Hello from Santa Rosa, CA
Hi everyone! I've been around for a few weeks now and done some posting but never really introduced myself. My name is Pamela and I live in Santa Rosa, CA. My husband, Jim, and I have been married for nearly 38 years, have raised three daughters (all married and living in other parts of the country). But we are not empty nesters. When the kids left, we acquired two dogs: our 9-year old female Jack Russell terrier, Heidi, who, apparently, is the pack leader of our family and a very lovable 7-year old mini-daschund, Genya. We were successful parents, but are total failures at raising dogs, esp. the terrier who is literally a "terror", but we love her anyway. Jim and I both like to cook and bake, but since Jim is gainfully employed, I end up doing most of the cooking and baking, but sometimes he joins in on the weekends, and, of course, he always home in the evening for the eating part!
I've been baking bread off and on since we got married. My first few years of baking weren't very successful since I didn't know how to cook at all, but I kept trying and eventually turned into a pretty good cook and baker.
Last fall went the economy fell off the cliff and bread and food prices really sky-rocketed, my reaction was to make almost everything that I could instead of buying it--cooking and baking made me feel more secure and in control of my future somehow. But the funny reality was that I didn't save any money at all because I bought all kind of new food and baking related items (a new food processor, bannetons, scrapers, bins for grain--I already had a Nutramill grain mill--, more grain, malted barley powder, pH paper, and the list goes on and on).
There were also many new books purchased too. Some of them were by Peter Reinhart. In the beginning I was making Laurel's 100% sprouted wheat bread, but after I bought WGB, I adapted my recipe and method a little. Then I came upon an opportunity to be a tester for Peter's new book, and I can't tell you how many pounds of bread flour I've gone through in the past month alone. Anyway, I'm certainly not saving any money, but I am having a lot of fun and I have become a much better bread maker as a result of all the testing I've done!
I found this site reading Peter's books. At first I just watched, but after a while, I saw how nice and helpful everyone was, and, that led to my participation. This is a great forum and I'm learning a lot from what I'm reading here. It isn't that easy to meet people who share such a passion for bread and I'm truly grateful to have found an outlet for my pursuits, a place to learn and share.
I have a picture gallery here were you can see some of my successes and failures.
http://gallery.me.com/xaipete#gallery [1]
Hello to all,
Pamela