ohi !!!!!

Dang! I never noticed this "introduce yourself" topic. So let me rectify that.

I'm a Dutch/Italian who moved to Ireland in 1995. I live in a small town on the East Coast and while I had tried an occasional yeast bread using packets of commercial yeast I never really got into bread making.

I was reading the chapter on bread in Michael Pollan's book "Cooked!" and I was fascinated by his description of sourdough, the process of creating a starter and how to maintain it, and his stories of bread making.

So in September 2013 I bought some flour and tried to create my first starter, failing miserably. And then I tried again with organic wholemeal rye flour, and I created the Monster Raving Loony Starter (read about it here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/34905/monster-raving-loony-starter )

Anyhoo. Suffice to say I was hooked. I still consider myself an absolute beginner, but for an absolute beginner I'm not doing too badly. This is today's effort. On the left, a bread made with a sesame seed, linseed, pumpkin seed and sunflour seed soaker, 50% Strong (12.8%) White wheat flour, 50% wholemeal rye flour, about 60% hydration, glazed with a little milk and egg white to hold the sesame seeds on top. On the right, a sweet white bread with cinnamon and tea soaked currants, with a tablespoon of margarine and an egg yolk, and glazed with sweetened egg white. The slashing on the left isn't my best effort but I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over it... :-)

I love this site. As you can see from the comments on the Monster Raving Loony Starter topic, the people here are very helpful and I have been given some excellent advice that has served me very well. I'm not a frequent visitor but I do check the site out regularly enough.

Greetings from Ireland!

Pino