Deb of Smitten Kitchen on blasphemous bread, after Melissa Clark's recent inauthentic Irish soda bread recipe in the NYT: I’ve never made Irish soda bread before and eaten it almost as rarely, so I can’t offer a review with any authority, but what I loved about this article is neither could Clark. She was told by a friend married to an Irishman and living in his country that though her version was rich and lovely, it neither looked nor tasted like the real deal. Apparently, nobody in Ireland serves real soda bread anymore, she said, and even if they did, it would have no raisins, eggs, butter or caraway seeds. After trying a version faithful to the original and finding...
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Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks: "I called my dad yesterday and asked him about his garlic bread. Everyone loves these garlic-studded, golden-crusted masterpieces and he brings baskets brimming with slices to lots of 'events' - office parties, picnics, parades, bingo night (somehow he ended up being a caller?). My dad is a chronic volunteer, so there are lots of opportunities for him to display his garlic bread-making prowess. I've had it a thousand times, but never paid much attention to his technique, so today was the day." Lucky us! Garlic bread is simple to make and easy to take for granted but great garlic bread can make a good meal even better, so make sure and bookmark this recipe....
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Focaccia's one of those breads that even people with the baking equivalent of a black thumb (me) can make successfully. Just Baking gives it a try... Incidentally, another recipe that looks hard and isn't and makes a great loaf is Jim Lahey's no-knead bread, which has been posted on a million blogs but is worth posting again, because it's just that good....
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I received the following e-mail from the folks at Wave Hill Bread: "Thanks for writing up your experience with WAVE HILL BREAD. Sorry about your diet. It may help to know that the spelt and rye we use are organic whole grains that we mill for each batch. We use very little yeast because the milling brings out the wild yeast in the hulls of the organic grains. Interesting that you found a sourdough flavor. We use a "poolish" which is made in advance for each batch every day instead of a "levain" used in sourdough bread. Our mentor, Gerard Rubaud, does make a sourdough bread. We do use rye (and also spelt), and that may be what you tasted....
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Damn those Sterns. Why'd they have to turn me on to Wave Hill Breads? I've been doing so well on my diet by eating only whole grain bread. You may remember that last week I tried to sample Wave Hill bread, only to be turned away by a locked door and a sign telling me they close at noon. One of this blog's readers (who, it turns out, attended a talk I gave in Chicago on pizza) alerted Wave Hill's breadbaker-owners, Mitchell Rapoport and Margaret Sapir to my plight. Yesterday they delivered two loaves of the only kind of bread they currently make, Three Grain Pain de Campagne. I immediately tore off a piece and knew my diet was in...
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Today was not a good food day. I went to visit Roadfood pioneers and great writers Jane and Michael Stern at their house in Connecticut. I brought them a box of schnecken (pecan sticky buns) and a black and white cookie from Greenberg's, a classic New York Jewish bakery that is simply not very good anymore except for the schnecken and the black and white cookies. We had a blast hanging out and swapping writer war stories. When I left, Michael told me I had to go to their latest discovery, Wave Hill, a bakery that made great rustic bread. Michael said it was on the way to my final lunch destination, the new Fairfield location of the seminal New...
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