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Several months ago my husband and I went to ZaZu's, a local, wine-country restaurant, to try one of their wood-fired oven pizzas. This road-house style restaurant which features local, sustainable food is our favorite place to eat out. Unfortunately it's pretty pricey so we only go their for special occasions. We ordered a chanterelle mushroom, Laura Chenel goat cheese, truffle oil pizza garnished with pea shoots that was paired with three half-glasses of local pinots. The whole meal was delicious.

I set out to make what has become my standard 25% wholewheat rustic Italian loaf (blogged here) and discovered, well into weighing and mixing the dough, that I had run out of white flour. I had only 150 gm and the recipe called for 300 gm. But I did have plenty of wholewheat. And it was too late to stop and go get more. So I just made up the missing mass with wholewheat flour. Nothing ventured ...

Inspired by Charles Luce gluten free millet starter (following instructions in The Bread Builders, by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott)   I startered a sourdough starter using amaranth...

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14476/excellent-gluten-free-bread#comment-91244

I was given Maggie Glezer's book Artisan Baking many years ago from a friend  who received it from the publisher to review. She is chief with too many books on her shelf already....she knew i was interested in bread, so she passed it along to me. I was a closet  baker for many years...but never touched the white stuff. I liked the idea of bread but that is a far as it went. I read the book from front to back and then started over again and then it sat on my shelf for a many months more.

This tart made a delicious dinner. The tart was lighter than a traditional quiche because of the yeasted crust. We really enjoyed the Chard and saffron filling. (Hans: I’m thinking this is right up your alley and that you will come up with some magnificent variation!) I used crème fraîche in the dough but will use butter next time. Although the crème fraîche made the dough very tender, I think butter would have made the dough easier to work with and given the finished product a more flavorful crust. In other words, I thought the crust was a bit on the bland side.

Another winner from Dan Lepard's book "The handmade loaf".

The dough was very sticky and wet from soaked oats and grated apples (I used Fuji), but I like wet dough. I used Sir Lancelot high gluten flour because I ran out of bread flour at home (17 different kinds of flour, yet that's the one I ran out), the end result was a beautiful bread with open, moist, and chewy crumb. Intentionally left a few bigger chunks of apple in the dough, which made the apple taste stronger.

It occurred to me that I wasn't clear about how the NYB free shipping offer works, and that anyone who orders will see shipping added onto their total. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out how to turn off the Paypal shipping calculator, so as I've explained to those who've phoned me, you need to pay the full amount, including the shipping, which I will then immediately refund. It's a bit roundabout, but for the moment, it's the best I can do. NYB is a work in progress, and I apologize for any misunderstandings.

I call them sourdough sticks because I they are bigger than the bread sticks I have eaten.  They turned out great and I'm thinking about making them again for Thanksgiving.  Making them was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I took a bunch of them to work and my coworkers gobbled them down.  The lumps and bumps gives them a nice rustic look.  They are really simple to make with just flour, water, and salt.  The crust was nice and crispy with a soft and chewy crumb.

I need to make Italian bread and have a thinner crust. Normally, I make batards, use steam, and bake at 400 for 25 min. for an internal temperature of 200 degrees. If I omit the steam, as some suggest, would raising oven temp. result in a thinner crust? I am unable to determine whether cooking longer at a lower temp. produces a thicker crust. I also may wash the bread before baking with egg.

These pastries are made of croissant dough and filled with a fig filling.  Apparently lunettes are, among other things, eyeglasses in French.  You could use any croissant dough you liked, but the dough I used for these was whole wheat with a sponge from ABAP, by Suas.  2 lbs.