today i made raisin bread: 4 cups of pillsbury bread flour, 1.3 cups of water (left out the night before to evaporate the chlorine), 2 tbsp of melted butter, 2 tbsp of 2% milk, 2 tsp of salt, 3 tbsp of sugar, 2 tbsp of cinnamon, 2 tbsp of fleischmann's active dry yeast (straight from the fridge), and a cup of raisins. it was fun adding the raisins during the 2nd kneading cycle of the dough. it made this doughy katamari ball spiked with different colored raisins. the yeast definitely makes a difference, with the fleischmann i got a pretty high rise. i called my father when the bread was ready and gave him the whole 2 lbs loaf after i tried a slice. i thought it tasted a little bitter (the raisins?) but definitely better than yesterday's dry, hard bread.

the other big news of the day was apple's introduction of the iphone, news of which i followed second by second online through a live transcript from somebody writing in the audience. it was confusing at first as to how big it was - originally i thought it was the size of a book, but later was relieved to find out it was rather small. it's definitely cool and i wish i had the money to afford one when it comes out in june or at least know somebody who has one so i can play with it. julie and i predicted a gps-enabled version would be available in the near future, and joel asked for a widescreen video ipod, minus the other fancy functionalities. apple has definitely set the bar very high for other smartphone makers: apple stock went up something like $7/share today while blackberry stock dropped $10/share.

in the evening julie came over and made some pork cutlets with rockets (you americans call it arugula), as seen on the cover of the current issue of everyday food magazine. now the gauntlet has been thrown back in my court, as i try to figure out what to make for next tuesday.