Tuesday night, I decided I was finally going to try making bread.

I had bought bread flour. Karen had kindly supplied me a bevy of non-dried milk recipes. I checked the yeast I’d bought years ago. Oops. August ’04. Hmmm… And would this kind even work?

So a trip to Safeway for yeast. We bought two kinds — just to be on the safe side. And a can of pears.

Back home. Which recipe?

Rudi selects the pear-based recipe.

A phone call to Karen: Which yeast do I want? Either will probably be fine, she says. She is a calming voice to my inexperience. Even if it does not work out, it will be fine. She adds the sage (but not basil) warning that I should not yank the bread out of the machine as soon as it ends and slice into it. It won’t be done cooking. I won’t have to wait all 15 minutes, but 10 minutes would be smart.

I pull out the breadmaker bowl and follow directions. Mash pears, add liquids, add dry ingredients, add yeast (the active, not highly active, variety). Remember not to stir. Throw bowl back into machine.

The moment of truth — will the machine work?

Hooray! It’s making noises! (Jeremiah hopped up on the butcher block to investigate.)

Rudi and I watch the dough like anxious nesting sparrows. Will it become a ball? Will it rise? Will it brown?

It did all those things. Truly exciting.

And the smell wafted through the Burrow, keeping us up late enough to eat it.

The most effort I had to put in between pouring in the ingredients and slicing the bread was getting the loaf out of the pan. It stuck a little on the sides and a spatula was necessary to loosen it. But boy did it look pretty once it was cooling on the counter.

After letting the bread cool precisely 10 minutes, I sliced it. A little butter and it was gone. Mmmmmmmmm…

We’ve had it toasted with jam for breakfast the last two days and enough remains for tomorrow’s breakfast. Then on to the next loaf. You don’t notice the pear, except when you open the paper bag, when the scent of ripe pear wafts out. Yum!

I have to admit: I experienced a surprising amount of pride for this little loaf. I didn’t do much. The breadmachine did most of it. But I suppose it wouldn’t make it without me, so I will consider it a successful working partnership.

Because I work in the health literacy field, I have to come to hear a vast number of conspiracy theories about the medical field, particularly from low-income and minority audiences. Even as recently as January, an NIH study showed a large number of African Americans believe that HIV and AIDS are a government plot to kill off large numbers of minorities and that a cure is being withheld from the public solely for that reason.

Looking back through history, incidents — Tuskegee, when the government decided not to treat the syphillis infections of African American men, and orphans being deliberately infected with malaria or hepatitis, among others — indicate that this mistrust had its origins in fact.

And it is easy to see how that mistrust could be perpetuated when you see that even if you account for education and income, minorities still lag their white counterparts in access to quality healthcare and treatment for illnesses, particuarly chronic ones.

But I hadn’t really believed that there was reason for these communities to continue with the mistrust. I was under the illusion that I merely had to battle the specters of history in order to help turn the tide. Little did I realize that I have to fight current events.

Apparently, I was wrong. “Researchers Tested AIDS Drugs on Children” — foster children in SIX states, to be specific — without their receiving the independent monitors who are supposed to advocate on the kids’ behalf. They’re the ones who are supposed to make sure that the kids are protected from reasonable risk.

“Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

“In one study, researchers reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.”

These aren’t backwoods hicks we’re dealing with. This is the NIH — the National Institutes of Health — providing the funding! These are illustrious, respected hospitals — including Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, and Johns Hopkins University.

And these weren’t your right-before-public-release treatments that have been tested up the wazoo. These were Phase I and Phase II studies — the stages of the clinical trial where a drug’s BASIC SAFETY is tested.

And what a surprise. While children did actually get access to first-rate researchers, often the treatments were dangerous, and, periodically, lethal. Some kids had to be taken off the treatments because of “serious toxicity.” Others — nearly all infants — experienced major drops in white blood cells — the one thing AIDS drugs aren’t supposed to mess with!!!

Thanks, NIH, for just making my job a whole lot harder.

The first local strawberries of the season made it home with us for brunch this morning. Cheerful deep pinkish-red hearts piled in a green cardboard box from the organic farm and its German farmer. The scent of childhood revisited, bringing back memories of lying on the living room rug with a bowl of strawberry shortcake for supper after a long day spent outside. Sweetness unparallelled, not even requiring sugar (which is good because we are almost out). I will not eat them all today. Summer is just around the corner. Forget sugarplums; strawberries will dance in my dreams tonight.

My folks have sold their co-op and spent the last three days down here packing up the rest of their belongings. This marks the formal end of their 14-year bi-state existence and I am remarkably happy for them that they finally get to exist in just one place.

Mind you, they still need to drive back up to Connecticut and to unload the car and the truck. But the apartment is empty and the keys have been handed over. Now that they’ve made it past the closing, there is time for closure.

Their time down here was good for them. D.C. afforded them some fantastic opportunities they never would have had if they’d remained in Connecticut all this time. But now I think it’s better for them to have a place where they can spread out and enjoy time with hobbies, home and garden, and each other (and with Gramma, who will move in later this year). I’m sure some concerns exist for them as they embark upon the next stage of their lives, but the journey seems to have been a good one so far, setting a positive example for Josh and me.

I did just want to take a minute to thank Hod, a family friend since I was a little girl, who drove all the way down here just to help Dad with the heavy things. Since I would have been hard-pressed to lift and tote with quite the same good graces Hod approaches life with, I was remarkably grateful for his presence. Thank you.

My friend Phillip is heading to Afghanistan for a month later this week, so he invited some folks over for beers last night. So instead of going empty-handed, I decided this was one of those occasions which demanded bringing a goodie.

For those who know me, you know my cooking skills are tenuous, at best. But I have burned rice much more recently than brownies, so I thought a dessert was a safe bet. And after staring at the cookbook my grandmother made for me for Christmas ’02 at my request, I decided her mint stick recipe was the fastest option I had.

I won’t give up the family recipe (some things must remain sacred, y’know), but sufficed to say I’m sure Gramma has never used cream that had an expiration date of 3+ months earlier in any of her recipes. But I was raised in a household that believed in the sniff test when it comes to dairy products, and the cream passed that test just fine.

And the recipe calls for cooling the dessert in stages. I may have used liberal definitions of “warm” and “cool” in these instances. When the cake didn’t burn my fingers, I figured that it was warm. And to cool it sufficiently for the top layer, I tossed it in the freezer. So while it was cool enough to carry, it was not so cool I wouldn’t have used a trivet if placing it on a good surface.

My mother would have been horrified when Phillip brought out a large spoon to dish out the dessert. Mum feels the whole point of having mint sticks is that they be in stick size and shape — approximately 1″x2″, preferably. I suspect that she prefers this specific size because it means the mint sticks last a lot longer than when you dish out 3″x3″ squares the way Phillip was last night.

But the responses were overwhelmingly positive, particularly when they learned I’d broken out an old family recipe for the first time. So hooray for Gramma and her recipe, for Mum and her ability to make mint sticks last longer than one night, and for me for finally trying to make a dessert entirely from scratch.

I am officially a terrible fantasy baseball coach (25-38-9 in our league scoring). My problem is that I actually envision the players on my team being real live human beings sitting on a bench in my living room. (Can you anthropomorphize real people?) Happily, none of them spit tobacco or sunflower seeds on the carpet.

I don’t want to hurt their feelings by not playing them. I drafted poor Craig Counsell last week and he still hasn’t gotten a chance to get on the field. And I feel bad about that. Really.

I understand fully that it doesn’t make sense and that this is not the way to play fantasy baseball. I recognize that this is a game and that I am supposed to strategize by looking at players’ numbers and only play those who are good.

But I didn’t go into my (free) baseball fantasy league looking to play by the pre-established rules. Sam, our league commissioner, advised only picking a few “hot” players in the pre-draft and letting the computer pick the rest of our players for us based on their numbers. So I deliberately went in and found all the Mets I’ve ever liked, plus a few other non-Mets I like (JT Snow because he picked that kid up at home plate and kept him from getting trampled, Jeff Bagwell because he grew up in Connecticut, Omar Vizquel because he’s Rebs’ favorite player, Bernie Williams because he plays jazz guitar, Livan Hernandez because I felt I should support one of the local guys) and drafted them. Luckily, except for a few players, most people don’t want ex-Mets. I don’t know why. And I’m okay with that.

And sometimes it pays off for me. Fonzie (Edgardo Alfonzo) is tearing up the national league.

And sometimes it doesn’t. But I won’t take John Franco out of the game just because Houston doesn’t use him to my advantage. I like John. I resent the Mets having traded him, after a lifetime with the team. Loyalty should count for something. So I put him on my team.

When I need to add players, however, I have tried to be more judicious by only looking at players who’ve posted good numbers in an area I’m lacking (like batters who don’t strike out or pitchers who throw strikes or someone who closes games on a regular basis). But I do have standards — there’s no way you could pay me to take Armando Benitez after the way he played for the Mets all those years, and except for Mike Hampton, who pitched for the Mets for a while, I refuse to draft Braves.

But I do wish the players I do want would reward me for my approach by hitting grand slams on my watch, as opposed to when I sit them to let someone else get a chance to play (David Wright last week) or when they aren’t supposed to be in the game (Jay Paton only starts against lefties, but Trot Nixon had to go and get thrown out of yesterday’s game…).

Oh well. I get a fantasy team that’s 19 1/2 games out of first place in my league. But I get to run it the way I want to, and no one really cares if I lose big. I know more about baseball and players in general this season (and can name a player on almost every team!).

And hopefully Craig will get into a game this week. In fact, I’ll make that a priority.