pmccool's blog

On Friday morning, I did a rather large refresh of my starter, thinking that it would be the makings of a levain for something to bake this weekend.  There was no specific plan, mind you, just the notion that I needed to bake something and that sourdough would be preferred.  In taking stock of my pantry after a late dinner Friday evening, it became evident that whatever I made wouldn't contain rye--I needed to restock.  That may be good news to Nico and the rest of the crew at Eureka Mills but it did steer my considerations out of one path and down another.

Or to Eureka Mills, if you are more fluent in English than in Afrikaans.

We spent the past week on vacation in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.  Along with spectacular vistas, fynbos, animals we’ve never seen before (who knew that bontebok and blesbok would be so difficult to differentiate?), rolling farmlands, orchards, vineyards, calving whales and two different oceans, we managed to fit in a visit with Nico Steyn, miller and manager of Eureka Mills. 

Although blogging has taken a back seat to other activities, I have been baking in the background.  It's just that none of those have made the leap from the kitchen to the Web.  And, frankly, most of them were old favorites and I really didn't have anything new to say about them, except for yum!

What with having dinner guests on Saturday and more coming on Monday, it was a wonderful excuse for puttering around in the kitchen this weekend.  I started with Pain au Levain from Leader's Local Breads Saturday morning and followed with Rich and Tender Dinner Rolls from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cook Book and finished up with a Chocolate / Chocolate Chip cake, source unknown.  

While I have been baking in the last several weeks, most of it has been geared to sandwich loaves.  Don't get me wrong; that is some pretty important baking.  While it has been nourishing to the body, it hasn't been anything to stir the soul.  I've had some old favorites: Clayton's Honey Lemon Whole Wheat and plain old honey whole wheat.  I gave Beatrice Ojakangas' Granary Bread a try.  Lovely stuff, but not at all anything that qahtan or others who have had the real thing would recognize as such.

I took the day off from work today with the stated purpose of looking for a car for my wife.  The company has provided me with a leased vehicle but that leaves my wife stuck at the house most days.  With a 45-60 minute commute in each direction, it isn't practical for her to take me to work and then use the car for the rest of the day.

Between last weekend's experiments with varying hydration levels, locating rye flour, and tuning up my sourdough starter over the past few days, things took a turn for the better with this weekend's bake.  If I had to rank the importance of those three, it would be a difficult choice.  I'd probably nominate the improved starter as the most important but that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't obtained some rye flour.

After several not-so-happy outcomes, and one pleasing outcome, it was obvious that I needed to get better acquainted with the South African flours that I have.  Previous bakes seemed to indicate that the flours' absorbency was different than I was anticipating, based on my previous experience with U.S.-produced flours.  The only way to find out what was going on with any certainty was to do side-by-side bakes of identical breads, adjusting only one variable (hydration, in this case) at a time so that I could compare the outcomes.

Hallelujah!  I located rye flour today at a store within reasonable driving distance!  And not just simply rye flour: I can get wholemeal rye, medium rye and crushed rye.  Thanks MiniO for one of your tips; I went to the mill's web site, looked at their list of stockists (for the Americans, the equivalent would be retailers), and finally made it to the store today.  For anyone else in the Pretoria (Tshwane) area, it is the SuperSpar store at the Silver Lakes shopping center, just off Hans Strijdom Drive.

For those who are keeping score, I moved from the USA to South Africa in late October to work on a project being managed by my employer.  After spending a week in a hotel and a month in a temporary apartment, my wife and I moved into a leased house on December 1.  We're feeling fairly settled now and can find our way to several different supermarkets, gas stations, restaurants and the like.  It's a different landscape, and I'm not just talking topography.  Still, we're learning to navigate our way around without creating unnecessary hazard to ourselves or others.