Hi everyone.
I'd like to express my appreciation for all the great information I've been
enjoying, whether or not I can personally use some of the recipes
myself. They often point to the richness of our great food heritage and
thus to the incredible richness and variety of our society. It's hardly
surprising, at least to me that other societies, especially those whose
make-up is relatively homogeneous often find it so difficult if not
disconcerting to observe our particular mores or to appreciate the
diversity of our expressions. So in the name of diversity as well as
refinement in both cooking and society, bring on more dough, I say!
Especially in this regard, I wish to express my sincere thanks to the kind
efforts of writers such as, Mike Avery, (Cold Rising and Tiles);
"Tarheelboy", ( Pain a l'Ancienne especially) and so much more technical
background information which I especially need as I am allergic to many of
the ingredients in most standard recepies. These range from wheat, rye,
oats, soy and other, so-called "health promoting" dry and/or wet
ingredients! I am really excited about the possibility of making a
baguette type loaf and still being able to use my type ingredients by
creating new recepies using the relative weights and volumes I saw posted
recently.
However, given the pioneering spirit offered to me through this list and
(maybe some descended through my French grandparents) I've "discovered" a
la Lewis & Clark, that there are many new and old safe ingredients out
there that can and do make for an interesting and often exciting
bread. For instance I've discovered that grinding my own fresh organically
grown hard red wheat berries and cooking them up immediately either in my
Sunbeam Breadbaker or by hand into a loaf size that can be reasonably eaten
within a few days, i.e. before the flour or other natural ingredients can
become stale , I experience very little if any allergic reactions, plus a
whole world (literally) of fun things to do, eat, and best of all share!!
So it's with a lot of anticipation that I look forward to trying my
ingredients with the "cold" method of preparing, rising and starting bread
in a cold oven. Since I also live in a very hot summer area I really feel
deprived in summer when it's too hot to heat up the oven and I can't always
find my whole wheatberry loaf by La Brea Bakery which Costco doesn't carry
anymore and which runs out early at Ralf's and Trader Joe's.
Until then (to the tune of my favorite WW2 song; aha, that should tell you
something) I'll be "cooking you, and you and You. and I'll see you in my
dreams- of a perfect baguette- Au revoir et a bien tot! (My speller is
having fits!!) All it means is "so long and see you soon, I hope.