Shawn

During my stay on the couch sick, I pretty much exhausted the netflix food documentaries (they don't have much worth watching).  I even watched a couple when the kids were around, hoping they'd pick up on the benefits of eating fruit/vegetables. It did get Cameron to eat one strawberry one day, but that's all. One of the shows was on wheat, and after doing some more reading I started soaking dough/batter and rice, but was left wondering about why wheat has such a bad rap.
During Christmas break RD took everyone to the library, and I saw a book on the shelf, The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast. I checked it out, and it made sense to me how bread is made can alter it's chemical make-up and bio-availability of nutrition. So in January I got a start from a friend, and began to try to create bread.
In the book the author named her start, so I decided to name mine Shawn from Psych, since he's full of hot air a lot, can work brilliantly, but also be exasperating. After a couple months of baking, with several non-successes, so-so waffles and bread, some stellar muffins, and three successful bread loaf batches, I think I'm getting a handle on how to use Shawn. I think the naturally yeasted bread tastes better, and it lasts longer and stays moist longer. Cameron complains it's "too doughy" (i.e. soft), and Reese keeps complaining the bread doesn't taste any good. You know, forget that it takes me longer and is more work to make better-for-them bread.

Which I believe in enough to keep making it, but I do die a little inside when Cameron and Aubree eat only half their bread, leaving their crusts to the garbage can. I feel like the little red hen; I ordered the wheat, milled it, fed the start, made the dough, cooked it, but then gave it away to the farm animals that ate a few bites and wasted the rest.
At least Shawn would appreciate the subtleties of this bread.