1 egg white; toppings of your choice

whisk together the water and egg white and brush the egg wash all over the bagel. then, (the fun part), sprinkle with toppings of your choice. i used coarse sea salt and sesame seeds. 

step 9

place bagels on the lined baking sheet about an inch apart and bake for ~20-30 minutes. but rotate the pan after 15 minutes. (if you have a convection oven, you do not need to do this because the heat is even.) i highly recommend keeping an eye on your bagels to determine when it's time for them to come out. when it's a beautiful caramel color, it's ready!

step 10

cool down for ~30 minutes. i guess this is for letting the bagel continue cooking internally and for the outside to form a chewy crust. then EAT!

(ps. i forgot to widen the hole the second time, before boiling, so the holes....disappeared. oops!)

i never thought i'd make my own bagels, but they're pretty easy, fun, and tasty. definitely worth a try. thanks to chow.com for all their experimentation, so we don't have to. 

time for a bagel!!

zero waste home adventures: 3 months strong

before we left on our bike tour this past may, we had a mad load of things to do that we waited to do until the last hours of the day. one of those things included a visit to the disposal site (aka: dump). 

you guys, with our zero waste efforts, we were able to go for THREE MONTHS without taking out our trash! originally, i was aiming to double our first feat of one month without taking out the trash, so going for three months was a pleasant surprise. our next challenge is to go six months without having to take out our waste! *gulp*

the dark mystery man pictured here is samuel. i told him to smile holding our bag of waste, late at night in the freezing cold (i think there were snow flurries earlier), before we had to drive one hour to bozeman where we'd sleep for a couple hours before heading to the airport. please remind me not to procrastinate next time. but huzzah for minimizing waste!

month 10: you are the best friend i didn't know to ask for

dear samuel, 

we were swarmed by mosquitoes, snow/slushy iced out of cedar lake, and scared by an adorable mouse (not we, me) when we arrived home.

we hosted six warm showers guests in a week, had dear friends over, i went on my first horse pack trip and you got your favorite: alone time. 

we flew to seattle and you officiated your first wedding for one of your best friends, took a train down to bend, then shasta, and finally to the bay for our first trip back together since we moved. and what a whirly trip of lots of amazing food and friends. it was incredibly stimulating and super fun to see you in so many different contexts. 

i loved experiencing you being your witty and hilarious self with people all along the way. i felt impressed by your level of inquiry and honesty as we interacted with friends. i was so proud of your leadership and excellent officiating skills at zack and sarah's wedding.

you are such a stud! do you know that?

i love being steeped in our exploration of the life we are creating together. you're my soul mate, my life partner, my lover, and the best friend i didn't know to ask for.

here's to our first ten months and a thousand fold.

all my love, 

lizzy

month 9: over and over again.

my love,

we were on our bike tour during month eight, and although i had the best of intentions to write you a letter on my little iphone late at night while you were sleeping, sleep overcame my intentions and instead, i passed out after our ride from santa cruz to vets memorial park (day 32, i think). i like to believe my month 8 love letter was more live love letter from pedal to pedal. you get me? 

but what i would've told you was how much i admire how your love is new every morning. it's as if going to sleep fills your cup and (lucky me) it overflows into my life. i've been really touched by experiencing this part of you over and over. 

it's hard to believe nine months have already passed since we wed. let me recap (for my sake) what's transpired since we said i do. we pared down all of our combined belongings into one car, left the bay area and moved to montana in the dead of winter, we did the artist's way, learned to ski (me, just barely), made some new friends, entertained old friends in our new place, you learned how to bake and cook!, we went zero waste, learned to communicate with each other (and still learning), biked from canada to mexico, hiked up our drama queen sphinx, and a lot of wonderful little things along the way. oh, and i ate from the biggest pizza i've ever seen and you weren't there to participate! how ironic. 

we've seen each other at our best and at our worst these last two months and i feel like i've learned more about you than i ever have to date: when you need to recharge alone, what ticks you off, what energizes you, your totally weird quirks like saying "missoula" a thousand times in that accent of yours, the way you put me first, your flexibility and adaptability... 

i've seen you go from hesitating to put your needs out there, to being clear and open as you make your needs known. i've seen you go from being (or, complaining) in pain from cycling day in and day out to riding really strong for 92 miles! i've literally witnessed your confidence grow where once you slowly held your brakes all the way down a steep windy hill to taking them head on. and i've seen you transition from "i want to explore writing" to calling yourself a writer.

(remember this? you were blazing down this hill!)

you, samuel, have impressed me with your determination, your willpower and your loving softness of heart. i cannot be more grateful than i am now, to have a life partner in you.

what's next?!

!!!,
your buttercup

four lessons i learned about life while bicycling 1,973 miles from canada to mexico.

it's been over a week since completing our bike tour along the pacific coast. these are four leasons i've learned about life during 40 days of cycling: 

1. you get to define your own journey. 

my husband and i didn't plan on riding our bicycles for 40 days when we decided to take a year off to create a pause in our busy lives. we had imagined road tripping around the usa in our big ole ford expedition, nomadically driving our way from this place to that place. a bike tour never even crossed my mind. 

but the tour came about because i noticed that the seed planted years ago about doing an extended bike tour, had bloomed. it was time to pick it, so we did. we seized an opportunity to say "YESYESYES!"

i can easily say that this tour has forever marked my life. it's the craziest thing i've done to date, and yet somehow it was incredibly grounding. i think when we choose to live on the outer edge of our comfort, we experience clarity of self. this, this is freeing. 

our canada to mexico tour reinforced my belief that all of us get to create our lives, we get to live an epic story. we get to choose everyday the journey we want to define our lives.

2. you can never predict what'll happen next.

we had this book called "bicycling the pacific coast" (aka: the bible) guiding us through every day of this trip. it mapped how many miles to cycle, the difficulty, step-by-step turns, and descriptions of each segment. every night, we would read the next day's journey to help us prepare. 

as helpful as this book was, i hated it at times. it gave us just enough information to get us predicting what the next day would hold. bad mistake.

each and every day held their own surprises, challenges, and joys we could never have predicted. our "easy" days would be filled with surprising challenges like intense headwind and a "difficult" day might not turn out to be as hard as we expected. we were always surprised.

i learned over time that i had to approach each day, each moment with an open posture because literally anything could happen. and what turned out to be the case was that i would have a good day if i stayed open and accepting of everything that came our way, instead of resisting (aka: complaining) about what was not written in my book of predictions. 

imagine if each day was approached with openness to exactly what is, not what it ought to be. how much more joy and ease would we experience? 

3. you can conquer every gnarly hill.

some of the hills we had to climb were nuts (e.g. 4 miles at 7% grade up a windy two-lane shoulder-less highway). many times, we'd be coming down one hill only to see another monster one ahead. at first, all i could think was, "oh my lord!" and then brace myself for some major quad burning. over time, however, i realized the hills were never as bad as they looked from where i was. from afar, the hills always looked enormous. my perspective made it look that way. but it wasn't until i got up close that i could get an accurate sense of the challenge ahead. and then, i would simply put one foot in front of the next and pedal my way all the way to an amazing vista (profusely sweating and all)! sometimes, i would have to look at the road right in front of me or only 10 feet ahead so i wouldn't get overwhelmed by how much more i had to go. and you know what? i made it up every gnarly hill every single time, whether i could tackle it without stopping, had to be on my granniest gear, or took several breaks along the way. i made it each time. 

i have this tendency to get overwhelmed with fear about how HUGE something seems from my point of view. i'm afraid to even get near my story of fear. it's more comfortable to stand back and say, "it's too hard. it's too big. i can't do it... maybe i'll catch up on some shows," instead of getting up close and personal with my "hill" and see what it's really made of. 

right now, i've been dragging my feet  with a personal passion project because it seems so overwhelmingly big. i have a gift to see the big picture and to see what something could be, but i can also get paralyzed there. 

i've learned that even when a task at hand seems overwhelmingly unconquerable, the way i'll conquer it is to see a project for what it really is and then take one small step at a time. that is the only way i can climb my gnarly hills. (there ain't no escalators on the road.)

4. make unforgettable memories. 

the monk who helped us get up the last incredibly steep mile to camaldoli heritage said, "you'll never forget this," regarding our journey. i wrote about it on day 33, but i want to come back to this again because it has left such a strong impression on my mind and heart.

one day, if i am ever 80 years old scanning my history, i believe this specific journey will stand out like dolphin jumping in the ocean. i imagine i'll be taken to a special place of awe, inspiration, and fondness. i will not forget this trip: the time my beloved and i biked 1,973 miles from canada to mexico.

i want to live a life creating unforgettable memories that shape my life and the lives of those around me. memories that remind me of a life well-lived, a life well-learned.

day 41: encinitas to the mexican border

it was a slow start to our 50 mile day. we ate most of our leftovers and fueled up to zig zag through san diego. by the time we got out the door, it was already hot. eep.

the four of us decided to ride together today since it was our last (and because m&m were going to stay at my sister's place too, after all was said and done).

(typical meredith move) 

although 50 miles isn't a short distance, i felt like lingering today. there was little urge in me to pedal fast. i wasn't sure i felt ready to be "done." 

the nice thing about cycling is that it's a really nice pace to help with transition. not as slow as walking, but not as fast as flying. our arrival to the border felt well paced, well deserved. 

we stopped by la jolla's the living room for lunch, and saw our friends susan and michael, and then weaved our way through san diego's bicycle path maze. samuel did an excellent job of guiding all four of us to the border. and as we got further and further from the more popular areas of sd, the streets became more tame. it gave me the quiet i needed to just be there to be in my own disbelief of such a feat.

(green bike lanes are the best!)

meanwhile, all four of us tried to come up with a "trail" name as is popular in the thru-hiker community. meredith came up with "song" for me because she said i am someone writing my own song for my life. it really resonated with me and then it clicked!!! my trail name is "songbird" and it's been that all along. samuel gave it to me before we even started dating, and it only clicked now. my heart was thrilled to adopt a special name for my adventures. 

(our first "mexico" sighting) 

we arrived at the border to be greeted by samuel's dad who escorted us to the pedestrian entrance. we took plenty of photos to mark this enormous moment, and then...very simply...turned around and walked away. 

done. finished. complete. 

it's hard to believe that with every push of the pedal, from pain to glee, we cycled from canada to mexico. (i am still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.)

my sister picked us up and we miraculously packed four bikes and ALL our bags into her honda odyssey and drove ridiculously fast to her home in san marcos. (it would've taken us two days to bike the one hour we drove.) a korean feast was prepared for us by my sister and bro-in-law and we ate until we were more than satisfied.

we started as two and ended as an unexpected four. relationships strengthened and deepened. desires and intentions clarified. darker and more muscular than ever. more confident and humble than our first days of pedaling. and more full of awe. 

what a fulfilling journey indeed.