an early loaf from more than 6 years ago
Photo by J. Harrington
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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
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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
It lies in our hands in crystalstoo intricate to decipherIt goes into the skilletwithout being given a second thoughtIt spills on the floor so finewe step all over itWe carry a pinch behind each eyeballIt breaks out on our foreheadsWe store it inside our bodiesin secret wineskinsAt supper, we pass it around the tabletalking of holidays and the sea.
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