A cultured life

 

Today, as I was enjoying the sack lunch I usually bring with me to work, I pondered the expansion of one of my long time hobbies - puttering in the kitchen.  I have always enjoyed the whole process of preparing the food I eat, and for some of it, that involves the harnessing of beneficial microbes.  Most longstanding of these is the sourdough bread culture I have maintained for more than 20 years.  Most weekends, I bake two loaves of sourdough bread for use throughout the week in everything from sandwiches to croutons for soup and salads.  The venerable sourdough culture I have carried for decades contains a mix of bacteria and yeast whose metabolic activities produce the leavened bread that I have exclusively consumed for many years.  Home fermentation activities have not been restricted to bread: on a sporadic basis, I have fermented cabbage to make sauerkraut, and though I haven't brewed in some time, one of my earliest hobbies was making my own beer.  Beneficial microbes have always been welcomed in my kitchen!

More recently, I have expanded these cultural pursuits.  I revived a yogurt maker that I'd purchased several years ago, and I've turned out a few batches of very tasty homemade yogurt.  I've stepped up my sauerkraut production.  And just this week, I sampled my first batch of fermented dill pickles.  These are classic full-sour dill pickles in the best NYC deli tradition.  So with my home baked sourdough sandwich, I had a fermented pickle which was delicious.  I expect to expand fermentations even further after reading a book that I received yesterday, containing info and recipes to produce all manner of fermented produce and beverages.  About the only area of microbe-driven food production that I have not yet tried is making cheese.  Something to look forward to!

Olive Bread

 My second effort to bake all the recipes in The Secrets Of Jesuit Breadmaking was a recipe for Olive Bread.  This is an especially rich white bread, with added eggs and lots of butter, to which olives have been folded in.  A delicious, flavorful bread that needs little accompaniment for full flavor.  It can be simply eaten warm, by the slice.  It is tender and aromatic, and would be a great match for a simple meal of soup and a salad.  I did make a small alteration in the recipe, and instead of baking it all by hand, I used my Zojirushi bread machine.  Call it a concession to a busy weekend- four UAB Blazer sporting events in the past seven days.  The results were just as good as if I had kneaded and baked the bread by hand, I am sure.

Olive Bread

Potato Bread

 

Today begins the project I mentioned earlier, to bake every recipe in a cookbook entirely devoted to bread recipes.  I was up early this morning, and after setting my clocks back one hour, started baking Potato Bread instead of my customary weekly sourdough.  This was a fairly simple recipe to make basic white bread to which is added boiled potatoes.  The potatoes and starchy water from their cooking are used in the recipe to make an especially moist, tender bread.  Nice mild flavor and good body.  Not especially crusty, so it will make sandwiches any school child will eat.  I haven't decided on what I will bake next- I don't intend to follow any strict order as I sample each recipe in the book.  But perhaps something with a little more flavor.  A link to the recipe:

Potato Bread

Bread of Life

 I was rummaging through my very sizable collection of cookbooks the other day and came across one that has been in my library for decades.  I'm not sure how long, since it seems to pre-date my efforts in systematic book cataloging via nifty software that I began well over a decade ago.  I'm certain I've had this book for at least 20 years; its copyright date is 1995, so it may be even longer.  Anyway, I struck upon the idea of using this book as a sort of Julie and Julia project.  For those who may not have seen the 2009 film, a young food enthusiast documents her efforts to cook every dish in the cookbook of famous French food chef Julia Child.  It's a long and sometimes arduous journey, and the film based on it was quite entertaining.

As an enthusiastic baker, what if I tried the same sort of project?  While I have been assiduously baking for 30 years, I am completely self-taught.  Therefore, I can't claim to be skillful, or even significantly knowledgeable about a domain of cooking to which professionals can devote a lifetime.  However, I can read and learn, and have a certain amount of experience that I've accumulated over the years.  So, I set as my goal the project of making every recipe in this book, The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking, by the late Brother Rick Curry, S.J.  As a scientist and a hobbyist baker, what better endeavor?  Experiments that I can eat!  Brother Curry was perhaps slightly disadvantaged as a baker, since he had only one arm.  But he certainly had much baking knowledge to impart to me and my two arms.  I look forward to the adventure.  Stay tuned!

Fresh bread

 A few weeks ago, I mentioned the new scratch-and-sniff stamp issue by La Poste, the French postal system.  My hopes that I'd receive one on a Postcrossing postcard were satisfied today when I found a card from Marie in my mailbox.  How does it smell, you ask?  Well, to be honest, it's a little disappointing.  It does have a mild smell, and it's not unpleasant.  But I wouldn't have said it smells like a baguette.  More like a vague scent of baked goods- and something sweet, like a vanilla cupcake.  But definitely not a traditional French baguette, in my opinion.  Still, points to La Poste for the attempt.  France ranks among countries with some of the nicest stamps, I've always said.  Finland is the clear winner as far as interesting stamps, in my judgement.  But the stamps from France are usually large, very beautiful, and artistic.  And since France is not among the most active Postcrossing nations, cards from there are fairly rare which increases their value.  Vive La Poste!

The postman always sniffs twice

 Just ahead of this summer's Olympic Games in Paris, the French postal system, La Poste, has released a novelty- scratch and sniff stamps.  With Gallic whimsey, the fragrant stamps will give the scent of freshly baked baguettes, the species of bread so important to French culture.  This is not, however, the first time such a stamp has been issued.  Back in 2018, the US Postal System issued scratch and sniff stamps with the smell of fruity ice cream treats.  I used these stamps for a while when they were current and found it to be a pleasant effect.  It was an amusing novelty at the time, and showed a measure of fun and innovation not seen recently in the USPS.  So while I wait for the USPS to regain its efficiency and creativity, I will hopefully look forward to a Postcrossing postcard from France with a bread scented stamp.

Bread of Life

 For nearly fifteen years, one of my weekly routines has been the two-day process of baking a pair of sourdough bread loaves.  It starts on Saturday afternoon, as I feed my decades-old sourdough culture.  I then divide it and return part to the fridge for use next week.  The rest I feed and mix again and then let  ferment overnight.  On Sunday, the ritual of kneading, rising, forming, rising again, and final baking takes place.  When it's all done, I have two delicious loaves of natural sourdough bread, free from chemicals and preservatives found in storebought bread.  It's bread in its simplest form: King Arthur flour, water, salt, and a pinch of sugar.  During the height of the pandemic, many people took up baking as a hobby, leaving flour supplies for established bakers like me worryingly scarce.  But that's now in the past, and each Sunday the house is filled with the enticing aroma of fresh baked bread.

Sourdough bread