As I sat writing this post, I found myself starting out the window.  This is not unusual for me.  Here's what I was thinking:
Wow, the grass is still really green/I wonder if I should make this post about Thanksgiving/Are gardens supposed to be this green at Thanksgiving?/Should I rip up my garden next weekend?/I wonder if those blossoms on the cherry tomato plant will get a chance to turn into tomatoes/what am I making for lunch tomorrow/Wait/I have to work tomorrow/I wonder how people save tomato seeds... and so on.  I kinda got stuck on the seed thing.
I'm going to research it.  How people save seeds from tomato plants.  It doesn't seem straight forward to me but I guess it must be kinda simple enough that tomatoes have thrived over the last thousand years or so, give or take.  I've started saving bean seeds over the last couple of years.  I've been saving dill, basil and parsley seeds since I realized that I could (let's say more than a couple of years).  I thought about how saving seeds has become a corporate and retail venture.  Most farmers aren't 'allowed' to save seeds.  If you purchase from the big guys (one such company starts with an M... look them up) then you can't save the seeds that those plants produce.  Many farmers have gotten slapped with lawsuits, some of them didn't even plant 'M' seeds they just got flown in by a bird or bee.
Then I started thinking about Vandana Shiva.  She is someone I first started hearing about in the 90's.  She grew up in the Himalaya's and studied at Western U.  She realized that things were terribly wrong very early on in her life.  I don't know if you are old enough to remember when, during heavy deforestation of the Himalaya's, a group of local Women (yeah, I'm using a capitol for them) chained themselves to the trees to that the cutting would have to stop.  That was headed up by a young Vandana Shiva.  She has gone on to write a lot of books and is now at the helm of a movement in India to reclaim their seeds and farming.  Corporate Western farming has pushed out many small farmers and many who would just farm to feed themselves and their families.   What's happened over the last 20 years or so is that many of the old traditions of saving and storing seeds were lost, many indigenous vegetables gone and livelihoods destroyed.  Then people move to cities and so the cycle goes.  Vandana is working to change all of that, to take patents off of seeds, to retrain those interested in old farming practices again and the push for greater protection of land and food in India from both foreign and national corporations.  She is a hero to me.  She heads up an organization called Navdanya International.


So I'm thinking about tomato seeds.  She's thinking about an entire cornucopia of seeds.  I have much to learn.  I'm going to start with tomatoes.
This bread has nothing to do with tomato seeds but it's really good.  This is one of the best bread recipes that I think I've made yet.  That doesn't mean that I'm like brilliant for making the bread.  Anybody could make this bread and should make this bread.  I loved it.  I could eat it plain, nothing helping it out.  In fact, I did just that last week.  Plus it makes two loaves so that you can either freeze one for later or share with a friend (much more appealing if you asked me).



Pilgrim's Bread adapted from 'More with Less'

Combine:
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp salt

Add in and stir constantly:
2 cups boiling water

Add:
1/4 cup oil
Cool to lukewarm (about 10 - 15 minutes)

Dissolve together for about 10 minutes:
2 pkg. dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm water

Add the yeast mixture to the lukewarm cornmeal mixture.
Add in:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
Add in 4 - 4 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour.

Knead on a floured surface until it's smooth and elastic.  Place in a lightly greased bowl.  Cover and let it rise about an hour or until doubled in size.
Punch it down.  Divide the dough in half and knead each half again for about 3 minutes.  Shape into loaves and place into greased loaf pans.  Cover and let rise again for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake for about 40 - 45 minutes.