this is how it all turned out.

right now the trees across the street are making lovely and still silhouettes against the western sky, which is peach and dusty pink and mauve and morning glory blue and indigo and beyond. the streetlights add to the overall orange-and-blue-ness, making our fresh piles of snow seem bright and dark and blue and warm all at the same time. in daylight, of course, they look like fondant-frosted cake, with miles and miles of giant frozen powdered sugar on the side. it's all quite toothsome to behold.

my naan turned out ok. it was and wasn't what i was hoping for. the directions weren't terribly explicit: it didn't specify how long to knead it, and i fear i worked mine too long, for they weren't as fluffy as i'd idealized them to be; no temperature was given, so i started off too hot and gradually worked down to a more workable heat; it didn't say to roll the naans with a rolling pin before brushing with water and cooking, which helped immensely. but the original recipe did call them "naans", which i also dearly love to say. [insert change of tense:] it rolls off the tongue and makes you want to say it again, brandishing poor grammar like a hot poker, because no one from your state has ever really heard of naan, or knows if naan is singular and plural or both, and it's dangerously fun and mischievous to feel so international and rule-breaking at once. [back to first person:] i say mooses sometimes too.

here's the finished product. i'm going to try it again sometime, hopefully with real homemade indian curry with lots of fluffy naans and a family whose tastebuds have significantly warmed to the idea of ethnic diversity in palate. actually, i'll probably do it regardless.

my artisan bread loaf number one turned out really well, although it was devoured before i remembered that i own a camera. it was a small loaf, so between lunch and dinner three of us finished it off. it's denser and moister [gotta love that word] than the ciabatta i usually make, but for being whole wheat bread, it's really good! i forgot to paint the top of my loaf with water, and to score it [i know, what was i thinking?], but i'll not be so careless tonight, and maybe get a nice photograph or two to boot. i am all about this five-minutes-a-day-gets-you-wonderful-fresh-soft-chewy-bread deal. and having the bucket of the dough in my fridge at any given time makes "i'd like to take a sandwich along to the doctor tomorrow, so i'll make bread tonight" the most sensible idea in the world. of course i'll make bread tonight.

also, i need an external hard drive.