Blog posts

1973, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  The Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra was coming into town.  I was in my first year of high school.  My father was given free tickets because of his position at the ruling KMT Party.  He pulled me out of the school that day; in my school uniform, I sat on the front roll of the concert hall, listening to the Western symphonic music for the first time ever in my life.  I had never heard anything like it; I was so moved, I had joyous tears in my eyes that to this day I still don't know where they came from.  

I've been making Gosselin/Reinhart's pain a l'ancienne since last fall, and until a few days ago, I was having a big problem scoring it consistently.  My breakthrough?  I stumbled upon Gosselin's website and saw them scoring loaves that were MUCH less hydrated than Reinhart's recipe was leading me to create.  Oh, Peter Reinhart!  So I cut back on the water, and voila, the lame scores it perfectly (forgive the shallow angle of the scoring, but it's a mini-baguette).

Ever since he left germany, my father has always been a fan of german sourdough ryes, aren't we all?

The store bought Seeded Sourdough rye my father often buys is so called (nordic or norlander bread). I thought that i could mimic the taste and appearance of the said bread, i tried twice and failed.

Venturing into starter world and sourdoughs helped develop my baking skills, and Rye baking was especially successful. Credit goes to God almighty and freshloavers.

[color=blue]A thousand years, a thousand more[/color]

[color=blue]A thousand times a million doors to eternity[/color]

[color=blue]I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times[/color]

[color=blue]An endless turning stairway climbs to a tower of souls[/color]

[color=blue]If it takes another thousand years, a thousand [b]wars[/b][/color]

[color=blue]The towers rise to numberless floors in space[/color]

[color=blue]I could shed another million tears, a million breaths[/color]

I recently heard from the owner of Kamado Corporation regarding my inquiry as to whether his company makes a product similar to a wood burning oven for making bread and pizza.  Richard Johnson, the owner sent my a reply including pictures that I have in this link: Meridian

Bix

Does the taste of a favorite food evoke in you indelible memories of time and places where the pleasure it has given you has put a mark on you for life?

For me, a bite into a buttery and flaky croissant and my taste memory takes me back to my childhood in Saigon where every morning, I would look forward to the familiar sound of the horn announcing the arrival of the "Bread Man" riding on his scooter with twin canvas trunks full of goodies straddling the rear seat to deliver fresh baguettes and croissants to the neighborhood houses.

Almost all the breads I bake are sourdoughs, but there are two non-sourdough breads I really like – Cinnamon-Raisin-Walnut bread and a hearty 100% Whole Wheat sandwich bread. Whole wheat bread is my bread of choice for tuna salad or egg salad sandwiches and for nut butter and jam sandwiches. It's one of my favorites, toasted, to accompany eggs, although it has stiff competition from San Francisco-style Sourdough bread and un-toasted Jewish Sourdough Pumpernickel (with cream cheese).

I loved the deep wheaty taste of the whole-wheat levain that I posted about last time, and I feel the preferment itself (a wet whole-wheat preferment) added a tangy, earthy flavour to the loaf. It'll be interesting to experiment with different flours in future preferments, as it could be an easy way to "extract" more of the flavour and aroma characteristics of the flour that is used.

Woman does not live by rye or barley alone.

So this woman decided to follow suit, when she saw that a lot of other bloggers on The Fresh Loaf were having fun with bagels. I have a formula for Montreal-style bagels from my instructor at baking school. He got it, scribbled in pencil on a brown paper bag, from bakers at the St. Viateur Bagel Bakery where they've been supplying bagel lovers since 1957.