Turkey day in September
Realizing that between the rain and all Gary's away from home performances, we've hardly barbecued at all this year, so on Friday I pulled a ten pound turkey out of the freezer to thaw. Figured we'd roast it on the grill today. The weekend was beautiful, but of course today had to be thunderstorms and wind, so that killed the idea of grilling the
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We're purely amateurs at breadmaking, but pretty serious about it here. I've been doing it since I was in college, which means more years than I want to admit often (30+) but also means I have a fair amount of experience at least with what can be done at home. I have often wished I could take one of those professional classes just to get a chance to play with big brick ovens and forced steam and all that fun stuff.
Another librarian I worked with on my previous job had been a bakery worker part time when she was in school, and we used to make a lot of jokes about long peels and Hobarts, pretending they were pornographic and lascivious. It was amusing and kept anyone else quite in the dark about what on earth we were carrying on about. She and I had a lot of fun with it.
My mate caught the breadmaking thing from me. I like kneading by hand but often use a Kitchen Aid too. (Mine is a few years older than yours, but was the largest available at the time.) I also use the bread machine without shame, though often only as a dough maker. My current favorite is bagels, in all kinds of variations, and I let the bread machine knead up the dough in small batches before shaping, boiling, and baking by hand. Pizza is another specialty I've developed and my whole wheat crusts are very popular. I aspire to the hand made kaiser roll, but have never gotten the results I want with those. ;)
Gary got caught up in sourdough, and takes up way too much space in the fridge with his starters, but I have to say the bread he gets from them is wonderful. I keep trying to get him to use the baking stone and peel, but he's resistant to that and thinks it will be "too hard."
We do share recipes, though I'm often reticent to post them because I feel we are so amateurish compared to others. I'll be watching the breadmaking community now though, and I'm delighted to have met you.
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