PiPs's blog

We are only half way through spring and already the temperatures feel like summer. Hot windy days with no rain have left our lawn and garden golden brown and crunchy. Over a railing in the back yard, well hidden from the scorching afternoon sun a star jasmine has been thriving and filling the kitchen with its scent. We now wake to the morning call of stormbirds.

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Two years ago Nat purchased Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread for my birthday and wrote an inscription on the inside cover … ‘To inspire you’ …

When I want to shake things up in my kitchen and try something different this is the book I turn to. I love the restlessness and pursuit of perfection in the stories. For me, this is its inspiration. It is not a manual and it is not a handbook … it’s the story of a journey.

I am not sure if things happen for a reason or not, but sometimes pleasant surprises occur and push you in directions different from what you had in mind. These events can be small or epic, but I am sure they are all important in the making of ones life. What I do believe however, is that if you put out a question or an idea to the world and keep it close to your heart it will be answered … one way or another :)

For the most important years in a young boy’s life I had the good fortune of living next door to my grandparents—perched high on a hill at the very edge of town. I have so many fond memories of these years—watching storm clouds build in the west, a school holiday spent watercolour painting with my grandfather, piano lessons with my grandmother, summer days spent picking grapes, kippers on toast for breakfast, fig jam and fresh grapefruit.

Each day I try and find some time to write. It’s a habit I started years ago. And although I am sometimes shuffled along in life, and occasionally forget my place, it's a practice I always return to. It is not so much a diary, more like a snapshot in time and atop of every page I start with a grateful list for that particular moment in time.

I have baked and baked. Through a long winter I baked. Early mornings in my cold dark kitchen I baked. Every weekend I baked. For my friends I baked. For my family I baked … it was the same bread that I baked.

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Many more photos get taken than appear on my blog. Picking and choosing is an agonizing task. Sometimes a photo just doesn't fit within the context of the prose but more often than not I have just taken so many photographs that tough compromises need to be made. I have decided to collect an assortment of photos and post them so they may see the light of day. Many will be familiar to readers of my past blog entries.

Please welcome the B-sides Part 1 ...

Please welcome the B-sides Part 2 ...

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Please welcome the B-sides Part 3 ...

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What is traditional bread anyway? The more I read, the murkier this question becomes. Steamed golden crusts, curling gringe, high protein flours mixed into sloppy doughs and possibly even salt are a pretty new phenomena in the history of bread – yet they are marketed as ‘traditional’. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to create ‘traditional bread’ but I do like to understand where we came from to get were we are going. I guess I don’t want to get caught up in trends. Saying this however, I do have a particular bent towards French bread.