Baker Meet Blogger

You don't know a thing about their lives
They live where you wouldn't dare to bake...

Or at least, some of us wouldn't dare.  But I did.  Today's obscure song reference pays tribute to The Daring Kitchen, a secret culinary society into which I was recently accepted and given the role of Daring Baker.

What is this Daring business all about?  Well, it's really just a group of food bloggers, both bakers and cooks, who make a secret recipe each month.  Someone gets selected to throw out a recipe challenge on the first of each month, and then everyone has until the 27th of that month to make the recipe and write up a blog about the whole thing.

The deal is, the challenge is a SECRET!!!  We're not allowed to release the blog post until the 27th!  If we do so before, our membership is revoked!  Membership may also be revoked if we DON'T PARTICIPATE in the challenge!  This is legit!

My membership wasn't approved until after the April challenge, which was to make a traditional English steamed pudding.  Flip.  I basically live for a good steamed pud, but whatever.  The May challenge was released today, and let me tell you this: it's a doozy.  It's something I've done before, which is a plus, but I've never done it on my own.

Perhaps I've said too much!  They police the member's blogs for this stuff (maybe).

Anyway, it all sounds so fancy, and it sort of is, but consider this: anybody can join, and there are hundreds of members.  I really don't understand the secrecy of it all, because the only people who care about the challenges are in the club anyway, and so they know the deal.  But I don't mind the formalities; I think they're what make it fun :]

Peter Take a Bow

Back at culinary school, one of our classes was all about bread.  At one point, the dean of the baking program came in and spoke for a while about his passion for bread, which really got me hooked on the whole idea.  He brought in a book titled The Bread Baker's Apprentice, written by a Johnson and Wales instructor named Peter Reinhart.  Chef mentioned that Reinhart is basically the man when it comes to bread, so I checked out a few of his books at the library.  Turns out that, in addition to being a baker and instructor, Chef Reinhart is also a member of an Eastern Orthodox service order, and likes to weave a taste of lay theology into his baking craft.

This intrigued me, so I eventually bought his book Bread Upon the Waters.  This is a memoir, of sorts, in which the author's process of self discovery and spiritual awakening is paralleled with the process of baking bread.  In fact, the whole reason Chef Reinhart got into baking in the first place is that he started preparing all the meals within his faith community.  He and his wife went on to open Brother Juniper's Cafe in 1987 as an outreach effort for the community.  His servant-like vision for the cafe was very close to what I have always wanted to do with food.  Combine this with the fact that Brother Juniper's was in my hometown of Santa Rosa, CA, and I was sold on this guy.

So when I heard that he would be in Portland, where I now live, doing a demo class at Sur La Table, where I work, I was pretty excited.  I teach baking classes there part time, and my boss asked if I would be willing to prep out Chef Reinhart's doughs the day ahead of the class.  I jumped on that opportunity, and then sat in on the class the next day.

Listening to Peter Reinhart is inspiring.  He speaks about baking with the authoritative wisdom of a prophet, the overflowing knowledge of a professor, and the excited wonder of a child.  I didn't care much to hear about bread instruction that evening; I have already read about his techniques.  What I wanted to hear, first hand, was his passion.  In three short hours, Chef Reinhart's passion spilled out in an array of pithy bread wisdom.  I will attempt to paraphrase my favorite bit, something he said in regards to the symbolism of bread (or if you prefer, check out the embedded video at the bottom to hear this along with some other good stuff, beginning at around 7 minutes in).

Bread shows us the cycle of life and death, of rebirth, renewal, regeneration.  Bread starts as wheat, which grows like grass.  It is green, vibrant, alive.  In an effort to reproduce, this grass forms seeds.  These seeds carry within them all the potential to form new life and carry on the cycle.

But we pluck the seeds and crush them, forever destroying the life within.  This dust is mixed with water and a little salt, which only serves to form a lifeless lump of clay.  However, yeast is then added to the mix.  Yeast is the bread's leavening, which is derived from the word enliven.  Life is added to the formless clay-like mass.  The yeast gives off its gasses and breathes into the dough, strengthening and rejuvenating this thing that looks nothing like the grass in the fields.  

The baker forms the dough, instructs it to grow into a specific shape, and then bakes it.  The baking must occur, because raw dough is indigestible.  In the oven, many transformations happen, one of which is that the yeast is killed.  The only thing giving life to the dough has now been sacrificed so that we may have bread as an end result.  This bread is again dead, but it is nutritious, it gives life, thus completing the cycle when we eat it.

Isn't that neat?  I think so.  Chef went on to say that this would all just be meaningless poetry if the bread didn't actually taste good.  I would say that there's a lesson there, too.

After the class, everybody lined up to get their copy of BBA or Artisan Breads Everyday signed.  I had my copy of Bread Upon the Waters in hand, because those thoughts are more valuable to me than a few recipes.  During class clean up, I was able to pose a question to Chef Reinhart that has been heavy on my heart lately.  Is it truly possible to combine my love for baking with my desire to serve those around me (I was recently told that I would never find this)?  He told me of course it is possible, our passions will always find a way to intertwine in harmony.  We spoke for a few minutes, and he told me to email him sometime, to "share the journey."  I will certainly take him up on that offer.

And the short definition of baking?
Baking is a balancing act between time, temperature, and ingredients.  In using these, it is the baker's responsibility to evoke from the wheat the fullness of its potential. -Peter Reinhart

Crashed Down on the CrossBuns

Yesterday my friend Jessica and I made Hot Cross Buns (it being Easter and all). The recipe was a further step in the evolution of my trusty rich bread, which was the formula base for both the Christmas bread and the Saffron buns. However, for the HCB, I decreased the butter a bit, increased the sugar a bit (and switched it to brown sugar, or B-Sug as we say in the biz), changed the spices around... I think that's it.

We didn't have time to candy up some citrus peels, so we just used zest instead. Some would say this defies traditional HCB methodology, but there were still currants. Those are just small raisins, by the way.

And look, we used the KitchenAid, with the new and improved spiral dough hook!

For the crosses on top, we used the weird paste that you just make out of flour and water, because I hear that's more traditional.  The crosses came out dark in the bake though, so I don't know what's up with that.

What She Said*

The other day my friend Sara, a sausagetarian, gave me a shout out on her blog. I was right chuffed, as they say, because she's a legit food writer and all. (On a side note, if you're at all curious about culinary school, read her post and the NYTimes article that prompted it).

Sara does a few posts here and there titled "Why Do I Own This?" She'll pick something from her kitchen arsenal, a once-a-year type item, and write about it. I get a kick out of it, mainly because she's got a good collection of kitchen stuff.

I'd like to steal her thunder, just this once. Although, to avoid legal entanglements and things, I will call this post: "Why did I just buy that?"

After two years of swearing that I would never buy a silly Le Creuset baby spatula, I finally found the hole in my life that only it could fill. Why did I just buy that? This is why:

Because wasted Nutella is a travesty.

*Title taken from the Smiths song (duh, haven't you been paying attention?), not the Michael Scott thing.

Meat Is Murder

Or at least some would say so. In 2005, I went vegetarian for a few months. It wasn't because I thought animals shouldn't be eaten; I was persuaded by some of the environmental arguments, socio-cultural arguments, and anti-animal as commodity arguments. The main reason that this didn't last is that I went to Capernwray Hall for nine months, and their veg option consisted of a steady diet of Quorn. That got old.

The ideals have stuck with me though, and I do try to be more aware about how much meat I eat (because who can deny that we're a meat addicted country?) Anyway, these ideas were first presented to me in the liner notes of Moby's album "Play." (This is a great album, by the by. I think I listened to it every day in 2001.)

And speaking of Moby and his veganosity, he just co-edited a book titled "Gristle: From Factory Farms to Food Safety (thinking twice about the meat we eat)." It's a collection of essays, really, and he'll be at Powell's this Saturday at 4:00 to do a little meat and greet (ha!). I'm going to try to make it in, but my brother and his family will be in town this weekend, so we'll see.

Now if you know much about Moby, you know that he's passionate, but also very accepting and tolerant. In an interview with FOODDay, Moby states:

"To change people's minds, you have to respect the people you're talking to. Part of that is presenting the facts available, and not being pedantic or judgmental."

The essays in the book are by all sorts of people, so some of them may be preachy, I don't know. But I anticipate that this will be a good eye opening read. Maybe enough to kick me back onto the vegwagon. (But I don't think I can do vegan... I just love dairy too much, in all it's glorious forms...)

All Ovens Have Secrets

And here is mine, so let it be known: we got a new oven!

Writing Frightening Verse

So, update on the oven situation. Our landlord says that he can no longer find replacement heating elements for our oven size (22"). He said the only option looks like to get a completely new oven, either a 24" or a 20". Now, a 24" oven won't fit in our lil' nooklet, so we may have to downsize the thing. Super bummer, by the by, because I don't think my baking stone will fit in a 20" oven :[ We'll see how it goes. There may still be the possibility of finding a 22" heating element, so we'll see. In the meantime, you can still read my sporadic musings on life over at Prisma Obscura.