Beth Bakes Bread (Attempt #1) - Continued

IT LOOKS LIKE BREAD!

And tastes pretty darn good too!

Fortunately, there weren't any more exciting mishaps during the end of the bread baking process. Everything timed out, I got my massage, and the bread came out of the oven just in time to head into the city and meet up with my friend John for dinner and drinks!

Today, when Brian got home we actually tasted it, and it's DELICIOUS! Just basic white sandwich bread, but tastes sooooo much better than wonder bread!

Today we also hung curtains in our bedroom, so no more eye-poking rays of sunshine bright and early in the morning! Woohoo!

Checking in

Not going to lie... I'm a little scared to head back to Hoboken tomorrow, and see what kind of situation is there. Could be a dough explosion from what I've gathered! But the picture of the loafs looked great! Im sure she will post them soon, with her side of the story!

Had a great visit home, albeit quick. Enjoyed dinner with mom and dad and kent and trudy on Tuesday night. And then spent today shopping and relaxing with mom and dad. Treated them to lunch, and taught mom how to make Salted Caramels. After dinner and a video chat session with Pop, I went out with some friends from around the area. Met up with them at this new Patriot Place area. Honestly, I haven't been up there since it all opened, so it was neat to see it. Even better to hang out with some great friends. Now its time to pack up the suitcase and head back in the morning. Check in again soon.

Brian

Beth Bakes Bread (Attempt #1)

Hi out there - for any of you still hanging on to this pathetic little blog of ours!

First, I know everyone is just sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if we finished the puzzle in St. Louis. Well, we did! 3 days ahead of schedule in fact. And so Taylor owes us all lunch. (Tentatively scheduled for next week in Pittsburgh.)

Second, Brian and I have both officially been hired for the 1st National Tour of "West Side Story", which starts prep in August, and opens mid September. As soon as I am allowed to post the schedule, it will be up, but we will definitely be seeing many of our friends and family and favorite cities once again!

And last, but certainly not least, we are currently home in Hoboken on a layoff. So instead of blogging about touring, today I am blogging about my ridiculous attempt to bake my own bread.

I have been wanting to do this for quite some time, but seeing as we live out of hotel rooms, I haven't quite had the chance. Well last time we had a layoff, I bought a book called "The Bread Bible" and started reading. Yesterday, Brian headed to Attleboro for a few days, and I decided that it was time to attempt bread baking.

Bread of Choice: Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf

Yesterday afternoon I made the Dough Starter, which is basically flour, water, honey and yeast. That was super easy, and then I let it sit for an hour at room temperature, and put it in the fridge for the remaining 8 - 24 hours.

Then, about 7 hours later, I decided I should probably re-read the rest of the recipe before I got up early to finish the recipe. And it's a good thing I did! Apparently, I had missed about 3 of the steps, all of which telling you to do something to the dough before letting it sit for ANOTHER 1 - 2 hours each. (That's about 6 hours worth of steps that I somehow missed!)

I started doing the math, and figured out that if I got up at 4:00am for step 2, I could go back to sleep for a couple of hours before step 3 at 7:00am, and hopefully have it out of the oven before my Noon yoga class and 2:15 massage.

Well, have any of you seen Julia & Julia? You know the part where she sets the middle of the night alarm to get up and turn off the Boeuf Bourguignon, and then she ignores it and it BURNS!?! That's sort of what it felt like, only slightly less tragic. I actually got up at 5:30am, tossed the 3 ingredients in with the starter, covered it up, and put it in what we like to call "The Rising Room" (aka our laundry closet).

So I went back to sleep, meaning to get up at 7:00am and continue, but apparently my subconscious decided that I definitely needed more sleep, and so I finally woke up at 9:30, thanks to the awesome room darkening shades in our bedroom (in case you didn't catch the sarcasm there - they are the farthest thing from room darkening shades, but hey! We only paid $12 for them!) and a text from my husband asking how the bread baking was going (HA!).

I pulled myself out of bed, grabbed the dough, and began step 3 - mixing the dough. This step went quite well - added the butter, mixed it in the KitchenAid, let it rest for 20 minutes, add the salt, then knead for 7 - 10 minutes. SUCCESS!

That is, until I went to remove the bowl from the KitchenAid to scrape the dough into bowl #2. Apparently, when I put the bowl back onto the base, it didn't go in quite right, so I could not, for the life of me, get it OFF of the stand! But I had to get it into the bowl to start rising, so I ended up having to unplug the machine, turn bowl #2 on it's side, and turn the entire KitchenAid machine on it's side to scrape the dough from bowl to bowl. Good times.

So, as of right now, the dough is in the Rising Room, bowl #1 came off the base (finally!) and is clean, and I have just read through the recipe again, to discover that I missed a 4th step, requiring 1 - 2 hours of rising!

So, there will be no yoga class today, however I think I have it timed out, so that Step #5 will happen just before I leave for my massage, I will go to my massage, and be home in time for it to be done rising for the 5th time and put it in the oven!

::fingers crossed::

TO BE CONTINUED...

The St. Louis Puzzle Challenge!

Hello from glorious St. Louis! Home of one of my favorite foods - FRIED RAVIOLI! (And the best part is, in St. Louis, they use MEAT ravioli so even Brian can eat them!)

We are performing at the Fabulous Fox Theatre, another wonderfully historic theatre that any person in theatre should visit. The backstage is covered in show logos and signatures of casts from years and years of touring companies coming through (including the smash hit, The Drowsy Chaperone!).

Company and Stage Management have continued the puzzle tradition that we started in Seattle and do we have a doozy here in St. Louis! It is a 1,000 piece Jackson Pollock puzzle. Yes, that's right, the artist who is famous for his paint-splatter paintings.

We started it Tuesday night and so far have gotten this much done...

Tonight, as we stood around during intermission, Taylor set forth a challenge: If we can finish the puzzle by the end of the show next Saturday night (our 2nd to last performance in St. Louis) he will give us a $50 gift certificate to somewhere.

Can we do it?? Only time will tell...

8, no, 5, no 3!

So we are officially on a 3 Week Layoff. We couldn't be more excited! Last week the tour was in Wallingford CT. Because of some financial issues with ticket sales, the presenter decided to cut down to 5 shows. So we flew to NYC on Monday, and the Crew bussed to Wallingford. Beth and I hopped in a cab and went home to hoboken for the day. We had some friends over for dinner and wine, and desert, and hunt out for the night. Tuesday we got some things done around the house, and then packed the car and drove up to Wallingford. Load in started at 6pm on Tuesday, and continued Wednesday morning, and we opened that night. Thursday was a dark day, so Beth and i hopped in the car and drove up to Attleboro to visit and hang out. Friday i had a wisdom tooth pulled and got a check up at the doctors.

After that, we drove back to Wallingford for a show Friday night. Saturday everyone awoke to the news that a huge storm was rolling up the East Coast. Saturday's matinee was uneventful and between shows, there was a chili cook-off and secret Santa reveal. At 7pm, the presenter, fearful of the snow coming, canceled the show that evening. We headed home and waited for the snow to fall, and waited, and waited, and then finally at a little after 10pm, the storm ripped thru the area, kicking up high winds, and a dusty snow. It came down in heaps, and by morning, around 9am, the snow had stopped, and we had probably 12" or more on the ground. at 9:30am, the presenter, fearful of making people drive, decided to cancel the matinee. For those of you keeping track at home. That means, we'd done 3 of the 5 scheduled shows. They set a 3pm call for the load out, and we went in and tore it out. I was in the car with Beth by 6pm and home in hoboken shortly before 8.

And now the craziness begins. Going to be traveling up and down 95 a bit this coming week+ visiting family and friends. Time to head into the city and do some more xmas shopping and other errands. If your in the Boro from December 23rd-26th let us know. And if your in Bel Air from December 26th-30th let us know!

B

and

B

Madison Wi

Checking in from the great midwest. It's between shows on Saturday. We came to Madison, from Charlotte NC. Because of the length of the trip, we didn't start load in, until 2am Tuesday morning, and worked all day, to get the show ready to open at 7:30 Tuesday night. As we left the theatre Tuesday afternoon, the snow started to fall. By the time it stopped around 4pm Wed, there were 15" on the ground. One of the biggest storms to hit the area in recent memory, and to boot, classes were canceled at the University of Wisconsin for the FIRST TIME. The student body went nuts.

Im not sure who still checks in, to see the going ons, of this blog, but i promise you now, it will get better! It's been about a year since I (Brian) really settled in and did some blogging. Plenty has happened to Beth and I in the past... Year.

Here are a few of the Milestones:

We just celebrated a year of being open, on Grease. We celebrated with a cake, at the opening party in Charlotte NC.

We celebrated 6 years of dating, on November 14th. Which coincided with the wedding of Dusty and Mercury Amodio. Beth and I were lucky enough to be able to take off a few days from tour, and be with them, and all our friends on their special day. It was a beautiful service and a fun reception. The space was amazing and the bride looked beautiful to boot.

We are in our 4th month of marriage now. It seems like Sept 5th, just happened. I couldn't be happier and I'm looking forward to the future!

We hosted our first holiday! We had the Renoni Parentals and the Cochran Parentals over for Thanksgiving. It was a little hectic, with sinks not working, toilets not working, pilot lights going out and the general mayhem that is being a homeowner. But all in all it was a fantastic few days we got to spend with our parents, in our new home. Things are shaping up nicely. Hopefully we will get some pictures of everything up soon!

Coming up next.... We are going to be heading into a 3 week layoff. It will start on December 21st and run until January 10th, when we will be heading to one of our favorite stops, St. Louis. We've got lots planned for the time off. Visits to Attleboro for Xmas, Bel Air for fake-Xmas, and Hoboken for New Years thru the 10th. Plenty of projects planned for around the condo, maybe some painting, and some more cleaning, fixing, setting up.

The spring lines up nicely for the tour. There is plenty of time off mixed in with some work. It seems we are out for 3-4 weeks and then followed by a week off. This is nice for us, because we get to spend more time in our home!

We're Married!

Well, it's official! B&B and now Mr. & Mrs. Brian Renoni!

Saturday was possibly the most perfect day ever! We could not have asked for better weather, better friends & family or a better party!

Thanks to everyone who made the trip to Delaware, and to those who tuned in via webcast for the ceremony!

You can still go on our website to watch a recording of the ceremony...

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bandb-wedding

And, our amazing photographer, Joel Plotkin, posted a preview of our wedding pictures on his blog. Check them out here...

http://www.plotkinphotography.com/blog/2009/09/beth-brian-winterthur-gardens-and-estate-september-5-2009/

Off to Aruba tomorrow!