At altitude, you have to punch the dough more to develop the gluten.
There was a stretch of about three months in the late eighties or early nineties (I can't really remember which) where there was absolutely no money coming into the house. Carl Icahn pulled some shit and my mother didn't get paid for like two and a half months. My father wasn't working because he was too ill to work.
To contribute to the family's well being, he made bread. White bread, wheat bread, sourdough, rye. He made it all. My grandmother stole the yeast and somehow the flour showed up. I never helped him; I ate the results. There was a crock on the kitchen counter that had his starter in it. It lived until they moved to Minneapolis in 1994.
I bring this stuff up because lately, I've been making bread. I made bread pretty regularly last winter, and then I made some on election day. It was rising as I cast my vote with B in the Jewish center down the street where the Election Judge mistook her for my wife, though I suppose that's what she is, in everything but name. Last year, I did it the hard way, with elbow grease. I hand kneaded the whole business. Like stock footage, I have certain images of my father that remain when I need to call him into my mind's eye. One is him turning to me angrily when I spilled milk and didn't know the difference between "accident" and "on purpose," and I picked the one that would inspire the rage in him, all the while thinking it meant the other. Another is him sitting in the driver's seat of our old Granada, putting it in park in front of the house, and looking over at me and saying, "We're best buds, right?" Of course I said yes. I was 5. He was wearing a navy blue nylon windbreaker. And another is of him beating the living shit out of a mass of bread dough. That image is from when I was little.
For Christmas this year, I got a stand mixer to do my kneading for me. So I'm making bread, and the house smells like bread. Tonight I made pitas on an upturned terra cotta tray for a flower pot (THANK YOU ALTON BROWN) and they came out well. Dad never made pitas. Tomorrow I'll make an attempt at naan.
See, like baseball, making bread is another way to reconnect with my father. I suppose I could do something simple like join the Masons (the blue nylon windbreaker announced him as a Master Mason in his lodge), but that seems too regimented. Making bread is a craft, one that I can continue and put my own spin on, and honor him with my own contribution to the legacy he has given me. He never made pitas.
I think I'll wait until the summer to start making sourdough. I want to make a sourdough with Denver yeast. Natural, with the local strain. For that, I need grapes. I know just where to get them, too. But I have to wait for the summer. I hear I can use raisins, and I have some, but...I'm patient. I can fool around with things until the grapes get good and yeasty. Until then, there will be bread in the house.
Hell, I might even try making some matzoh.
To contribute to the family's well being, he made bread. White bread, wheat bread, sourdough, rye. He made it all. My grandmother stole the yeast and somehow the flour showed up. I never helped him; I ate the results. There was a crock on the kitchen counter that had his starter in it. It lived until they moved to Minneapolis in 1994.
I bring this stuff up because lately, I've been making bread. I made bread pretty regularly last winter, and then I made some on election day. It was rising as I cast my vote with B in the Jewish center down the street where the Election Judge mistook her for my wife, though I suppose that's what she is, in everything but name. Last year, I did it the hard way, with elbow grease. I hand kneaded the whole business. Like stock footage, I have certain images of my father that remain when I need to call him into my mind's eye. One is him turning to me angrily when I spilled milk and didn't know the difference between "accident" and "on purpose," and I picked the one that would inspire the rage in him, all the while thinking it meant the other. Another is him sitting in the driver's seat of our old Granada, putting it in park in front of the house, and looking over at me and saying, "We're best buds, right?" Of course I said yes. I was 5. He was wearing a navy blue nylon windbreaker. And another is of him beating the living shit out of a mass of bread dough. That image is from when I was little.
For Christmas this year, I got a stand mixer to do my kneading for me. So I'm making bread, and the house smells like bread. Tonight I made pitas on an upturned terra cotta tray for a flower pot (THANK YOU ALTON BROWN) and they came out well. Dad never made pitas. Tomorrow I'll make an attempt at naan.
See, like baseball, making bread is another way to reconnect with my father. I suppose I could do something simple like join the Masons (the blue nylon windbreaker announced him as a Master Mason in his lodge), but that seems too regimented. Making bread is a craft, one that I can continue and put my own spin on, and honor him with my own contribution to the legacy he has given me. He never made pitas.
I think I'll wait until the summer to start making sourdough. I want to make a sourdough with Denver yeast. Natural, with the local strain. For that, I need grapes. I know just where to get them, too. But I have to wait for the summer. I hear I can use raisins, and I have some, but...I'm patient. I can fool around with things until the grapes get good and yeasty. Until then, there will be bread in the house.
Hell, I might even try making some matzoh.