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Category Archives: cooking
Dadliness/ More Sourdough
Happy Father’s Day, here’s more pictures of bread. Great dadliness requires patience and endless encouragement with little expectation of results- just like sourdough.
I punched down the sad blob and left it in my steamy apartment for the day while I was at work because I couldn’t bear to throw it out. When I got home, after rising for 36 hours or so, the dough looked ready to bake. And it came out carmelized crusty, chewy, sour and full of big delicious air holes. Wow! Wild creatures were trapped and tamed to make this bread!
This is an amazing planet.
Posted in cooking
Tagged artisan breads every day, dadliness, experiments, peter reinhart, sourdough
Failure to Rise: Wild Yeast Pain au Levain
not worth baking.
Posted in cooking
Somerville Pain au Levain
Following Peter Reinhart’s instructions, I harvested yeast from the Somerville air and slept with the culture under my pillow every night for a month. But check out the sweet loaf! This version calls for both wild and instant yeast, I’m trying it tomorrow with only the wild. Will post results.
Food Writing for Edible Queens
Look I wrote an article about fresh pasta at Ornella’s, a great neighborhood restaurant in Astoria. And Jesse published it! I’m a food writer!
On the steps this morning:
Self-Criticizing Baked Goods (tasty)
Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day: Book Review
I like bread more than I like chocolate. My stepmother Betty (no bakeries in Heath!), Carina, and I have all been conducting various no knead bread experiments to try to replicate the kind of bread we love at home.
This Reinhart is some kind of bread guru and has a significant following. His recipes are written in paragraphs which makes it a challenge to decipher how many different rises and actions you are to take on each loaf. I got confused and gave up after a few proddings and restings. I baked the 50% Whole Wheat rustic loaf and it came out mishapen but had more complex flavor, chewiness, and big irregular air bubbles than any bread I’ve ever baked. I plan to repaginate the recipes in outline form to make them easier to follow.
Reinhart admits that part of why artisan bread makers have been slow to take advantage of the flavor and texture possible with refrigerated dough is a love of the process. They believe that for great bread you must suffer. Only reluctantly is this guy jumping on the slow rise bandwagon. Happily, he is devoted to flavor and texture above tradition and shares the best methods, well tested, with us.
Posted in book review, cooking
New Digs
Here is the new kitchen, a week ago when I made 6 egg linguine. Today I’m home sick and only have the energy to lie on the couch and look out the screen door. I love the new place: snug and sociable floor plan. Carina gave me a still warm loaf of rye bread for lunch. I made a good decision.
