'Who will help me plant the wheat?' asked the Little Red Hen.

Not I, because I'vebought a bag of 'Strong Flour' witha high gluten content, good for bread making. I don't have to plant the wheat, wait for it to grow, cut it, take it to the mill and grind it into flour, fortunately.

Most household bread is made from wheat flour, like the little hen's but with salt, yeast, sugar and water added. During the nineteenth century many foodstuffs were adulterated. Chalk was often added to flour to bulk it out. Some bakers used salt water to save buyingsalt.

Cannes, in the south of France, is one of my favourite holiday destinations. I stay in the same hotel each year, but inthe restaurant,a croissant, conserves, coffee and juice is 40.Instead, I eat atone of the pavement cafes on theCroisette, where much the same, includingbeautiful bread, is about 10.There is one particular boulangerie, run by a lovely family, where the bread is divine (andI stop to eataubergine quiche at least once when I'm there).

My bread may not beas good as the French, but it's quite good.

I buy fresh yeast from the local bakery but dried yeast is a good alternative and it stores well, so you can keep somein thehouseandbake a loaf whenever you feel hungry.(Yeast used in bread is the same as that used to brew beer.)

I've heard many good cooks saythey cannot bakebread andhave given up trying. It can be tricky.

Just remember to keep utensils and the roomwarm. Draughts are to be avoided at all costs. Knead and knead,don't rush the 'proving' time. Weigh everything accurately. Here we go:

White Bread

Ingredients:

1 lb of strong flour (450 gm),

1 oz (25 gm) of fresh yeast or 1 tsp. fast-acting dried yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 rounded teaspoon salt

1 oz (25 gm) butter

13 fluid oz ( 375ml) of warm water

A largeloaf tin, greased

Oven temperature:Gas 6,electricity180 degree in a fan oven, 200 degree in a regular oven.

Method: Sieve flour and salt into a warm bowl. Rub in the butter. Cream the yeast and the sugar and add most of the water, but not all. (This is because flours vary in their absorbency. Too much water produces a heavy loaf).

Pour the liquid into the flour and mix well. If the mixture is on the dry side, add the rest of the water, but you shouldn't need to add more than the 13 fluid ounces. The dough should be elastic.

Kneadfor ten minutes, longer if you want to and your hands aren't tired. Cover the bowl with a damp teatowel and leave in a warm place forone hour to prove. Knock the dough down and knead again for ten to fifteen minutes. Leave to riseunder the cloth until it has doubled in size. This will take about an hour.

Place in a greased loaf tin and put in a hot oven for about 45 minutes.Tap the top and if this produces a hollow sound, it's ready.

Tocyn o bara? Slice of bread?

Bread has been baked and eaten for around thirty thousand years. Pliny the Elder noted that the skimmed foam on the top of beer produced a lighter type of bread, so yeast was recognised as a raising agent, even then.

The art of the baker is a long and honourable profession. In ancient Rome and Athens bakers plied their trade, selling bread to the citizens. Bread making beinga time consuming task, housewives were glad to be able to buy it ready made.

In Pompeii, a few years ago, we saw the remains of the devastation. Domestic details, like the bakeries, added a poignancy.

I didn't eat any bread I can remember in Sorrento but, inFlorida I ate ciabatta with rosemary and ham. In Minorca, we had bread smeared with olive oil, tomatoes and cloves of garlic.

Oftenabroad,olives and bread arrive unbidden to occupyyou until the main course arrives. Idon't like starters of any sort, but that's what happens.

With my daughters and theirfamilies arrivinghome from Disneyland, Paris,Igota few things in for them today, including bread.

In the supermarket, somelarge loaves were1.20 each,others, same size, hot as well, were 60p each, so I bought two.

Gluten-free loaves were 2, though they can cost32 a loaf. No, Icouldn't believe it, either.If I needed gluten free, I'd find it hard to swallow at that price.('The cheaper the grapes' . . . you know the rest of thatKenny Rogers song, I expect.)

It's possible to have gluten free bread on prescription, apparently.

Sourdoughs sell for 5 in local delis. A knob of sourdough is kept from batch to batch, as a starter.

The breadhas a coarse, bubbly texture and it's best to eat it on the day it's bought, because it doesn't keep too well.

Wehave tried a loaf of black rye bread, but it was not liked by either of us. It looked interesting, but it was heavy as a stone. I suspect it is an acquired taste.

When M@S was selling potato and rosemary bread, Ifound itdelicious.I'd heat it in the oven for five minutes and, like a cat we had, I didn't like to be disturbed wheneating it.

In St Clears, years ago, farmers wives keptbread for three days after baking,because when staleit did not get eaten so fast.Enjoyment was not a consideration. The government, too, during the last war, advised that bread shouldnot be consumed when fresh. My aunt, who made her own bread, thought it indigestible when eaten hot, though that was how I liked it.

At the start of the twentieth century, the rich ate white bread, the poorer people brown. According to a study, the trend has reversed.

I don't like brown bread. It gives me indigestion and I lost an expensive fillingto a granary loaf.

I eatspelt bread now and then.Spelt is an old variety of wheatand it has a higher proportion of protein than the usual wheat. It makes a change if you can getit.

The price of food has risen by about forty per cent in the last few months. (This has been noted in the Morgan household, though it's nothing to do with bread. I rarely eat it and Peter has only two small loaves a week).Yet the price of bread isused by the government as an indicator of the cost of living.

I'll give abread recipe tomorrow. It's not necessarily cheaper than buying, but it's fun and the house will smell like a bakery or a brewery.

We are extremely pleased and proud to announce that Distinguished Concerts International have made available a pair of tickets for the forthcoming Karl Jenkins concert in New York ( A Concert of Commemoration, Honoring the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 ) at the Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on Sunday September 11th 2011. The concert will feature performances of 'The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace' and 'For the Fallen: In Memoriam Alfryn Jenkins (US Premiere)'. Read our interview with Karl Jenkins here


We are offering these tickets as a QUIZ PRIZE on Americymru!


Just answer the three easy quiz questions below ( answers can all be found on Wikipedia ) and send them to us at americymrucontest@gmail.com ( all email addresses will be deleted when the competition closes ). We'll throw all the entries in a hat and pick the winner! Please email us by Wednesday, September 7th, no later than 9 PM ( Pacific Time ). Tickets will be ready at will call on 9/11 at the Avery Fisher Hall; the winner will just need to bring a photo ID. ( Only one entry per email address is permitted. Duplicates will be disqualified. You do not need to be an AmeriCymru member or logged into the site in order to enter this competition. )

Karl Jenkins Quiz

1. What are Karl Jenkins middle names?
2. When is Karl's birthday and what year was he born?
3. At which Welsh university did Karl study music?

The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins

It was cool in the garden this afternoon. Yesterday, in Carmarthen, we were drenched bya sudden cloudburst.Theseare the so called 'Dog Days', the 'dies caniculares' of summer, when the sultry weather makes uslanguid. The ancients believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, was close to the sun between July 6th and the end of August, bringing us hot weather. Alas and alack!

I did whatI always do when a summer day disappoints, I baked a cake, a Ginger-bread cake.

In Florida Iasked for 'Boston Pie' andwas disappointed to find it was a sponge, expecting something puddingy.Ginger 'bread' is a misnomer, too, becausewe don't use bread to make it nowadays, but it wasn't always so.

Duringthe fifteenth century Ginger-bread became popular, especially infairs. White breadcrumbs,mixed into boiled honey and spices, was cooled and shaped intocakes.

(If I were to make this concoction, I would add two ounces of butter and anegg. I would bake it, but onrice paper, in orderto remove it from the tray.)

There is no mention of ginger in the old recipes, but Jamaicapepper is often listed as an ingredient.

This is not pepper as we've come to think of it, but allspice, a mix of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Gingerbread crossed social boundaries, popular with the hoi polloi andthe upper crust, who used gold leaf to gild it sometimes.

This is my recipe for Gingerbread.I use syrup or molasses,plus honey for the sweetening. Lard was often used instead of butter in ye olde times.

Gingerbread:

Ingredients: !0 ozs SR flour, 2 ozs Porridge Oats, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp mixed spices, 1 tsp powdered ginger, 4 ozs butter, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon of marmalade, 4 ozs honey, 4 ozs of either molasses or syrup. Finely sliced crystallised ginger.

Method. Melt honey, syrup (or molasses)and marmalade. Cool a little, then add the butter. Mix well before adding the beaten eggs. Mix again. Sprinkle in the spices, then fold the oats and the flour into the mixture.

Have ready a large greased loaf tin. (You could line it with parchment). Pour the mixture into the tin. The oven should not be too hot (whatever temperature you use to bake a big fruit cake.) The top is liable to scorch because of the honey and syrup, sobest tocover it with foil for the first twenty minutes, before removing it to finish.

The gingerbread needs about an hour and a quarter to bake. Test with a skewer to see if it's ready. (The skewer should be drywhenremoved from the mixture.)

I squeezeorange juice into icing sugar to make a glaze. Chopped crystallised ginger on the icing adds a tangy touch.This recipe keeps well in an airtight tinfor at least a week, but eat it and enjoy it right away, then you can make another one.

Chatting With EinsteinShe points to maniacal moonsrising over distant planets,talks of the sum of sunsthat have made us stone,all the dying starsthat have kept us boundto throngs of theorieseven the aliens would laugh about.And yet she chats with Einsteinat the end of the pier,says she's waiting for a black holeto whisper her tangled name.

This Haunting

These arms of fire held love, and more of you,

They gathered suns of days against the rain

In ways that blessed the rose; the dawn of pain

Was yet to reach the shore where winters bruise

The gulls and pulse of summers passed through.

How drenched and vast the heart becomes, how vain,

In search of words for longing long since slain

But for buds of spring that glisten with dew.

I walk this path and you appear again,

A ghost of woe that turns the flowers black,

And causes birds to make a plaintive plea;

I feel your touch upon my broken back,

And know this haunting brings a painted end:

With crescent moon, and wailing wind for me.

Branches

Change slapped down on the counter,

the coffeehouse poets look back

at the bearded, old man asking for decaf.

The freckle-faced bard at the mic recognizes him,

tells the crowd of college students,

hippies, and two grandmothers

that Charlie is a haiku poet

who knows how to float from branch to branch,

even when there are no trees.

Charlie laughs at that assessment,

but is somehow pleased, too.

Pleased enough to take a notebook

covered with peace signs

out of his backpack

and perch himself on the stool

in the middle of the room.

He takes a deep breath,

releases it:

each branch

catching moonlight

together, alone

Song Of Longing

How wide the music pulsing in the night

Which drifts to mountains with ancient flowers,

And sings a sacred song to these hours;

Yet often chains deceive bliss, and blind sight

To voices humming answers filled with light.

How shadows dance a man of his powers,

And leave pure lyrics falling in showers

Of nothingnessthat hide the heart's vast might.

I sing, or else I know I scatter dreams

To pieces, birth my day to day unrest,

And waste the riffs of hope that heal and soar.

I long to lean on chords deemed bright and best,

And rest my spirit in the warmest beams

Of summer, locking less outside my door.

Meditation On An Artist

He painted men with long beards and missing teeth,

bent women with canes,

lonely children walking through meadows

on their way back home.

By lamplight, he would study each shade,

each shadow of their lives

in the ramshackle cabin

he inherited from his father.

Sometimes he said he could feel them

guiding the brush,

hear their voices

singing to the starry night.

Ah, to hear him hum

when the shapes, colors, and moods on the canvas

captured a bit of what it means to be human,

all too human.

Bay watch: Harry is on Poppit Sands today. Not so many holiday makers on the beach as it's beencool. Yesterday, RNLI Lifeguards in Newgale rescued a surfer in difficulties.

The Island of Rhodes: Oliver and Hannah arrived safely and texted to say they had reached their hotel. It was very hot and they were heading for the beach.

Due to the parlous state of the economyin Greece, the holiday has come at a bargain price.

With onlyeight hundred souls in the villageitsounds the type of placeyou might be expected to milkyour own goat before breakfast, but this year I would not be surprised if they were shown to the executivesuite in the hotel.

Maudie and Ffion are in Disneyland Paris whereit is definitely not cheap.