We have plenty of water on which to cast our bread

There's an old saying among duck hunters that goes:

Fust it rained,
and then it blew,
then it frizz,
and then it snew!

That pretty well covers the last, and the next, twenty-four hours of weather around here. North of us and West of us we hear it's almost all snow. We're going to be in very slippery trouble if roads, walks and driveways don't dry a bunch before the frizz gets here again. As we write this large, wet snowflakes are falling mixed in with the rain drops. Is this a new normal for a North Country December storm?

this is sort of what it looks like today

Photo by J. Harrington

There's another old story about the idiot who kept smashing against a door in a wall, trying to break down the door and escape. Another occupant watches for awhile and then gets up, walks to the door, turns the handle and opens it. The first occupant rages "Why didn't you tell me the door wasn't locked?" The second occupant replies "You never asked."

For years we've been dealing with the national corporate offices of our internet service provider. After abysmal service yesterday, The Better Half agreed to call (the service is in her name) but when she checked, a local number popped up. She called. Today a tech replaced an old, old modem with a fancy new one. We're not going to explain whether it's usn's or the Better Half that's like the first occupant, but we will tell you that we're the ones that have been calling the corporate 800 number for years.

this is what we want to improve on

Photo by J. Harrington

As part of our transition to a better, happier 2019, we're trying a new recipe and procedural adjustments to see if we can get our sourdough bread to have the luscious, big holes we like. We actually went back and (re)read bout making high hydration sourdough dough. There's some rising (first proof) in a bowl now. We used 60 grams of all purpose flour and 440 grams of bread flour instead of our usual 500 grams of bread flour. We also double checked how the numbers turn out when our starter, which is fed with half flour, half water, is added to a 75% hydration flour/water mix. If we strictly follow the recipe and use 50 grams of starter, we end up at 76% hydration. If we, as we frequently do, double the amount of sourdough starter, hydration goes to 77%. What we haven't quite figured out yet is how to interpret the instructions that say "Shape it again..." but, for a change, we'll simply follow the directions in the sequence they're printed and see what happens. Stay tuned for further adventures from sourdough breadland. We'll see if using this blog as a version of a baker's journal works for us and any readers who follow our bread crumbs. For those who want to go to our source, try here.

Bread

By Richard Levine

Each night, in a space he’d make 

between waking and purpose, 

my grandfather donned his one 

suit, in our still dark house, and drove 

through Brooklyn’s deserted streets 

following trolley tracks to the bakery.

There he’d change into white 

linen work clothes and cap, 

and in the absence of women, 

his hands were both loving, well 

into dawn and throughout the day— 

kneading, rolling out, shaping

each astonishing moment 

of yeasty predictability 

in that windowless world lit 

by slightly swaying naked bulbs, 

where the shadows staggered, woozy 

with the aromatic warmth of the work.

Then, the suit and drive, again. 

At our table, graced by a loaf 

that steamed when we sliced it, 

softened the butter and leavened 

the very air we’d breathe,

he’d count us blessed.

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