The process shapes the product

Sunny, blue skies, a plethora of birds at the feeders and breezes gentle enough to trigger minimum windchill are putting us in an unaccustomed good mood. This morning we had to deal with some typical medical insurance nonsense, plus Google seems to be changing their security provisions so we have had to keep fiddling to get access to email etc. over the past couple of days. If it were cloudy and cold, or snowy and cold, we might be more perturbed, or, we might have started making bread even earlier.

an early loaf from more than 6 years ago

Photo by J. Harrington

This time we're modifying the basic sourdough bread recipe found on The Pioneer Woman by using about 30% Natural Way Mills organic gold bread flour and 70% King Arthur bread flour instead of the all purpose flour we've used for the first few loaves. (We might have used about 30 g. less Natural Way flour but we wanted to use up what was left from the first bag.) Focusing on bread making keeps our brain from fussing and fretting about the state of the world. Kneading and folding and stretching the dough provides a tactile exercise that also necessitates a certain amount of hand-hand-elbow coordination. With luck it might help our fly-casting later in the year?

We just noticed today that the sea salt we've been using is iodized. Sometime in the past week or so we remember reading to avoid iodized salt for making bread, so we'll see what happens using coarse Kosher salt. (The Bread Baker's Apprentice has a nice explanation on the differences in weight/volume for various coarsenesses of salt grains.) We're getting a real education in how much different flours and flour combinations, and salts, can vary the taste and texture of the baked loaf. If you had tried to convince us of that a year or two ago, we wouldn't have believed you. This is probably similar to how much Mark Twain's(?) father had learned between the time Mark was 14 and when he reached 21.

a recent effort

Photo by J. Harrington

If minor variations among four basic ingredients (flour, water, starter, salt) can generate such a variety in breads, it seems to us that it's now wonder catching trout on flies can turn into such a complicated business. There's lots more variables in play. But, we think using the same attitude we're developing toward an organic process of making bread, even, if we stretch a little, using adaptive management techniques, will end up making us happier whether we're "successful" or not in turning out a fine loaf or landing a fine fish. Time to go stretch some dough.

Love Like Salt

By Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals 

too intricate to decipher 

It goes into the skillet 

without being given a second thought 

It spills on the floor so fine 

we step all over it 

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball 

It breaks out on our foreheads 

We store it inside our bodies 

in secret wineskins 

At supper, we pass it around the table 

talking of holidays and the sea.

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