Another record week for YeastSpotting! Awesome, people.
Next week will mark the one-year anniversary of YeastSpotting, and I’m hoping that it will be the most well-attended edition ever. So don’t be shy, please share all your yeasted masterpieces. Everyone is welcome!
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
I have a large piece of natural linen that until this week had been sitting around waiting for me to cut it into pieces for lining proofing baskets, or maybe sew a pair of summer pants. Not any more. Thanks to this month’s Daring Bakers strudel challenge, this linen is now designated as my Official Strudel-Pulling-and-Rolling Cloth.
Because I’m sure I’ll be making strudel again. Who knew gluten without yeast could be this fun, this easy, and this good?
The only problem with the cloth is the color; it exactly camouflages the strudel dough, making it impossible for me to show off my tissue-thin sheet. See what I mean?
Although I can’t say I haven’t succumbed to the Amazon juggernaut on a few (too many) occasions, my heart belongs to small, independent bookstores. Nothing compares to meandering through hand-picked books old and new, ogling their lush photographs or unique typography, feeling their heft in your hand, leafing their crisp and stiff or dog-eared and supple pages, inhaling the sharp scent of fresh ink or the musty one of antique cloth, discovering the treasure that was meant to go home with you that day.
Last week I visited a new store that became a fast favorite: Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco. It is, to my knowledge, the only culinary bookstore in the Bay Area, and it features both new and vintage books. If you like to read about growing, foraging, cooking, or eating food, or if you’re beguiled by culinary history or literature, the store will leave your appetite well-satisfied.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love my sourdough starter? This baby is a trooper. Raising breads day in and day out, especially loaves with a goodly proportion of whole grains, is not easy, but it’s up to the task pretty much every time.
When our children were small we used to tell them, “You’re better than a pet.” Sometimes I want to tell my starter, “You’re better than a kid.”
OK, not really, but when my starter graces me with bread like this, and doesn’t talk back in the bargain, you know, sometimes it’s kind of a toss-up.
Yesterday I seriously thought I had died and gone to hell.
I had a lovely weekend in Seattle, but the minute IFBC was over it was quite downhill from there. The 18 or so hours before I would arrive back in California involved an excruciatingly painful event (think childbirth) that left me sleep-deprived and limping, an airport clock that was exactly one hour behind (come on people, Spring Forward!), and close encounters with staining liquids (both the hot and cold kind).
Normally this is not, to put it mildly, the sort of day that makes me want to be bold and adventurous. It is the sort of day that makes me want to seek shelter under a nice ample rock. Certainly not the kind of day that typically makes me say to myself, “This seems like the perfect time do the thing you’ve never done before because it terrifies you more than just about anything else in the world! Why not just go ahead and Deep Fry Something?”
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