Bread Matter

One of my hobbies for the past few years has been baking bread and cakes. It's in this way I discovered a possible error in our civilisation's understanding of reality. So this is a public service announcement I've been meaning to get to for some time.

When I started making bread, sometimes I didn't do a very good job. The dough didn't get cooked all the way, the temperature was too high, I left it in the oven too long or not long enough, etc. So it wasn't really a surprise that sometimes I'd get a peculiar stomachache from eating it but it was a sort of ache I'd never experienced before. Finally, when I thought I had all the timing and temperature right, and I was confident in all the ingredients, I still occasionally found I got this ache. I couldn't figure out what was causing it and it would last for days and seriously affect my mood. It was like having a rock in my stomach and it made me glum that I'd done something stupid and possibly seriously impacted my health. But I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, which was also depressing in itself. I googled and googled, I went back over each step and I never could figure it out.

Then, on Saint Patrick's Day last year, I watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People. And something about this scene struck me as it never had before:

"Did no-one tell you about the hazards of hot bread?" No, Katie! No-one ever had! Neither had google!

If you google "The dangers of hot bread" now, you generally find articles and forums in which people say it's a myth, that it's not dangerous at all, it just might not taste as good. However, there are things like this 1858 issue of Scientific American that say it is indeed very dangerous.

Hot bread never digests. After a long season of tumbling and working about in the stomach, it will begin to ferment, and will eventually be passed out of the stomach as an unwelcome tenant of that delicate organ, but never digests

Maybe for a lot of people, it has no ill effect. Maybe it's psychosomatic for some people but I can't say it is for me because I didn't even know about it. It's been over a year since that Saint Patrick's Day, I've made a lot of bread and I've always waited for it to cool completely before eating it, usually for 24 hours. And I've never had that stomachache again.

So, thank you Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Baking with Dragon Fire

Wow, House of the Dragon is good. I baked some fresh bread, which came out really well, and was eating it as I watched a guy's head getting bashed against the floor. And I thought, "Life just doesn't get any better than this." How sweet it is.

The episode begins and ends with murder. We finally meet Daemon's wife who, in just a few minutes, manages to come off as really cool before he first paralyses her and then murders her, all without a word.

He doesn't speak at first when he shows up to Rhaenyra's wedding feast so I thought maybe the episode was going to be an exercise in how menacing Matt Smith can be with silence. And menacing he was.

The big wrinkle in this story is Ser Criston, whose honour matters more to him than Rhaenyra counted on when she decided to make him her boytoy. He finds an unexpected, and unsought, ally in Queen Alicent.

The predicament she's in is so logically put together and so horrific. I loved the scene in the rain, at the entrance to the Red Keep, when her father laid it all out for her. Not only will Rhaenyra fight for her kid to be heir over Alicent's, Rhaenyra will have no choice in doing so.

So Alicent brings her cleavage to the party, wearing no chemise under her gown. It's her battle array, worn as she confronts Viserys and Rhaenyra for the first time since she came to believe they both betrayed her. And she has good reason to think that, from the moment Richard III let slip the skinny about Rhaenyra's tea.

I thought he was Ben Whishaw at first but it's an actor called Matthew Needham playing Larys Stong, son of the new king's hand who's replaced Alicent's father. He seems to be the arch-schemer type, a Tyrion or a Littlefinger. Ah, happy days are here again.

House of the Dragon is available on HBOMax.

Twitter Sonnet #1623

The missing egg has hid an Easter Day.
Again the saggy river clogs the freight.
A bouncing barrel yet surpassed the tay.
Expensive elves and dwarves have nothing ate.
A glassy beard allowed a view of chin.
When time's a watch, the drum's an ear of corn.
We gather lead below the metal bin.
The party pitched below the mark of scorn.
The B balloon could still traverse the C.
The tea lagoon could still revive the man.
A gentle chime confined the tuner key.
We beat the band to buy a muffin pan.
The twisting lizards lock in wedding chains.
The clumsy club has broke the bloody mains.