Now that I've settled into the proportions, I'm really enjoying it. It felt good to realize that I'd made the house recipe for granola so many times I could just go into the cool storeroom and start scooping out the grain: 10 quarts of oats, 3 of rye flakes, 2 of oat bran . . .
The Icelandic sagas feature women as secondary characters, but I remember being fascinated by the fact that "housewife" was treated as an important job. Back then running a household was indisputably a full-time occupation, partly because Icelanders lived in longhouses with dozens of people. (Think Riders of Rohan type dwelling.) Getting a household through the winter took major preparation and planning. In one saga, a house is thrown into turmoil because of the wife's bad management, and it looks like they may run out of food. A woman's position of honor was once synonymous with her role as a provider of food: our word "lady" is from Old English hlǣfdige, "loaf-kneader".
Well, my job isn't that important. But I do enjoy feeding a lot of people.
