STIR THE POTS

Thanksgiving, façon de le familie Shapiro

 

 

 

Have a healthy and happy one!

Hmmmmmm

 
First, I'm busy. Busy off the charts and that brought me off my blog.

Second, I love meeting bloggers. Excuse me while I shout out to one right now - helloooo, Shuna. Where was I? Oh, yeah, about bloggers. Especially cooking and baking bloggers. Those I have met are always completely different then me. Thank goodness! Yet they all have that love of movement;  levain-tation, yeasty things, measuring, in metric or oz's. Now where am I going? I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, here. It's almost the holidays and I'm sooo soooo busy at work. Maxing out, yet I still want to blog. So what makes writers write and chefs want to be writers????

Third, I want to raise a toast to blogs, blogging and bloggers. This weekend I met another blogger. She's this amazing lady who conjures loaves, dissects methods of bread fabrication, meets and greets all bakers,and she knows so much. It's our first meeting and yet she already met my mom! It's a Francophonic bread meeting, so exciting. We ended up meeting at a resto (aka restaurant, when I'm more patient) who's chef/manager first indoctrinated me with lessons to be learned over the years in kitchens and also lessons of life. What a great thing. Go meet a blogger, yourself. Celebrate.

Fourth, not only is a good time to meet bloggers but it's a great time of year. Maybe this is where I was going at my first point.  My favorite holiday is around the corner. Namely Thanksgiving, a late harvest and a family holiday before the winters freeze and the ho-ho merry whatever you want to celebrate, happens!

Yeah, this is a long toast masquerading as something between a rant and a post. But here goes. As I toil in my workplace galley, and dream of my future place, my nook somewhere, I hope for all the best for all my fellow bloggers and blog readers. I also send out a big hug to my fellow veterans, soldiers, sailors and airmen doing god knows what and where and hope they all return home soon. I am going to be busy and infrequent this next month, but if your interested, stay tuned, and please leave comments and suggestions.

And as Jacques Pepin say's "Happy cooking"

Miche (mischeivous)

 It's miche week!

Manic baking=excellent miche!

Still here, really! My latest and I can say best loaf so far, miche of course!

This post is going to be submitted to Susan@Wildyeastblog.com as she hasn't been heard from for a long time, so I hope this will remind her that I am still here, in NYC!!!!!

On the road to find out!

Baking bread is always a challenge, especially when the weather changes. Lately I have been having quite a lot of trouble. They seem dense, even non-reactive. Makes for lousy loaves.

First, I blamed mistakenly mixing spelt into a formula rather then bread flour. And not having marked the flour bin, I ended up with some flat and flaccid hunks of baked dough.  Yesterday I asked MC for some help and she pointed out DDT. Did she mean  agent orange? No, that's when I remembered my school lectures about Desired Dough Temperature! Variables abound in baking and I simply have been throwing out the lessons, preferring to take the "touchy-feely method" of bread baking. Which translates into "the cross your finger route."

Following a recipe or formula in baking is a lot different than in cooking. Whereas the latter is more immediate, baking is a methodically timed process. All to say if you're like me (a stubborn student), spend more time on the basic lessons around bread, then observe and take note of what is happening from time of mix, ferment, shape and finally the bake.

 

Feeding my levains regularly, and even leaving them in the oven with only the pilot light on, makes it easier to escape the cooler temperatures of my apartment. No more mixing up flours or trying to rush the process. Maybe just a loaf at a time, scheduling is important too. Because there is nothing better then a risen loaf!