the golden state

There are many reasons to call my home state golden. Whether referring to the gold rush, the golden gate, the golden hills waving with dry grass, or the fields of eye candy that grace our outdoors this time of year. Like these ones:



Or maybe these. These were nice. It was taken from about the same spot, but looking up, back toward the road and it's destination farther uphill.



Both shots were on Hwy 180 this past friday, at about 3,500' on the way to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. The poppies were amazing. The lupine too, as well as countless others that I don't know the name of. I love flowers, so I stopped at a few points, got out of the car, and tried not to tumble down the hill while taking a few pics and beaming with happiness at being in a field of wildflowers.

In the park, I headed toward Grant Grove, to see one of the largest trees on earth. The third largest to be exact. With a base over 40 feet wide, and well over 300 feet tall, this tree is immense. Stop and think for a moment about how big that is. It's frickin' huge.



Remember how you do that calculation for circumference of a circle? C=∏d right?
Then that means that this tree is near 120' around!
At these dimensions it is a building. But a really cool one.
I like to think of it as a 1700 year old building that is nearly fire proof, solar heated, and home to an enormous community of critters. How's that for sustainability of a living community? I'd call that pretty golden too, wouldn't you?



I did say this was the third largest, not tallest, so that means it will help if we talk volume to wrap our heads around how hugemongous it is. Something like, if you stuffed the trunk with ping-pong balls, it wouild fit 37,000,000 of them. Or if you had a car that got 25 mpg, and started driving it using this tree as a gas tank, you could drive around the planet something like 350 times without refueling! That is one hell of a tank.

Now think about the reality of this community, and how being a living entity it's mainly water. Lots of players, but it's being managed by one living creature. Thriving. Did I mention it doesn't have a brain, or a nervous system? That some call it of a lower "order"? With considering all that, I just can't see them as lower, in any way. I'd call these giants smart. In fact, way smart. Smarter than you or I will ever be. It humbles me when I'm in the presence of such creatures. I have much to learn from them.

I know, this is primarily a food blog. And none of this is about food right?

But it is. It's about my food. It's about the food I share with others. It's about the things that inspire me. The entities that bowl me over with their very existence. Whether it's the intense golden hue in those flower petals or the enormity of such a single creature that functions as a sustainable high rise community. It's the micro and the macro and everything between. It's the images and sensations of living here, that are swirling through my mind as I create food for my family. To put it another way, if when you die, your life flashes before your eyes, then this is some of the stuff that I hope passes before mine as I check out.

Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I just had to share. In fact, when I was baking this bread last week, knowing I was going to my in-laws soon, I started getting images in my mind of what would be near their home. How within an hour, I could drive through the foothills awash in wildflowers, on my way to walking amongst true giants. I had imagined that I would see these very items before I did. I knew the redwoods would be there, and was pretty sure the flowers were too. Their colors inspired me to incorporate gold and red in bread.

So two of these loafs had the golden cheddar and red bacon combo. Really killer cheddar from Springhill Dairy, paired with super tasty bacon from Highland Hills, all wrapped up in dough that includes my favorite whole wheat from Full Belly Farms.

Cooked to a nice.......golden color.

I'm sure a few of you intuited that I'd eventually work that whole golden state thing into talking about sourdough. I may love them argonauts, and that big bridge thing that spans the gate. I love the sere hills of summer, and of course those poppies. All those things are wrapped up in my head. Which means they're wrapped up in the bread. The bread of my life.