I fly under the radar of faith, except when I bake bread. Bread is for sharing, breaking with friends - that is my liturgy. This weekend is no exception. With Easter and Passover falling at the same time, and the world is still a mess, hallelujah. Let us break bread.
So here, Colomba di Pasqua, a bird-shaped and enriched bake. This bird can't fly, but it's sweet and pleasure filled...
It's the season for allium triccocum, aka wild garlic, or ramps. Here's my simple preparation for a ramp-inspired pesto along with a batch of pickled stems. Though you may have a stockman who sometimes hides them for himself ("grrrrr!"), keep searching. Because they're adaptable for a multitude of dishes. And because, like the spring season which brings them, they are absolutely delicious.
Recently baking author (and teacher) Richard Miscovich posted a 67% sprouted rye bread. Wanting to make it, I set about configuring the numbers on my single detmolder calculator. Having no sprouted rye, I was so eager that to bake the bread that I ended up grabbing a bag that clearly said spelt and not rye. Go figure. So I ended up making a 70/30 spelt and wheat bread. But... it was good.
Mixed grain croissants aren't new to me. In fact I've previously tried grano arso, as well as durum. I even tried it with goat butter, which doesn't have distinct goat flavor but does have a strange margarine-like texture. I made a batch recent with a half-and-half wheat-and-kamut mix. A sweet, well-fed levain did the trick. This dough emerged a rocket ship following a bulk ferment and an overnight retard before introducing the butter block. Here's the final product.
Cutting white flour from my diet - and doing it cold turkey - can be scary if not tricky. But... yes you can, yes you can, yes I can... Please! What has made it easy is using alternative baking grains, like kamut, whole wheat, rye and some spelt to fill in. For bagels, besides whole wheat flour I included some emmer and an end bag of Swiss vollkorn flour (whole wheat, rye and spelt). And to my surprise, they rise quite nicely. Key to that, refresh your starter.... Here are some examples.
After a visit to Gustiamo, I ordered some Sicilian flour. Tasting Pane Nero again reminded me I needed to approach making this bread differently. Here's what I got using a slow-food description and method, but with a poolish incorporating a sourdough starter. It was the best fermentation so far, and amazing flavor on this mini pagnotta (round loaf).
Download RICETTA-PANE-NERO-di-Castelvetrano-presidio
My New York City neighborhood of Sunnyside has been the honorary home for 20-years for an alternative Irish celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Known as the St. Patricks For All parade, this year it made the news with the entrance of our illustrious congresswoman, Alexandria Ortiz-Cortez. It's a community that from its inception in the 1930s has been primarily composed of varied waves of working class immigrants. Today's diaspora of newcomers include many folks escaping overpriced Manhattan and Brooklyn, and making this enclave in Western Queens their home.
Once considered the borough's Little Ireland, home to many emigrating Irish men and women, today's more recent immigrants represent everywhere from Korea to Turkey and many other places. Maybe that's why the alternative St. Patricks parade has welcome all to this cherished community. Here's some of what I saw at the celebration, including our new representative and new neighbors.
AOC from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
Pipers from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
ST. Patricks For All from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
Mariachi from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
County Cork Pipe band from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
Soul from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
Pouring a Guinness from Jeremy Shapiro on Vimeo.
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