pmccool's blog

We recently enjoyed a marvelous cruise from Vancouver (didn't get the opportunity to say hi to Floyd) up through the Inside Passage of Alaska.  We had port calls at Ketchikan, Juneau (emphasis on the 'eau', with 320 days of rain a year), and Skagway.  From there we sailed to Glacier Bay and spent a day marveling at the immensity and beauty of several glaciers.  Then it was on to our debarkation at Seward.  From Seward, we opted for the train excursion to Anchorage, then another train excursion to Denali, then a coach excursion to Fairbanks, and our flight home.

I received a note recently from Amy Goldman, who had attended one of my sourdough classes.  She and her partner, Sean Galloway, are in the process of planning a business combining a brewery and bakery in the KC area.  Right now they plan to call it The Brewkery.  Amy is already baking, using starter that I provided to each of the students.  It's a treat to think that my starter might be the base for a bakery's sourdough breads someday.

Paul

I've been interested for some time in playing around with durum flour.  Between finding only the coarser semolina grind locally and being put off by the costs of mail ordering, I hadn't taken the plunge before now.  However, totally by serendipity, I happened to be in an IndoPak grocery store recently and they had a whole shelf section of various atta flours, most milled from durum wheat.  A 20-pound bag (only $12.99) followed me home and has been silently taunting me these past two weeks as other things kept me from baking.

This past weekend was double fun, actually.  First, I had Friday off.  Second, I had been asked to provide some bread for a fundraiser bake sale, so I spent Friday and Saturday baking.  It was a very welcome break from a long baking hiatus while working down the backlog of breads in the freezer.  I don't believe I have had the opportunity to produce this quantity or variety of breads at home previously.  

First, a shout-out to JoeCox2 for alerting TFLers to KitchenAid having made their NSF-rated KSM7990 mixer (refurbished) available for less than $400, with free shipping at that.  I had been on the fence for some time about a replacement for my KitchenAid K5SS mixer, which makes all kinds of unpleasant noises even when running with no load.

One of my Christmas presents last year was Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.  While I've wanted to get beyond just reading the book and starting to bake from it, life has kept me well supplied with other things to do.  There was the completion of the rye bread test bakes for Stan Ginsberg's upcoming book, a vacation to San Diego, a freezer well-stocked with bread that needed to be eaten before more was baked, test bakes of hot cross buns and Easter bread and salt sticks for some upcoming classes, and, well, you get the picture.

I'm back from a week's vacation in the San Diego area with my wife, her brother, and his wife.  We did a lot of the touristy things, including the zoo, the Midway aircraft carrier tour, watching sunsets from the beach, whale watching, Balboa Park, museums, eating some fabulous Mexican food and seafood, horseback rides, and a vineyard tour/tasting.  Each of us came away with our own set of highlights from the trip but one of the best for me was spending a good chunk of this past Wednesday visiting and baking with Stan Ginsberg at his home.

I received a new My Weigh KD-8000 scale to replace the Oxo scale that developed some form of digital psychosis recently.  More capacity and an even easier to read display make it a pleasure to use.  It's already received quite a workout just since Christmas.

A couple of weekends ago, I was doing some test bakes to finalize recipes for a class that I will teach in December.

First up, Julekake, glossy with egg wash:

And the Julekake crumb:

And it tastes even better than it looks, what with the fruit and cardamom flavors.

My second bake from last weekend had more to do with some fresh figs that I had found than it did with bread.  Although I grew up on a farm and had plenty of first hand experience with many kinds of fruit, figs weren't part of the local scene.  I don't recall seeing a fig outside of a Fig Newton cookie any time prior to my high school graduation.  When I did eventually encounter figs in their whole form, they were dried instead of fresh.  The farm, by the way, is located in northern lower Michigan, which explains the dearth of figs.