moiya's fabulous bread recipe!

i did the recipe off larch haven kitchens.

Thanks Moiya!

It worked.

Smells good and tastes even better!


Rebecca

http://larchkitchens.blogspot.ca/2014/02/cracked-wheat-bread-bulgar-or-cracked.html

Note Under the Door

We walked into our room tonight.  There was a note under the door.  There was a can of Raid on our table.  We looked at the note.  We looked at the can of Raid.

"Whoops.  We are in trouble with the hotel.  We forgot to close our windows when we went out.  Now they leave us a note in Spanish, which we can't read.  Who will go down and take care of this?"

But before someone goes down, we  try to read the note in Spanish.  We are pretty sure someone is bawling us out.  But we can't tell exactly what the sin is, though we notice that the kitchen door is closed, though they have left that window open.  Is it that we left the apartment and forgot to close the front room window.

Wyona walks down to the desk prepared for something to have gone wrong.

She steels herself.  "You will have to give us this not in English since we can't understand the Spanish."

The clerk gives Wyona a much shorter note.  "Please pay your bill before 11:30 tonight or before check-out at 10 am or you will be charge for another day -- no allowances for over-time."

"What about this can of Raid," Wyona asks.

"The cleaning staff left it in your room accidentally.  I will take it," says the clerk.

All three of us feel exonerated but we don't know for what.

Arta

Five Days in One

... the horses and the military presence and band ...

A grand day.

1. We saw a military band and procession on horseback.

Just beautiful.

"I think this is a usual military show -- the band are on horses.  Something one might see in London," said Greg.

... drummers for the social protest ...

2. Following the horses we found ourselves in the middle of well organized protest about the political regime in Argentina.

Thousands of marchers.

We took pictures.

We tried to get people to tell us what was going on.

Our Spanish is non-existent.

Their English is the same.

 One man did a gesture for us.

He touched his tongue and then hit the bottom of his foot as though it were sizzling.

... looking at the bus schedule ...
no buses come because protestors are on the road

3. We caught a bus – our first local bus with our new cards.

We put $10 each on our cards.

I think the rides cost us $1 a piece.

We have a lot of rides to take yet.

... the blue group walks by ...

4. We got off at the MNBA Museum.

We couldn’t find it.

Greg walked right around a beautiful Greek looking building with fantastic pillars.

 He could find no entry.

We gave up and crossed the street and tried to get in another entry.

... the yellows come next ...

No luck.

But the people ahead of us trying to do the same thing were shooed around to the other side of the building.

Yes.

We entered on that street.

A marvellous building full of treasures: Manet, Monet, Rodin, Goya, Rembrandt and the early 20th Century Painters.

We had a 2 pm tour in English.

 Greg hates tours but loved this one.

 Free admission to the building.

Not even a donation box anywhere.

... now the greens ...

5. We left to go home but passed by an artisan market that was not to be missed.

 I will always regret not buying the beautiful large leather bag I saw at the start of the market.

Wyona says this.

Catherine Jarvis says this.

I know it myself.

"How lucky are we to see this," Greg says.

If you find something you love, just buy it right then, for you may never find it again.

And you will remember forever that you left it behind if you don't buy it.

Ah well.

Some other shopper will buy it but knowing that, doesn’t make me much happier.

I wanted that bag to go with my other 10 bags I don't use.

6. We ate – we needed food by now, but we also needed to sit down.

The serve was s-l-o-w but we didn’t care. We needed to rest.

... a protestor asks Wyona to take his picture ...

7. We went to see Evita’s gravestone.

Just as we were to enter the gates, they closed them.

Six pm on a Saturday.

Too late for us.

8. We took another bus ride home. We don’t know where to touch our loaded transit cards.

... a soft drink at a 25 hour store ...

I was hitting it everywhere on the unit from which you can buy the cash tickets.

Other passengers on the bus are very helpful.

They can see us doing it all wrong and one will get out of their seat and pantomime the right move, for which I am very grateful.

... drinks spilled ...
filet for Wyona, empenadas for Greg and Arta

9. We get off the bus and walk through the Place de Mayo to our favorite gelato shop.

Wyona noticed that the price has gone up on the half litre of gelato.

She tells the owner that we want the old price -- $60, not $70.

He thinks we want to upgrade to a larger container.

No.

We have shopped all over Buenos Aires for the lowest price, and now, tonight, the price has gone up here.

... Wyona focuses for another shot for the protestor ...

Still, we are happy, have had a day never to forget and know that we are moving out of our spacious digs to a small room on a ship where we will be stepping all over each other for 28 days.

I hope we are still friends on March 30.

Arta

Tourist bus

... in uniform ...

We have been gone a week now. If I am away from the hotel for 8 hours I have to be ready for the change in the temperature. A coat if there is a wind off of the water. A hat if the sun is beating down. A scarf if the wind is blowing through the streets. A bag for my passport, my pesos, my sunglasses, my travel maps and some hand cream. Low runners, cotton socks, orthodics if one is old enough and needs them.  My hair has to be done above the level of my collar, but low enough that it doesn't interfere with a hat. I don't think about any of important things at home.

Wyona also worries about dust.  She was energetically cleaning off the seats of the tourist bus before Greg and I sat down?  "Now why are you doing that for us," I queried.

She showed me her hand.  Pitch black.  "I don't know why I had to feel the seats to see if they were clean.  But I found out.  They are not."  And she continued to scrub.

Not everyone has one of their party going before them, making the way clean.  But Greg and I have such a person. 

Arta

Electronic Equipment

Arta taking pictures
Wyona's hand taking pictures
Greg gets the shot

I am amazed because everywhere I look people are on their electronic equipment. I forgot that might even apply to us.

Tonight in the food court I saw a man with his phone out and his computer, side by side, and he was using both.

But this isn't much different than us. Such a great way to preserve memory. And in some cases for me, I look back on the pictures and wonder, "Did I really see this?", but there it is, on my camera. 
Arta

Dock / Pacifico

... down by the dock ...

The colour of the water is a surprise to us: brown with the iron it has picked up on the way to the sea. That is what I keep seeing when I see the water.

As well, we are looking at the plants, the trees, the cones, the grass -- comparing everything with what seems normal to us from home.

The newness of everything seems beautiful -- the green is lacey, the trees have huge flowers hanging from the bows.

We have been back to the food court.

Greg and Arta in Galleria Pacifico

So grand, with so many choices. Tonight gellato came with the meal for Wyona and Greg. I just couldn't do it.  I did some in the afternoon and that finished me off.

 Sad to say ... I had no idea that a person could eat enough chocolate dulche de leche, amaretto and strawberry, to top up for a lifetime.

Mmm, good.  But now I am out.

Arta

Bus Turistico

Tulip Sculpture -- the petals close in the evening.

I rode the tourist bus twice yesterday: the first time with Greg; the second time by myself. The third time this morning with Wyona. That makes me the expert in the group – at least with getting on and off the bus and with the headphones. On the first ride with Greg the sound was too loud and there was no way to change the volume. Greg and I wore them back behind on our ears, but still on our heads.

The second time I took the bus, there was not enough sound. I pressed one of the earphones to my ear, but that was good, for at least I was familiar with the music and since I didn’t want to hear it again I was good with concentrating on the audio when it was verbal.

Mural of Carlos -- a famous tango dancer

The third ride had the sound so loud that I noticed the man in front of us just wore his headphones around his neck and when the voice would come on, he would stretch one of them out from the neck position so that he could hear it just fine if he held it six inches away from one of his ears. This must have been the bus one of the reviewers was riding when they said, “Just don’t do it.”

Wyona had a different method of taking care of the noise. Our hats kept blowing off because of the wind on the top of the bus. She put on her hat, used the headphone to anchor the hat on her head, and then moved the anchoring ear phones above her ears. That made the sound just right and kept our hats in place.

“I wish we had a camera. No one would believe this,” she said. I wondered if all of that sound reverberating through our skull (but not through our ears) would change our I.Q,’s. At the end of the ride, we seemed pretty much the same as when we started the ride.

Low average.

Arta