Over the course of the last few years I have been amazed to find my life now is really true to many of my childhood and teenage dreams. The funny thing is they are dreams that I forgot about, left behind, discarded. I went about living my life. Then I realized I had returned to these roots unintentionally.
I started thinking about this today after reading Mia's blog post today. She recently got the 1970s version of Laurel's Kitchen and she has been posting about her adventures with this cookbook/lifestyle guide. This was one of my first vegetarian cookbooks. I got it (a gift from the Aunt) during high school when I started to get interested in nutrition and healthy eating. Reading it (along with Diet for a Small Planet) got me started thinking about the politics of food. With lots of intervening years between 1978 and now, I have come back to those roots, too.
So that led me to look back at another of my favorite cookbooks: Perfect Bread Everytime by Jim Ottoway. It came with a thermometer because the way to make perfect bread is to make sure the yeasties are happy! They are a living creature and need the right temperature to start up from dormancy (105-115 degrees Fahrenheit). If it is too cold they won't start up and if it is too hot they die. They need a good temperature to grow and make the bread rise (70-85 degrees). They also need some food, but they aren't too picky about that. They can use sugar, honey, the starch in flour, lactose in milk, etc. I learned a lot about making yeast bread from Laurel's Kitchen, but Perfect Bread Everytime was really eye opening because it provided a little freedom from the recipe. Two examples will tell you what I mean:
Leftovers Bread where you use "2 cups of any liquid" and "1/2 cup of something spicy or of distinct flavor" in the recipe along with the yeast and "about 2.5 cups of white flour for each cup of liquid." I have notes next to the recipe about having used vegetable soup and parmesan cheese as the leftovers on at least one occasion.
Las Vegas Bread where you make a matrix with 6 types each of liquids, sweets, dry ingredient/flour, tasty liquid and something shortening like or another tasty liquid. Then you read through a "Mad Libs" type recipe with blanks. At each blank you role a die and the number on the die tells you which liquid, sweet, etc. to put in your bowl! According to the author, "The fact is that excellent bread can be made from most any good food in your kitchen." He also says that making Las Vegas bread will help you learn " that there is little mystery to baking excellent bread and you can do it anytie you please right from your head and without a recipe."
How cool is that! I had forgotten all about how much fun this book was until reading Mia's adventures with Laurel!
1 comment:
LOVE this!! I was thinking of getting the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (Peter something?) but now I want this one too. Not the worse dilemma to have. :)
I have a friend who *swears* she can't make bread. I told her about the too hot/too cold thing, and I even gave her my "foolproof" way of making sure it was the right temp in the microwave with no thermometer (1:40 for two cups of water in a glass dish). It's got to be foolproof, because hello, I'm a fool, and it works for me. She reported that the bread, as usual, did not rise for her. Old yeast? Just bought it. Huh.
But I was like that for years, I thought I couldn't make bread either. I don't know what flipped the switch, but it started working. I love the idea of this book, that goes on the premise that it ALWAYS works, so go nuts.
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