Wild Yeast

See this week’s yeast spottings …

Is autumn already lapping at summer’s heels where you live? Where I live, crisp fall days can’t be counted on until Halloween, and September can hold some intensely warm days. That means chilled soups still have a place on the menu, and this one is not only refreshing and simple to make; it also gets bonus points for making delicious use of the leftover bread I always seem to have hanging around.

Ajo Blanco is a garlicky Spanish soup that gets its non-dairy creaminess from blanched almonds, and additional body from the bread. The traditional garnish is green grapes but Penelop Casas, in La Cocina de Mama: The Great Home Cooking of Spain, suggests green melon balls, which I found to be a lovely alternative.

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If I’ve been deafeningly silent about my earth oven lately, it’s because there has been literally nothing cooking with it. Six weeks after I finished building the thermal mud layer, it is still not completely dry. I attribute this to 1) a coastal climate that sees thick damp fog roll in almost every evening and hang around until, often, midmorning or later, and 2) the fact that my oven does not live with me (or more accurately, I do not live with it) full time, and I keep it covered when I am away to protect it from rain (rare this time of year, but potentially disastrous to an uncured oven if it were to strike).

My impatience aside, this slow drying has not been a terrible thing. My mason friend assures me this is the best way to minimize the cracks that Kiko Denzer says are virtually inevitable (but usually cosmetic), and it’s true that cracks haven’t been an issue. But good grief, I can’t hold my impatience at bay forever! And if I don’t get the second (insulating) layer on soon, before the rains get down to serious business in another month or two, I may really be sorry.

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See this week’s yeast spottings …

Does “lemon bread” conjure for you an image of sugary, cake-like, bright yellow slabs that make a fine dessert but a lousy ham sandwich? This lemon barley bread, adapted from the Lemon Barley Cob recipe in Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf, is nothing like that. This is real bread, with a strong lemon flavor that goes well with anything from a drizzle of honey to slices of tomato with a basil leaf or two.*

The Handmade Loaf is a book well worth owning. It showcases dozens of unique breads and bakers from across Europe, as well as Lepard’s minimalist mixing method. This generally consists of 20–30 minutes of doing nothing more than allowing the dough to rest and collect itself, punctuated by two or three short bursts of hand kneading.

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