Day 1 - Joy Gieseke, Mineral Point, WI

Arrived at Joy’s around 3 p.m. She was waiting for us at the door. She lives in an apartment overlooking Mineral Point’s downtown main street. Just two doors from where she works as the Executive Director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce. Joy has been here in Mineral Point for 8 years! It just doesn’t seem possible that she’s been gone from Huxley that long. Her apartment is full of natural wood trim, built in bookcases and cabinets and two sky lights. It is a very homey, comfortable place.

We had a wonderful visit – talking about our past lives, our kids, people we know in common, Huxley, our jobs and grandchildren: actual, anticipated and hoped for. We noticed books in every nook and cranny of her beautiful apartment – and she told us the story of how they came to be. Besides the fact that she loves to read, and hasn’t owned a TV in 8 years. She went to an auction, where there were 3 flatbeds of books among all the other household belongings. I guess the woman selling the stuff loved to read also. She bid on books that were auctioned on a cost per book basis. Got those. Then they continued to auction the books. At the end, she bid $1 for 1/3 of a flatbed of books. The auctioneer told her she could have the whole flatbed for $3.00, so she said ok. She conservatively estimates there were 600 books. She had to borrow a friend’s pickup to get them all home. She has since given many away (even gave one to Joe), but still has lots and lots and lots and lots of books.

For supper she fixed homemade bread (recipe to follow), a spinach-artichoke-chicken casserole and salad. Yummie! She said the bread was really really easy to make, a yeast bread that requires NO kneading! So I asked for the recipe and here it is:

Joy’s No Rise Bread (from Sullivan’s Bakery in NYC)
3 cups flour
1½ tsp salt
¼ tsp yeast
1 5/8 c. warm water
Mix flour, salt and yeast. Add water, mixing by hand. Cover w/plastic wrap and let set for 18-20 hours. Stir it down and let it rest for 15 minutes. Fomr into loaf the best you can (use flour if necessary). Use flour to form loaf. Place on a towel covered with flour (NOT terry cloth!!). Use plenty of flour because it’s really sticky. Let rise 2 hours. At 1½ hours, place covered roaster or dutch oven in oven at 450 degrees. Let it warm in there the final ½ hour that dough is resting. Place loaf intopan with corn meal on the bottom. Cover it, Bake ½ hour. Take lid off and bake an additional 5-10 minutes.

Joy is rightfully proud of the work she does – and got Joe’s attention with a map/brochure/website (in the works) that details 30 bike tour routes within a 3 county area in south west Wisconsin. Some of these routes will be quite challenging – and are being considered in Chicago’s bid proposal for the Olympic bike rides for 2016. We have all the information and I’m quite sure that this will be a separate trip in the future. There is also a new theater here in the community that performs all original works. We’re anxious to try this out too.