⚔Hungergames ~ Season 20 ~ The Games⚔

[Komodо]

@Gainfullterror 'snuggling' :D

 

[Gainfullterror]

Gainfullterror breaks zAyato's nose for a basket of bread.

What is it about bread? Why am I, here in the middle of my life, so enamoured of French loaves? Two images kept cropping up: two French people sitting in a cafe for a long afternoon of eating thick hunks of bread and drinking cups of coffee, and a Frenchman on a bicycle with a loaf slung across his handlebars. These visions seemed to depict lives soaked in leisure, where there was time for the good things...Then this thought ambled forth: It's the dailiness of bread, like a reliable friend...My plan starts to billow forth. My project, as I imagine it, will be a natural history, an ecology of bread. The story of a loaf.

Overcome by a passion for French bread, Sara Mansfield Taber travels to Brittany in search of a loaf that, like the lifestyle that must surely accompany it, is perfect in its simplicity. After months of seeking, she tears off a hunk of pain trois rivieres, made by Gold Medal Baker Monsieur Jean-Claude Choquet of Blain, Loire-Atlantique. It "smelled like heaven and tasted a mile deep." It tasted honest. Here was her loaf.

"In prose as voluptuously delicious as pain trois rivieres itself, Sara Mansfield Taber delves into the heart of France and finds the world, shimmering in its complexity. Once again, Taber has written a book that is both wise and very beautiful."
-C.M. Mayo, author of Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles Through Baja California, the Other Mexico


CHAPTER ONE

MY AFFAIR BEGAN AT FORTY WHEN MY HUSBAND, PETER,
found his dream job in Washington, D.C., and I left behind a position as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Eight months after our arrival, I gave birth to our second child, Forrest. In my small, suburban cottage, temporarily job-less, and new to the area, I felt like a cave woman abandoned by her clan in a still, earthen den. All the women in our neighborhood seemed to work full-time. The hectic Washington pace was unconducive to forging easy friendships, and I found myself passing my weeks with little adult companionship. The interesting people I did meet seemed to lead runaway lives, constantly busy if never quite getting to that one thing they wanted to do most. Time seemed a crucial and scarce commodity.

On my walks through the neighborhood, there were questions, half-noticed but ever-present, that ambled with me. Why does work seem to gobble up bigger and bigger hunks of us every day? Where has community gone? Why is there no free time anymore? Life seemed to narrow, and I needed, badly, to prove fantasies were still out there for the taking. I yearned for something deeper, more satisfying, more pleasurable, tastier.

How to find delight again—that became the urgency of my long, little-varying Washington days. I chose the basic, sturdy, age-old woman's route: through the belly. I took to driving long distances for a bakery anyone mentioned. I loved the round, European-style loaves with hard crusts—loaves with names like pain de campagne, or pain rustique—the ones that looked like erupting mushrooms or chubby wands. Pain au levain especially captivated me. I loved the notion of bread made of soured dough that carried with it some sort of magical essence from one batch of bread to the next. Of course, I had been slowly seduced over the years by a youth spent in part in Europe; by Millet's luminous paintings of peasants peacefully working in pink-lit dawn fields; and by the crusty French bread formed into sunflowers that my dear friend Juliette, back from trips home, conjured up out of suitcases. So it was really no surprise that Forrest and I drove all over Washington to new bakeries, each bread-buying trip like a small celebration. Inexorably, subtly, French loaves came to seem like crown jewels. No, not jewels. Something more essential and wonderful, like air.


For a time I took to baking as a way to bring French bread and Europe that much nearer. Four times, I attempted to make pain au levain, a five-day process that requires the baker to grow a starter by adding flour and water on a daily basis to a steadily souring lump of dough. The first attempt resulted in an utterly flat loaf with a nice smell, but a disappointing, dense texture, and sticky goo spread all over the kitchen. The second time around, my dough did rise but the loaf had a crust of cannonball hardness and a crumb with huge tunnels that would have made great naked mole rat habitat. The third time, I forgot about my souring dough and it went moldy, and the final time, one of my children knocked the bowl of starter on the floor and it broke. I took this as a clear sign that I should leave bread-baking to the professionals and make more frequent trips to bakeries.

One day as Forrest and my daughter, Maud, played in the background, I asked myself, What is it about bread? Why am I, here in the middle of my life, so enamored of French loaves? Two images kept cropping up: two French people sitting in a cafe for a long afternoon of eating thick hunks of bread and drinking cups of coffee, and a Frenchman on a bicycle with a loaf slung across his handlebars. These visions seemed to depict lives soaked in leisure, where there was time for the good things.

Then these thoughts presented themselves:

~ Bread is pure and unalloyed.
~ A loaf of bread is simple beauty, lovely texture, honest shape.
~ While chewing bread, a person can steal a little rest. Look out a window. Gaze. Let her mind float. One specification: it must be hard bread that takes time to chew.
~ To break into a loaf is to cultivate a sense of communion with the soil, with our fellows, with the divine, as Christians share bread in churches.
~ Bread can be taken for granted in the secure, reassuring sense of something good always there.

Then this thought ambled forth: It's the dailiness of bread, like a reliable friend. "Why not Lindt chocolate'?" someone might ask. Though I love chocolate, its fleeting pleasures, like those romances of younger days, store little deep or lasting pleasure for me. I am after the trusty basics now: daisies, spring water, garden tomatoes, bread.

One day in Washington, I watch Forrest take apart a slice of good sourdough from a local European-style bakery. He sits on the floor and carefully and deliberately pulls the bread apart. He works away, fiber by fiber, until he is surrounded by shreds of bread the perfect size for ducks.

It is while watching this spectacle that it occurs to me that what I want, more than anything else, is to examine a good French loaf the way Forrest is examining his. My heart races when I realize that what I desire, with a strange ardor, is to understand bread in a deep way. beyond even the capacity of my tongue.

I decide I will find a wonderful French loaf—a product of a French village—follow it backward, track down its history, back into the oven, back through the kneading trough, and on into the beyonds of the country roads, to the fields of wheat, to the salt producers, to the yeast cultivators, and to the waters that contribute their bounty. I will talk to the farmers and all those whose toil goes into the bread, and hear about their lives. My project, as I imagine it, will be a natural history, an ecology of bread. The story of a loaf.

As I dreamed of France, I was certain about what I would find there. While I felt disconnected in my American city, the French would be nourished by community as well as good bread. The French, in contrast to my compatriots, would have balanced lives infused with a slowed-down sense of time that left many hours for family, friends, and contemplation. Whereas American food was a mash of carcinogenic chemicals and ingredients flown in from all over the world, my French loaf would be made of pure, local ingredients, by local rural people. While American bread was squishy and tasteless, the baguette, and all French bread, would be delicious and of the highest quality, due to the bakers' adherence to tried and true, age-old traditions. The country of the baguette would be the opposite of my country, which was responsible for the annihilation of well-made, quirky, and unique local products, and for the McDonaldization of the world. France, to my mind, would be the repository of quality. The grass would be quintessentially greener there.

As I set off on this lark, I suspected I might be seeing rural life, and Europe, and maybe even bread, through rose-colored glasses, but, as in any new love, I just couldn't give it up. I wanted to chase after my dream. I wanted that confirmation of something more.

And I found it.




that entire story was copied off of a weird shady site
All I can say is: "MY BREAD"

Gainfullterror convinces Komododragon 2002 to snuggle with him.

@komododragon 2002 Snuggle buddies!

 

[Titanic27]

What is it about bread? Why am I, here in the middle of my life, so enamoured of French loaves? Two images kept cropping up: two French people sitting in a cafe for a long afternoon of eating thick hunks of bread and drinking cups of coffee, and a Frenchman on a bicycle with a loaf slung across his handlebars. These visions seemed to depict lives soaked in leisure, where there was time for the good things...Then this thought ambled forth: It's the dailiness of bread, like a reliable friend...My plan starts to billow forth. My project, as I imagine it, will be a natural history, an ecology of bread. The story of a loaf.

Overcome by a passion for French bread, Sara Mansfield Taber travels to Brittany in search of a loaf that, like the lifestyle that must surely accompany it, is perfect in its simplicity. After months of seeking, she tears off a hunk of pain trois rivieres, made by Gold Medal Baker Monsieur Jean-Claude Choquet of Blain, Loire-Atlantique. It "smelled like heaven and tasted a mile deep." It tasted honest. Here was her loaf.

"In prose as voluptuously delicious as pain trois rivieres itself, Sara Mansfield Taber delves into the heart of France and finds the world, shimmering in its complexity. Once again, Taber has written a book that is both wise and very beautiful."
-C.M. Mayo, author of Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles Through Baja California, the Other Mexico


CHAPTER ONE

MY AFFAIR BEGAN AT FORTY WHEN MY HUSBAND, PETER,
found his dream job in Washington, D.C., and I left behind a position as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Eight months after our arrival, I gave birth to our second child, Forrest. In my small, suburban cottage, temporarily job-less, and new to the area, I felt like a cave woman abandoned by her clan in a still, earthen den. All the women in our neighborhood seemed to work full-time. The hectic Washington pace was unconducive to forging easy friendships, and I found myself passing my weeks with little adult companionship. The interesting people I did meet seemed to lead runaway lives, constantly busy if never quite getting to that one thing they wanted to do most. Time seemed a crucial and scarce commodity.

On my walks through the neighborhood, there were questions, half-noticed but ever-present, that ambled with me. Why does work seem to gobble up bigger and bigger hunks of us every day? Where has community gone? Why is there no free time anymore? Life seemed to narrow, and I needed, badly, to prove fantasies were still out there for the taking. I yearned for something deeper, more satisfying, more pleasurable, tastier.

How to find delight again—that became the urgency of my long, little-varying Washington days. I chose the basic, sturdy, age-old woman's route: through the belly. I took to driving long distances for a bakery anyone mentioned. I loved the round, European-style loaves with hard crusts—loaves with names like pain de campagne, or pain rustique—the ones that looked like erupting mushrooms or chubby wands. Pain au levain especially captivated me. I loved the notion of bread made of soured dough that carried with it some sort of magical essence from one batch of bread to the next. Of course, I had been slowly seduced over the years by a youth spent in part in Europe; by Millet's luminous paintings of peasants peacefully working in pink-lit dawn fields; and by the crusty French bread formed into sunflowers that my dear friend Juliette, back from trips home, conjured up out of suitcases. So it was really no surprise that Forrest and I drove all over Washington to new bakeries, each bread-buying trip like a small celebration. Inexorably, subtly, French loaves came to seem like crown jewels. No, not jewels. Something more essential and wonderful, like air.


For a time I took to baking as a way to bring French bread and Europe that much nearer. Four times, I attempted to make pain au levain, a five-day process that requires the baker to grow a starter by adding flour and water on a daily basis to a steadily souring lump of dough. The first attempt resulted in an utterly flat loaf with a nice smell, but a disappointing, dense texture, and sticky goo spread all over the kitchen. The second time around, my dough did rise but the loaf had a crust of cannonball hardness and a crumb with huge tunnels that would have made great naked mole rat habitat. The third time, I forgot about my souring dough and it went moldy, and the final time, one of my children knocked the bowl of starter on the floor and it broke. I took this as a clear sign that I should leave bread-baking to the professionals and make more frequent trips to bakeries.

One day as Forrest and my daughter, Maud, played in the background, I asked myself, What is it about bread? Why am I, here in the middle of my life, so enamored of French loaves? Two images kept cropping up: two French people sitting in a cafe for a long afternoon of eating thick hunks of bread and drinking cups of coffee, and a Frenchman on a bicycle with a loaf slung across his handlebars. These visions seemed to depict lives soaked in leisure, where there was time for the good things.

Then these thoughts presented themselves:

~ Bread is pure and unalloyed.
~ A loaf of bread is simple beauty, lovely texture, honest shape.
~ While chewing bread, a person can steal a little rest. Look out a window. Gaze. Let her mind float. One specification: it must be hard bread that takes time to chew.
~ To break into a loaf is to cultivate a sense of communion with the soil, with our fellows, with the divine, as Christians share bread in churches.
~ Bread can be taken for granted in the secure, reassuring sense of something good always there.

Then this thought ambled forth: It's the dailiness of bread, like a reliable friend. "Why not Lindt chocolate'?" someone might ask. Though I love chocolate, its fleeting pleasures, like those romances of younger days, store little deep or lasting pleasure for me. I am after the trusty basics now: daisies, spring water, garden tomatoes, bread.

One day in Washington, I watch Forrest take apart a slice of good sourdough from a local European-style bakery. He sits on the floor and carefully and deliberately pulls the bread apart. He works away, fiber by fiber, until he is surrounded by shreds of bread the perfect size for ducks.

It is while watching this spectacle that it occurs to me that what I want, more than anything else, is to examine a good French loaf the way Forrest is examining his. My heart races when I realize that what I desire, with a strange ardor, is to understand bread in a deep way. beyond even the capacity of my tongue.

I decide I will find a wonderful French loaf—a product of a French village—follow it backward, track down its history, back into the oven, back through the kneading trough, and on into the beyonds of the country roads, to the fields of wheat, to the salt producers, to the yeast cultivators, and to the waters that contribute their bounty. I will talk to the farmers and all those whose toil goes into the bread, and hear about their lives. My project, as I imagine it, will be a natural history, an ecology of bread. The story of a loaf.

As I dreamed of France, I was certain about what I would find there. While I felt disconnected in my American city, the French would be nourished by community as well as good bread. The French, in contrast to my compatriots, would have balanced lives infused with a slowed-down sense of time that left many hours for family, friends, and contemplation. Whereas American food was a mash of carcinogenic chemicals and ingredients flown in from all over the world, my French loaf would be made of pure, local ingredients, by local rural people. While American bread was squishy and tasteless, the baguette, and all French bread, would be delicious and of the highest quality, due to the bakers' adherence to tried and true, age-old traditions. The country of the baguette would be the opposite of my country, which was responsible for the annihilation of well-made, quirky, and unique local products, and for the McDonaldization of the world. France, to my mind, would be the repository of quality. The grass would be quintessentially greener there.

As I set off on this lark, I suspected I might be seeing rural life, and Europe, and maybe even bread, through rose-colored glasses, but, as in any new love, I just couldn't give it up. I wanted to chase after my dream. I wanted that confirmation of something more.

And I found it.




that entire story was copied off of a weird shady site
All I can say is: "MY BREAD"


@komododragon 2002 Snuggle buddies!

I hope you're quoting something or else WOWZA DUDE

 

[Gainfullterror]

I hope you're quoting something or else WOWZA DUDE

I looked up "long story about bread"
That popped up, so I decided to paste it into here to express my love for the bread. I mean.. I broke someone's nose for it!

 

[The Real Xevoro]

YESSS!!! I survived first day!!!! \o/

Edit: Almost...

Cornucopia

I got all excited too early .-.

Why can't you do this when I play with you? ;)

 

[Jaistrix]

Why can't you do this when I play with you? ;)

That sir... was very rude .-.

 

[Vreeself]

foreveryoung
District 5

Really?

 

[Cyqni]

Really?

? Oh nvm, I see you're quoting the fallen tributes. I thought you weren't on the right team :p

 

[Cyqni]

I'm posting the next two days this afternoon! I haven't had acces to my computer except to do honework :p

 

[Injunction]

Or maybe not

 

[Cyqni]

Day 2:
Camezonda sprains his ankle while running away from Perux.

zAyato's trap kills Serk.

Nikoshka poisons Unipotato's drink. He drinks it and dies.

zDutchie practices his archery.

Gainfullterror kills Jefsweatsgames for her supplies.

TheGrimCreeper receives a hatchet from an unknown sponsor.

Soeshi fishes.

CyanYellow, Empty Inside, and TriangleAttack successfully ambush and kill Lezappen, PinkySan, and LucianYOLO.

Keanubazz injures himself.

DodelijkeNoob scares Lewkie off.

Hidalgo steals from Spaghetti while she isn't looking.

Younisco tries to sleep through the entire day.

DanielDaProNub fishes.

Shamel70 receives a hatchet from an unknown sponsor.

TheMinerCat makes a wooden spear.

Jollow250 discovers a cave.

hgbf tries to spear fish with a trident.

telegamer and JaiStrixZ hunt for other tributes.

MaestroCygni attacks Andyschofie, but she manages to escape.

ThreeaSan defeats Perdawdian in a fight, but spares his life.

MastahMilk stalks Komododragon 2002.

LanceDaniels travels to higher ground.

Jordei hunts for other tributes.

Fallen tributes 2:
10 cannon shots can be heard in the distance.

Diogo
District 8

noob36598239063
District 11

Cynamooo
District 2

Mustafa Gul
District 1

Serk
District 4

Unipotato
District 7

Jefsweatsgames
District 7

Lezappen
District 9

PinkySan
District 4

LucianYOLO
District 7

Night 2:

Hidalgo, ThreeaSan, MastahMilk, and Spaghetti tell each other ghost stories to lighten the mood.

Keanubazz shoots a poisonous blow dart into Soeshi's neck, slowly killing him.

CyanYellow questions his sanity.

DodelijkeNoob screams for help.

telegamer defeats TheGrimCreeper in a fight, but spares her life.

zAyato and MaestroCygni huddle for warmth.

TriangleAttack sees a fire, but stays hidden.

Perdawdian defeats Perux in a fight, but spares her life.

Komododragon 2002 and Younisco tell stories about themselves to each other.

Empty Inside receives an explosive from an unknown sponsor.

Jordei, LanceDaniels, and Andyschofie discuss the games and what might happen in the morning.

Gainfullterror and Jollow250 talk about the tributes still alive.

TheMinerCat attempts to start a fire, but is unsuccessful.

hgbf receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor.

Camezonda strangles Nikoshka with a rope.

zDutchie lets DanielDaProNub into his shelter.

Shamel70 is awoken by nightmares.

JaiStrixZ loses sight of where she is.

Lewkie cannot handle the circumstances and commits suicide.

Day 3:
telegamer runs away from TriangleAttack.

Perux and Empty Inside split up to search for resources.

Jollow250 stalks TheGrimCreeper.

Hidalgo defeats Camezonda in a fight, but spares his life.

zAyato severely slices LanceDaniels with a sword.

Younisco attacks MastahMilk, but Jordei protects her, killing Younisco.

DanielDaProNub receives fresh food from an unknown sponsor.

Shamel70 fishes.

Komododragon 2002 kills Keanubazz while he is resting.

Perdawdian diverts TheMinerCat's attention and runs away.

Andyschofie tracks down and kills JaiStrixZ.

hgbf camouflauges himself in the bushes.

CyanYellow discovers a river.

Spaghetti and DodelijkeNoob split up to search for resources.

ThreeaSan attacks zDutchie, but he manages to escape.

Gainfullterror fishes.

MaestroCygni injures himself.

 

[Gainfullterror]

Gainfullterror kills Jefsweatsgames for her supplies.

Gainfullterror and Jollow250 talk about the tributes still alive.

Gainfullterror fishes.

What a beautiful therapy after taking someones life & talking to someone from the other district!

 

[Injunction]

Jollow250 discovers a cave.

since caves and holes can be very similar this really does relate to me as well

Gainfullterror and Jollow250 talk about the tributes still alive.

you mean like this
"Oh my god, I can't believe that Perdei still hasn't been hit with an arrow this is such an outrage"
Is that it?

 

[DanDaDino]

you mean like this "Oh my god, I can't believe that perdei still hadn't been hit with an arrow yet this is such an outrage

No your saying "Oh no I'm so scared of DanDaDino he's so amazing and powerful oh no he's definitely gonna kill me ahhhh" and runs away screaming.

Your welcome

 

[Jaistrix]

JaiStrixZ loses sight of where she is.

I must have really lost sight if i though i was a girl

Andyschofie tracks down and kills JaiStrixZ.

._.
my life...
is over....
I'm... just going to go sit in a corner and cry for a bit ;-;

 

[Komodо]

I killed someone survival games? I haven't done that in a while!

 

[Milkyy]

Younisco attacks MastahMilk, but Jordei protects her, killing Younisco.

@xMegaCoolx You're the best <3

 

[ChillyTree]

Just glad I did not volunteer ;^)

 

[Megaaa]

@xMegaCoolx You're the best <3

I'm a hero. :P

 

[Komodо]

I'm a hero. :p

Superherolinker?