Well, as my account name states I am a Kansas girl stuck in Maryland.  Even though I have now officially lived in Maryland (Ellicott City to be exact) longer than I lived in Kansas (Topeka)(I moved right after college graduation) I will ALWAYS consider myself a Kansan (sorry you Marylanders).

 I have always loved making bread, but have had long bouts (we are talking years) of not making bread.  When I first moved out on my own I made all my own bread.  Mostly plain white from a very old copy of a Betty Crocker bread recipe book.  I would occasionally throw in a loaf of french bread (recipe from the same Betty Crocker book).  I also whipped the occasional loaf of Dilly Casserole Bread (the best no knead bread I have ever had).  But until recently I have been in a long dry spell.

 Then this past winter I discovered the John C. Campbell Folk School (http://www.folkschool.org).  (Shameless plug).  I took the week-long breadmaking class.  Think 8-10 hours everyday of making breads and then getting to eat them.  Absolute heaven.  I came home inspired and began making bread weekly.  And I became a bread recipe junkie (you people are really bad for my waistline and pocketbook).  I was also inspired to revamp my kitchen (remodeling is frowned on in rented apartments) to give myself more room to work.  Even though I have a Kitchen Aid mixer I love the process of making the dough by hand.  I fear that when I first came back from my class I may have given King Arthur catalog the false impression that a new bread shop was opening from the continous orders I put in for about 6 weeks.

 One of the best lessons I learned from my week of breadmaking was that really good bread can take 2-3 days to make.  I now know the joy of coming home from work and whipping up a poolish in a few minutes and coming home the next day to complete the actual dough with a few minutes of kneading and coming home the next day to actually bake my bread.

 While I have owned Ruth Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible for several years I was always intimitated by the recipes.  Now I read throught the recipes and can't wait to try them.  I also purchase Peter Reinhardt's Bread Bakers Apprentice.  Several of the recipes we made in class were from that book.  What a wonderful book.  It is a great read even before you get to the recipes.

So now I come to my quandry.  Maryland (as well as Kansas) gets ungodly hot in the summer time.  AC is a wonderful thing and a blessing, but AC in an apartment is very hard pressed to deal with an oven running at 400+ degrees for an hour+.  Other than getting up at 2:00 AM to bake do you have suggestions for dealing with the heat from the oven.  I am moving into another bout of no bread baking because of the heat and I really don't want to lose my momentum.

I can't wait to read your suggestions and constantly look forward to being inspired by the recipes posted.

Anne

Folks, I just want to say I appreciate the fact that so many of y'all are keeping that bread flag flying despite this psycho heat wave. Is it *not* hot anywhere in the continental US?

Hi. I've been lurking for a month or so (and baking for about a year)--what a wonderful community!  I'm excited that I'm going to have significant time this summer to spend baking, and I was wondering if any of you had some advice.  My apartment doesn't have air conditioning, so it is often upwards of 85 F.  I don't mind baking in the heat, but I’d like to figure out how to compensate for such warm ambient conditions.