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Like everyone else around her, at least those who count, Lucy loves pizza just about more than she loves pumpernickel. It is a closer race than one might think.   We usually start off the weekend with grilled salmon on Friday night.

Then Saturday we do something Mexican, this year was grilled pork that was then made carnitas style by sautéing it with bacon fat in a cast iron skillet to really bring out the tastes of old Mexico.

Between wanting a break from my GF experiments and my starter requiring a refresh, it was time to bake something different, something with sourdough.  For reasons not entirely clear to me, I keep going back to Leader's Local Breads in spite of its known defects.  It probably has something to do with the fact that the breads, when they work, are just so good.

It's not hot here, not yet, but I am dreading the season of too hot to bake. What we have now is the sort of weather that has me firing up the grill only to have to call the whole thing off due to rain. So I am crossing my fingers for today, Memorial day.

In any case, I've made something resembling pizza on the stovetop with my cast iron grill pan and this week expanded to focaccia and something shaped reasonably like ciabatta, but lacking in the sort of holes I was hoping for, which I think means it's time to toss the last of that batch of yeast.

For my second crack at this pumpernickel I upped the hydration as well as the percentage of scalded pumpernickel flour and cracked rye. I also finally picked up a pullman pan and baked this rascal for 5 hours of active time and an additional 4 hours in the oven as the oven cooled down. This thing smells crazy good, like caramel and chocolate. It is wrapped in cotton for the time being but I'm hoping it tastes as good as it smells.

Here is my formula

I'm on some sort of "white bread" kick lately.  You delve deeper into whole grain and every now and again need to come back to white flour just to remember how incredibly different it is.  But I'll have to get back to the grains here very soon.  But since a simple sourdough is on my list of breads to fine tune I embrace it.  This one is made with three builds of a stiff levain @ 66% hydration all with freshly milled Hard Red Winter Wheat.

Every once in a while I buy a loaf of bread from Tartine for "research purposes". Here's their buckwheat porridge bread. It's a large loaf weighing 1130 grams.

Winter is already gone but the snow still remains in some places and nothing better to remind the past cold weather like a hundred percent rye with soaked rye meal and heath honey. Happy saturday!

Fagus.

after the year from hell with five operations and no baking, I'm ready to start again. so many of you have posted such impressive loaves...I feel like a complete beginner. best wishes to you all. here I go!