Bonjour from Quebec

Hello,

I've been reading and enjoying The Fresh Loaf for years, but now that I have an account I figure I should introduce myself! :)

I've been 'into' bread for a long time, and have tried to make bread at home with mixed results.  I had often idly wondered what it would be like to bake bread for a living, even if just for a little while, but it was just curiosity, more than a lifelong dream.  As it happened, some years ago the bottom fell out of the local construction industry while I was looking for a new job as a carpenter's apprentice, and I couldn't find work, so I applied to a bakery and they took me on because I had a good work ethic and made bread at home!  This experience served me well when I moved to a tiny town in Quebec where the only jobs were in tourism or at the local bakery; and again in the next town that I moved to, when the seasonal work that I had found wound down for the winter.  I'm actually the 'head baker' at the place where I'm at now, and I do my best to improve their product without having the background or formal schooling to be able to troubleshoot the way I would like to.

At home, I still bake bread, preferring it to the baguettes I make at work!  I make a daily bread that's a no-knead overnight refrigerator dough, and I've been experimenting with putting a bit of liquid levain in there too.  I would still really like to make killer baguettes at home, I will have to get back to working on that.  And this summer we built a cob oven in an extension to our woodshed, so I've been having fun experimenting with what I can bake in it.  I've included a photo of the Montreal-style bagels I've baked from a recipe I adapted - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/135174#comment-135174

Anyways thanks for this great website and all I've learned from it!  If you have any comments on my bagels I would be happy to hear it.  :)