Yeast can sense your fear

This pitiful thing was intended to be a loaf of rye bread.  My husband has used the same recipe and the same yeast and gotten a five-inch high, lofty, tender loaf.  I somehow managed to produce a two inch thick brick with a pleated and deformed crust that looks rather like a fast-cooling lava flow.  The bread is tasty, and has the texture of the pumpernickel you buy to spread chopped liver on, but it did not rise as it should.   Yeast has my number and knows that I can be intimidated.  Thank God we don't have to rely on me to provide the household's bread.  We would have to eat cake.

In other domestic news, our refrigerator fan died.  We were just three months past the expiration of the warranty, so I guess we should have expected it, but I don't keep track of these things the way I should.  I opened it up on Monday morning, and the contents were room temperature. So we emptied the fridge.  Lots of stuff is in cardboard boxes in the garage where the temperature is cool enough to keep the yogurt from going bad.  Lots of stuff had to get thrown out, because we didn't get to it soon enough.  How long can you keep butter after it has gone soft?

I realized that it has been far too long since I have completely cleaned the fridge, usually making do with a swipe here and there when I notice a spill.  I took out all the shelves, the bins, the bins on the door, the whole magilla, and scrubbed inside , outside, upside and back.  Martha Stewart's housekeeper no doubt does this on a weekly basis, but how often do you completely disassemble and clean the fridge?

So that's what I did most of Saturday, and it wore me out.  Hours on my knees with a toothbrush, getting stuff out of the seam in the back floor of the cabinet.  I may have scrubbed out some caulking - who can tell?  The whole darn box is white and shiny now.  Two more days before the part will be delivered and installed if we are lucky.  Thank God it didn't happen mid-summer.

Ladies' Knitting here on Saturday.  Angelfood cake, gingersnaps, shortbread, tangerines, and chicken sausage in phylo dough.  And chocolate wine.  My niece had chocolate wine at her wedding and it bears sharing!  So consider this your formal invitation and let me know if you can make it.  I have GOT to update the e-mail invites list.

I will not make anything with yeast.  Yeast can sense your fear.