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I have a nostalgic childhood memory of a black or near black bread that used to appear on the table at family get togethers in the East End of London just before and after the war. Once in a while that memory returns strongly enough to encourage me to start yet another futile unsuccessful search to discover what this exotic bread was…….. futile that is until last month when I came across  This video on YouTube under the name rus brot.

My starter has been living in the fridge since its creation, but last week it decided to die for some reason. Fortunately, I had some dry starter chips in the fridge, which I could revive and after two feeds the "new" starter was good to go, very active. 

I hydrated the dry chips for 4 hours, and then fed it twice over the next 20 hours. Notice that I used tap water directly and things worked out fine. I believe the tap water here does not have a lot of chlorine.

Another fine artisan baker with a French Flair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMTwNU-8glE

We are back from the holidays and needed bread...

So back to baking some Champlains and was a bit nervous as my last bake before the

holidays did not go very well.....

I like the 'square scoring' that the Italian baker Matteo Festo sometime uses and his stuff on IG is amazing! He says it helps with oven spring and I gave it a go.....

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdm9H_YAP5F/?taken-by=ca_mia_breadlab

I love the way it just opens up like a flap!

mantra and calling card.  My wife is from St Louis and I grew up in Kansas City.  I ran across this youtube video about artisan bread in St Louis and Kansas City with a treat at the end that reminds me of where we live now and what we think about when it comes to cuisine and what we like to eat and drink.  I would suggest to smoke the Italian sausage though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD7E5nD7900

Happy viewing.

This particular loaf is inspired from Maurizio at The Perfect Loaf. I was looking for a different flavour combination and this intrigued me. I am not particularly fond of fennel but the rave reviews convinced me.

https://stanton-finley.com/weblog/sourdough-recipe-calculator.html

https://goodcookingfortheheartandsoul.blogspot.com/2018/08/brooklyn-ny-style-pizza.html

Years ago, Lucy came up with a fruit stupid that had a sweetened, enriched bread dough for a crust.  This time Lucy really want all out with an almond crust, adding a cream Anglaise and cream cheese filling with the fruit on top.  This one is light years ahead of her first one if you ask me.

https://stanton-finley.com/weblog/sourdough-starter.html