What I did on my autumn vacation

Because this blog has not been updated consistently lately, and some people drop by infrequently, a brief What Has Gone Before.

This has been a . . . challenging year.  My best friend and writing partner, in many ways the better half of our partnership, died in February, very suddenly.   A little later down the timeline, I had what was at first thought to be stroke, and is now just a sort of shoulder-shrug and a mutter that sounds like “stress.”  One of the elder coon cats died of cancer.  Of those remaining, one slid into a very deep and worrisome depression from which she’s only recently roused.  I added a kitten to the household, which is of course it’s own sort of challenge.  And, as has been a fact of my life for many years now, there was a book under contract.

The original turn-in date was September.  My agent negotiated a mid-November extension, but, for Reasons, sooner was said to be better than later, so the end was completed with a bang and a rush; submitted before Halloween.

At that point, I realized that the book had propped me up in several ways:  It was Business as Usual in a suddenly strange world; and it gave me something to think about.  The last is key.  I have a very busy brain, and if it doesn’t have something productive to think about, it will turn on itself, which is undesirable at the best of times, and held the potential of producing disaster in current circumstances.

So, I needed something to think about, and it couldn’t be a book because my creative writing brain was mush.

Pro Tip:  Creativity is not a limitless well.  You can draw it dry.  It is therefore important to rest between Large Creative Efforts.  If you just keep pushing, you’ll dry up, or, if you like, burn out.  You really don’t want to burn out.

So, I needed something to occupy my brain that ideally tapped into another creative facet.

I thought of auditing a course at the local college — which may still be in the cards, down the road — but time was short.  I thought about the other creative kinds of things that I do — embroidery, crochet, baking — baking.  I’ve been making bread off and on for most of my life, but I wanted to get more consistently good at it.  And I remembered that we here in New England are privileged to have King Arthur Bakery right in our very own Vermont; a mere 200 miles away by car — and who can resist a pleasant drive through autumnal New England?

I looked on the KA website, and the gods were good; there was room in the three-day bread baking workshop that started on November 4.  I signed up, and was accepted by return mail.

Then, I cast about for a place to stay, and located the Norwich Inn, about a mile from King Arthur, which among its many other charms offers a discount to King Arthur students.

Allow me to pause here and praise the Norwich Inn.  There has been an inn at what is now 325 Main Street, Norwich, Vermont since 1797.  An excerpt from a review in the Hanover Gazette, dated February 7 1891 (quoted on the back of the matchbox I brought home, as one does) states:  “. . . it has been called by several travelers the handsomest little hotel in the Connecticut Valley.”  In addition, the staff was friendly, and efficient; the continental breakfast was more than generous; and the dinners delightful.  The restaurant is not open for lunch, and only open from Wednesday through Sunday for dinner, but these are the times we live in.

My room had a Queen-sized bed, a gas fireplace controlled by a switch on the wall, television, a desk set nicely in a window, a comfy chair set in the window opposite, a chest of drawers, closet, and a modern bathroom.  The only thing it lacked were cats.

One final touch — there’s a guest register on a stand in the expansive parlor.  It asks each guest for name, arrival time, hometown, and how many horses they have with them.

So!  King Arthur Bread School was awesome. I had such a good time!  No, really, I did.  The Official Name of the three-day course I took is:  Bread Principles & Practice.  Class was from noon to 5 every day.

On Monday, we spent a good chunk of time on the Science of Bread.  We also made a loaf of white bread, and six dinner rolls; and a loaf of whole wheat bread.

Tuesday we worked with wet doughs and poolish.  This was a challenge.  The wet dough is VERY wet, and was very messy to handle.  Happily, the resulting batards and focaccia proved the effort was well-made, but there were a couple minutes there that I was questioning my desire to learn any more about these particular kinds of bread.

Wednesday we made a tender sweet bread dough, which was also rather damp, but Tuesday had prepared me.  We divided the sweet dough in half, and made chocolate babka with one half, and cinnamon rolls with the rest.  Then, to relax, we made pita.

My fellow students were interested, motivated, and cheerful.

Our teachers were uniformly positive, helpful, and informative.  They clearly loved what they were doing — each one was a professional baker employed by King Arthur, who start baking at 3 am and then stay on to teach.

Honestly, this was the best call I could have made for that awkward end-of-book time.  I am so very glad that I decided to do this thing, even though it was nothing like — especially because it was nothing like — anything I’d ever done before.

The King Arthur campus houses professional kitchens, a cafe, and a store.  They also display local art on their walls.  Artists were hanging rug-hooked pictures on Tuesday afternoon.  Everyone I had contact with during this adventure was positive and cheerful, and I can’t say enough good things.

If you’re of a baking bent, you could do worse than take a course at King Arthur.

Warning:  There is the store, with all the Cool! Things! and flours!  and kits! and — just be aware that this is Dangerous Territory, OK?

And, that’s what I did on my autumn vacation.

Now that I’m back home, and the cats placated, I have some finishing work to do for the release of Sea Wrack and Changewind, and some Real Life stuff to tend to, including trying to decide what I’ll be doing for Thanksgiving, if, indeed, I do anything for Thanksgiving.

It will perhaps surprise no one that I’ve already started making notes toward the next book.