Greetings and thanks for this forum and site.  I joined a few months ago, but hadn't yet  gotten around to introduce myself.  I'd been looking for a bread-bakers meetup, but couldn't find one in Seattle, but am very glad to have  found thisi virtual community.   My recent interest in baking bread  (which I'd learned to do years ago when living in a rural  Western US community where the only kind of bread available was the  balloon bread type)  was due to new food allergies , as well as for taste & economy. I'm allergic to barley, and discovered that most commercially-sold wheat flour, and products made with wheat flour , even by local artisanal bakeries , contain barley flour.  This is true of almost all brands of unbleached  flour and sometimes whole wheat flour too.

So I'm enjoying making bread and experimenting with new ways to make crusty bread at home.  And if any Seattlites are  interested in meeting up to talk about bread, let me know.

Cheers,

Joana