Hello
Hello,
My name is Grant, and I am from Seattle, WA. I'm 29 and I have been cooking at home since I was 14. I went through a period cooking professionally for about 8 years, and now I am back to simply cooking for myself and my wife, with whom I share the responsibility. I found this forum in my quest for information on sourdough, about 3 months ago, and I have been lurking ever since and gleaning every bit of knowledge I could from the great minds gathered here.
Baking is a very new passion of mine, stemming from an as-yet-unfulfilled desire to craft a reuben sandwich entirely from scratch (well, that's not the only reason I started on this path). Right now I have perfected a yeasted pizza dough that my wife swears up and down is better than anything she's tasted, which means a lot since we have several excellent gourmet pizza shops around us. I have also gone a long way toward perfecting my basic weekly sandwich loaf.
I sincerely hope to learn much, much more from this site. Having a community of like-minded folks with which to share ideas and experiences is pretty exciting.
Grant
Do I dare ask if your crafting a reuben sandwhich entirely from scratch involves raising your own beef, too? Or just the rye?
Whatever, the reuben is a great sandwich and it will be even better with your own sourdough rye.
I certainly wish I could raise my own beef, but the acreage available in the city is not great for ranching! I can make some excellent corned beef though, I can certainly spare the room for winter rye as a cover crop on my patch, and sauerkraut from home-grown cabbage is easy enough.
Grant, welcome from North Carolina,
Your post caught my attention with the phrase "craft a reuben sandwich entirely from scratch" - that is a REAL attention grabber for a Reuben lover like me. You know the 52 loaf guy grew and ground his own wheat. Sound like a great goal to have - if you perfect it I would love to hear more.
I am a guy who likes to ask questions - know more. I would be very interested in hearing a bit more about your professional culinary career - what did you do, what kind of food, one place or many, etc. And, what brought about the change - and what are you doing now? If I am being too personal please accept my apologises - lot of questions for a guy just joining the conversation. I find that people's stories can be real inspiring sometimes and possibly this is the case with yours.
Again, welcome and keep on the Reuben Path.
Ben
I think Mike Avery's recipe recipe for New Bohemian Rye Bread is great. Go to his site:
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/
Look for recipes on the left side, then for New Bohemian Bread. (The direct link did not work for me.)
Another welcome from North Carolina.
Ford
Welcome to TFL, I've also recently started to make my own bread during the weekends and my breads have improved since I found this website. Pls also tell your wife she's one very lucky woman... Judy