Semola and fresh yeast
Last year after an almost futile search around these parts I found a 1K bag of Antico Caputo durum flour, milled at least as fine as my standard AP flour. Well, now it is gone. Recently I went back to the same market, and drat! They don't carry it anymore. So I ordered a bag of General Mills "#1 Fine" semolina, which is fine, but still milled down only to tiny grains. I decided to employ my old loved, but unused coffee grinder to mill it down further. And it works. The result is flour that is not as fine as the Caputo, but I did get a really good bake out of it. Problem solved.
Today I visited a wonderful "old-time" Italian bakery, Laurenzo's, located in North Miami Beach (don't go looking for a beach in this town), and after pretty much giving up on trying to fine the durum on many market shelves I ran across this:
Not just one or two brands, but three. From left to right the 1K price is $5.99, $3.99, and $3.49. A lucky strike!
In their bread department (nothing to write home about, really) I found this:
That is a 1 lb. hunk of fresh yeast for $1.75. I couldn't resist. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I feel like I'll convert some of the IDY amounts to fresh yeast and give it a go. When I first started home baking about a year and a half ago, I searched in vain for fresh yeast but it had long disappeared off the shelves of every market I tried.
So today I not only found a wonderful Italian market, but two of those elusive products that had basically been non existent in these parts. Unfortunately, this market is not down the block from me, unless one considers a congested 20 mile ride to be down the block.
alan
How'd you happen upon a place so very far from you?
I travel 90 minutes from just outside Sacramento to San Francisco now and again just to buy malt powder and high gluten in bulk. Time's coming when I'll have to make that trip again. At least I can store enough of those two in bulk to last me for months.
I neglected to attach my reply directly to your posting. It registered as just another comment. Sorry.
A number of years ago we visited a place called The Ancient Spanish Monastery, a reconstructed cloisters imported from Spain stone by stone, in N. Miami Beach. Laurenzo's was right down the street. The other day we were taking a tour of a handful of markets with imported goods in the Miami area, and Laurenzo's was on our list.
We used to live in Folsom in the days way before baking was ever a thought in my head. Back then there were only poor quality breads available, IMO, except for a few stores that brought them in from the Bay area. Breads like Acme and Semifreddi and the like. Corti Brothers was one of them. So if you haven't tried them yet, go to Corti Bros. on 58th and Folsom. There's also the Italian Importing Co. on 18th and J Street, but I recall them being smallish and a bit too fru-fru. BTW, The Corti that still runs the store is supposed to be a wine expert, so if that is your bag, it's a place to look for good wines.
I've been there. It's pretty close to where my only local relative lives and down Folsom from a restaurant and a coffee shop we favor. At this point, and to toot my own horn a tad, my friends prefer my breads over Acme's, though quite to my amazement. I've never heard of Semifreddi. Do you think it's sold at Corti Brothers?
Haven't a clue. I haven't lived in the Sacramento area for more than 10 years. I just mentioned Corti as a place that might carry finely milled durum wheat as they definitely used to be a specialty Italian market.
And I agree with you, many high output commercial breads as good as what we can make them at home are not all that common. Plus - we do it for the sheer fun of it.
If you need a bigger bag of durum, order "extra fancy durum flour" to get the fine stuff. Semolina sourdough is one of my favorite breads.
Congrats on your find. I've never seen HM pasta flour but the two Italian ones I can easily get in local stores. FWIW, Granoro is a much, much better flour.