Boston TFL Meet Up Report - Link to Lexington Minuteman Article
Update: A photographer and reporter from the local paper stopped by our meet-up. Here is the link to the article. In the print version we were the top front page story.
On Saturday, we had our Boston Area TFL meet up. Ten intrepid bakers plus family members broke bread together. Lots of bread. Lots of really amazing, delicious, and varied bread. We all had a great time chatting, and each had a chance to describe their bread, show and tell, and so on. Ian and I took a lot of pictures, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. (Ian's are the wider ones. I shrunk mine down.)
The scene
Kristen's Volkornbrot and Hotcross Buns, Colin's scrumpy buns
Ian's guacamole loaf
Jong Yang's multi-seed sourdough
Mike's many breads
Barb's dinner rolls, Bill's bagels and baguettes
Varda's breads
Ian's corn feta
Barb's Jalapeno rolls
Kirsten's Volkornbrot
Kristijan's Levain
And not just bread:
Jong Yang's egg custard tarts
Mike's pastrami
Lisa's chocolate chip and raspberry bread
Kristijan's salt cod salad next to his Levain
And people too:
Bill, Ian, Kirsten
Vinni, Mike, Bob
Kristijan and Olga
Barb
Lisa
Me and bread
Jong Yang speaking
Kirsten
Colin, Bill, Kirsten
And stuff:
Jong Yang's homemade brotform next to Bob's Olive Rosemary Levain, Kristijan's Levain behind
Another Jong Yang wooden brotform
Jong Yang's homemade on top of stone steamers
Some of us brought starters to trade and smell
What else? Probably more updates later and hopefully other attendees will chime in.
Comments
That's so cool, Varda. Thank you for organizing it!
-Floyd
I hit save too soon, so there may be more pictures now. Really a great time. So many good bakers. I was overwhelmed. -Varda
OMG it is absolute torture looking at all that delicious food I missed out on! Congratulations on such a successful meet-up. P.S. Jong Yang, are you willing to divulge any of your egg custard tart secrets to TFL? ;-)
BTW the egg custard tarts were to die for. -Varda
I was told they were 'easy'. :)
Varda, what a fantastic job you did organizing. Thank you very much for sharing!
Sylvia
is the reward. Thanks Sylvia. -Varda
great Bread Spread! Insteresting side shows and people too! Glad everyone had a good time and that there was enough bread and other foods to go around :-) What a great idea Varda.
Happy baking to all
I don't think I've ever od'ed on bread before. At one point I was wandering around with a plate of 5 different bits of bread, and I couldn't eat another bite. Thanks DA. -Varda
Thank you Varda for organizing this great event. My wife and I had a fantastic time. It was so nice to meet so many fellow bread heads and spouses who but up with us :). Between Kirsten's amazing lemon curd and Mike's ridiculously tasty pastrami and all of the wonderful breads what was there not to like! Jong Yangs inventive steaming apparatus and homemade lames and bannetons were fantastic. He kept pulling out more and more inventions to go along with his tasty bread I thought he was going to pull out a new steam injected oven on top of it!
I loved the town of Lexington which is such a nice quaint American treasure of a village.
I hope we can do more of these get togethers in the near future.
Regards,
Ian
transformed by a few hundred years into a community of scientists and engineers. It was great to meet you and your wife, and I'm glad she survived a meeting of bread fanatics and was still happy at the end. -Varda
Oh, and my wife now found out she likes Volkornbrot which is amazing since she usually won't eat any of my breads with seeds in it!
Bonus!
Hi Varda,
What a great day you must have all shared. I know you all ate well :-)
Your pictures are great too. I love seeing what you describe and the faces of those I read about here.
Any chance of you adding screen names along side the 'real' names? Some I know but others I am unfamiliar with so I am curious to attach a face to a screen image :-)
Thanks again for all the work you did in organizing the event and in the documentation as well!
Take Care,
Janet
Janet, I think I'll let participants decide if they want the links to their screen names. I walked around sticking my camera in people's faces. Intrusion enough. (I'll never make a photographer - I apologized to everyone after photographing them.) This was a lot of fun. A Denver meetup next? -Varda
Varda,
Makes sense.
Since I have been a member here there have been 3 of these get togethers that come to mind. One in the UK; one in Kansas and now your Boston success has been added to the list. One never knows where the next one will surface. I guess we simply have to stay tuned. :-)
Janet
The Perth chapter of TFL met up for a wood-fired oven pizza and bread bake in May 2012 (follow-up report here). Admittedly, at that time there were only two of us, heh heh - Derek (Yozzause) and me. But it was a good evening! And now our numbers have built to three! From little things, big things grow...
Great report, Varda. Looks like everyone had a terrif time...and fabbo array of breads and other goodies! I'd also like to put nicknames to faces if attendees feel like providing that info, but if not, fair enough. Understand that. Anyway, good on you guys. Sounds like a lotta fun.
Cheers
Ross
Thanks for sharing photos of the 2013 Boston conference, Varda! A great turnout and what a wonderful spread of baked goods! It really is inspiring to see such passion for baking!
so many terrific bakers was an eye-opener for me. And as you say, very inspiring. So much energy and enthusiasm. -Varda
for the excellent photos of an excellent event. It was very inspiring for a newbie like me to see so many wonderful breads and meet the bakers. Now I really have to get to work on my baking.
-Colin
you were able to attend Colin. It was great to meet everyone in person (and eat their breads.) -Varda
Sorry to have missed it. I'm only a little bit west of Lexington, but I was in Virginia for Easter.
Next time I won't accidentally schedule in the middle of one holiday and the day before another. Hope you'll be able to come next time. -Varda
More time to work on baking- looks like folks brought some very fine bread to share indeed.
I can only imagine how wonderful the event must have been. Thanks for posting the photos, Varda. How I wish we could hold something similar in my part of the world!
and I think would have been worthwhile even with just a few people. Where are you located? Maybe you could rustle up some bakers. -Varda
Singapore. It would be nice if we can make it, but as far as I can see currently we have one other active member "limitedbaking" from my country. Of course, Evon is a close neighbour and always welcome to hop, skip and jump across the straits with her beautiful bakes :).
Just read the news report you posted. Great! You all are celebrites :).
What a nice gathering, Varda! Wonderful breads, and passionate dedicated people, you must have had a great time.
Thanks for posting this.
Khalid, You got it. I was somewhat taken aback as I'm used to being the only bread fanatic in the room. I'm so used to watching people's eyes glaze over when I go on and on about my favorite topic. -Varda
That looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for the report and all the pictures, Varda.
Not the best timing. Must have been a lunar correction this year. It was great fun. -Varda
Thanks for organizing that Varda. I also did not think it possible to overdose on bread. But it is. I couldn't look at a carbohydrate for another day.
However I am not sure it is possible to OD on Mike's pastrami.
Thanks for the recipe, Jong Yang. I also thoroughly enjoyed the sourdough that you gave me. Very delicious!
Great event - thanks everybody. Thanks for organizing, Varda. It's always great to meet like-minded people and to see that one is not the only bread-crazy person out there.
Maybe we can do it again some day ....
Kirsten
Kirsten
Can you share your lemon curd recipe? My wife can't stop raving about it.
thanks
Ian
Hi Ian, here is the recipe:
3/4 cups lemon juice (3-4 lemons)
8 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 stick of butter
Grate the rind of one lemon, set aside. Beat the egg yolk to break them up, add sugar and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the curd thickens (take a spoon, dip it in the curd. Run you finger through the curd on the back of the spoon. If the line remains, the curd is thick enough). Remove the curd from the heat and add the butter and the lemon zest. Stir until butter is melted. Let cool to roomtemperature, then refigerate.
It says it lasts for two weeks but I think it lasts longer. It makes four jars of the type I brought to the meeting.
Enjoy!!!
Thank you so much!
Ian
Kirsten, I was just talking with a woman who saw your Volkornbrot in the Minuteman article and asked if you would share the recipe. Of course I'm sure others would like it as well. It was great to meet you and I hope we will be able to have another meeting before too long. -Varda
Yes, of course I will share the recipe! Maybe I can do it tomorrow. We are going on a week's trip over April vacation, so things are a little crazy. If I don't get to it before we leave you will have it in 10 day's time.
Kirsten
San Francisco was delicious, but not as delicious as being there would have been. Sorry I missed it, looks like a great time!
Hopefully you'll be able to join us next time. -Varda