Making Strudel and the Fire

Today I drove all the way to Folsom and met my mom there to learn from my Grandma how to make strudel.  I got there by 9:30am and I spent the whole day there.  I got home just before 10pm.

It was a nice time.  I think it was the first time I felt like an actual person in that family situation...and felt like everyone else was a person with a story too.  No longer did I feel like there were only parents and kids, or overlords and minions.  Even when I wasn't really participating with the conversations, I didn't feel like I was "just one of the kids".  Grandma even sat down and took a break when I was taking care of some of the baking.  And there was no getting irritated that I wasn't doing something right or feeling like I was just carrying out orders.

By the end of the day, I learned how to get from this:

to this:

I also visited with a bunch of people I haven't seen in years - including my cousin Greg, who, growing up, was the closest thing I had to a brother.  I was really glad to see him and Becky and note how they've both grown up into great people.

We went out to eat twice throughout the day and I forget how hard it is for me to eat with other people. It tends to make me feel a little sick.  Hopefully, by tomorrow that will be all better.

Then on my drive home, I stopped twice to take pictures of the fire.  Farther away from us, it looks pretty awesome because there's lots of smoke clouds reflecting the fire.

But from over near our house, you can see a lot more flames.  And in this one it looks like there's a smoke face too.

It's very awe-inspiring.  The latest reports I'm seeing say that the fire is up to 9300 acres.  They thought they'd have full containment by Monday, but they've pushed that estimate back since the fire has grown more in the winds.  I think we're at least 10-15 miles away from the fire.




And here's my updated recipe for strudel:

Sokolosky Strudel

3 cups flour
1 egg
3 cups walnuts
2-3 cups breadcrumbs
raisins (optional)
2/3 cups sugar
1 stick butter
honey for drizzling

Grind up the walnuts to a fine chop (but not "nut butter" consistency).  Put into a bowl and mix 1/3 cup sugar with the walnuts.  Put the breadcrumbs into a separate bowl and add the other 1/3 cup sugar into that bowl.

In another bowl, mix the flour and the egg.  As it mixes add some water a little at a time, as much as one cup, to make the mixture doughy like a pizza dough only slightly stickier.  Take the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 2 minutes with a little flour sprinkled on the counter.  The dough should be ever so slightly sticky still, but nice and smooth.  Meaning, don't over flour, just a tiny bit on the counter and none covering the dough when you knead.  Put the dough on a plate with a dishrag/cloth completely covering the dough (top, bottom and sides).  Let it sit for 2 hours or so.

When the dough is stretchy feeling, lightly flour a large work surface and start stretching the dough.  Use your fingers or knuckles from underneath to stretch the dough from the middle to the outsides.  Work all the different sections of dough a little at a time to stretch so thin that you should see the work surface underneath.  Try to get it uniformly thin with no holes in the dough.  Let it sit for 10-30 minutes until it's dry but not brittle.

Melt the butter and get the honey ready for drizzling.  Cut the edges of the dough off where it's a lot thicker than the rest of the dough.  Use a brush or spoon to blob/sprinkle melted butter on all parts of the dough.  Then sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture and the walnut mixture on all parts of the dough.  Lastly, drizzle with honey (and put raisins on if you want).

Fold one side of dough into the center and repeat all sprinkling on the newly seen dough.  Take the other side of dough and fold over all the way to the far edge and repeat sprinkles on dough.  Do these same two steps from the long ends of dough now.  Fold over to middle first and sprinkle, then fold from other side all the way across and sprinkle.  Finally, fold both ends to the middle and do all sprinkles one last time.

Place onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 375 degrees.  Be sure to watch to make sure honey doesn't burn.  (Grandma's special note is if you don't preheat the oven, you can put the strudel in for about 25 minutes but still watch it carefully.)  Once it comes out of the oven, transfer immediately to a large piece of aluminum foil.  When it's completely cool, you can wrap it up in the foil.