Lurker says hello from Portland OR

I've been lurking on these pages for a while now, so I think I should introduce myself. I'm a Welsh transplant to Portland. I've been making all my own bread for a year now,  I did have previous experience making tasty-but-dense homemadey kind of bread many years ago, kneading and punching that dough down, and messing up the whole kitchen for what seemed like an entire day. It seemed like a lot of effort for something that was a novelty but not that great.I wanted to make bread that was as good or better than the wonderful bakery down the street. I got inspired by finding the 'artisan bread in 5 minutes a day' website, bought the book and started making bread that was better than anything I'd managed to make in the old kneading and punching-down-til-it's-dead days. As I got to know the dough, I let go of the recipe and went more free-form, my ferments went for longer and longer and I used less yeast.

Then I found The Fresh Loaf. In the oven right now are two sourdough (learned about making my own starter here) semolina batards ( great videos on forming) started in a cold oven (I read about it here!). the dough was stretched and folded (I love those back home bakery videos) rather than kneading or 'no-kneading'. My bread is getting better!

Thanks for all your help. I'm going to keep reading......