Blood Harmony Vol. 51: Lilacs and Pullman Loaf Pans

Hello Blood Harmonists,

I spent this past weekend visiting my folks at home in Rochester, NY. I even made it to the annual Lilac Fest which I haven’t been to in decades.¹ It’s held in Highland Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted² and is gorgeous. We were lucky enough to catch the lilacs at their peak!

I mean, seriously. Look at this.

The internet tells me “horticulturist John Dunbar, later known in local circles as Johnny Lilacseed, started the park's famous lilac collection in 1892; some of the 20 varieties he installed were descendants of native Balkan Mountain flowers brought to North America by early colonists.” Interesting!

Although I have many, many hours³ left in The Power Broker audiobook, I have finally reached the part where Robert Moses becomes The Robert Moses and starts to get Jones Beach Park built. Even though Highland Park is not a Moses project, it struck me as we tooled around Rochester how much of a difference it makes for a state to prioritize, through both effort and money, their park system (and their sidewalks!). There are so many wonderful, well-cultivated and well-funded parks around Rochester. Don’t get me wrong—North Carolina has some beautiful parks too. But there is a huge difference between your average municipal park in both cities.

Baking:

I baked some bread this week using this recipe and my Pullman loaf pan. I originally bought the pan to make shokupan. But now I’m kind of obsessed with having square-shaped, slice-able bread.

Epicurious tells me the following:

Pullman loaf pans were used by European bakers as far back as the 18th century, but acquired their name later, thanks to their ubiquity on the Pullman railway system. The loaves of bread baked in these pans were prized in compact railway dining cars for space efficiency because they stacked well and filled more space than round loaves. Their appearance on the railways became iconic—and the name stuck.

But Pullman pans didn’t really start to make their way into the hands of home bakers until relatively recently. Pain de mie loaves (baked in Pullman pans) have long been a stalwart of caterers. Martha Stewart’s epic entertaining book “Hors D'oeuvres Handbook” from 1999 and “Barefoot Contessa Parties!” brought this bakery darling into the home lexicon via a crustless canapé highway. But it was the proliferation of artisanal bread baking books (“The Bread Bible” by Rose Levy Berenbaum, “Artisan Bread” by Maggie Glezer, and “The Bread Baker's Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart) in the early 2000s that really created interest in bread baking, and by extension the pan, at home.⁴

My Pullman pan with the top off. Doesn’t it kind of look like the bread has a mouth?

Success!

My next Pullman recipe will be this rye bread that features pickle juice!⁵

Music

I am in love with this playlist which has already introduced me to so much cool music.

Cartoons

Books

I just started reading this book and so far it’s extremely compelling.

I like to wander around the graphic novel section of my local library and pick books out basically at random to take home. I’ve noticed over time that my favorites are usually graphic novels about artists. I stumbled upon this beautiful book about the artist Yayoi Kusama and highly recommend it.⁶

I’m familiar with Kusama’s net drawings from

DrawTogether with WendyMac

and it turns out that she also made one of my favorite sculptures at the North Carolina Museum of Art. But I was moved to learn more about her mental health struggles and her days putting on happenings in NYC in the 1960s. This video is fascinating:

Podcasts

I find this podcast comforting and informative. Even if I have no interest in the book, I enjoy the short dive into the subject.

Links

Older people want to dance but they also want to sleep! We can have both. I reject the tyranny of music starting at 10pm!

In mending-adjacent news⁷, I loved this article and this idea of mailing worn out clothes back to the manufacturer as a way to encourage them to actually have a sustainability plan⁸

This is a great list of things to do besides fucking around on your phone:

i want to get off the screen, too

Power Broker Audiobook Update: 46 hours and 46 minutes remaining

I’m off to see Friendship tonight with some friends. I can’t wait! Thank you for reading! I’m so glad you’re here!⁹

1. My last real memory of going is from high school. I went with this guy I really liked and his friend. We saw…gulp…Moxy Früvous at the Highland Park Bowl. This was before we knew about Jian Ghomeshi!

2. Father of American landscape architecture.

3. So many.

4. I’ve never heard of any of these books but I love the idea of “a crustless canapé highway”! Would drive!

5. Stayed tuned for the results.

6. My copy was in English.

7. I mended a much-loved sleeping tank top for my mom when I was home using silk my friend Summer brought me back from Kazakhstan many years ago. The repairs looks beautiful but I’m worried that the silk was too delicate a choice. Time will tell.

8. Or even an idea!

9. Particularly in these seeming end times!