This January 1st is grey and wintery in eastern PA and seems the perfect start to a new year.
Every annual turning of the calendar presents an opportunity for contemplation and hope. The last year is over. Let's move on. For good or for bad, it is in the past and we have a brand new future staring us in the face wondering what we are going to do with it. Countless resolutions are made and broken, but even so, those few that get through and inspire growth can be empowering. I’ve learned to not shoot too high and to make plans for something fun.
My best New Year’s resolution to date was to braise more meat. I had no idea what it really meant to work with shoulders and joints and shanks and connective tissues that needed long slow cooking. I set out to learn. I braised everything that year and made the technique mine. Maillard reactions, fond, mirepoix, recalescent, collagen, gelatin. It is now my favorite way to cook meats in the wintery months and allows for untethered creativity in the kitchen.
This year I have decided to tackle another unknown and somewhat scary (to me) process. Bread-making. And not the put-stuff-in-a-machine-and-turn-it-on kind of bread making… I mean the take-several-days-and-be-patient kind of bread making. The working-my-arm-muscles kind of bread making. I tried my hand at french bread many many years ago and failed horribly. I can't make pizza dough - supposedly the easiest thing ever - to save my life. It is time to get back on the horse.
My good friend Dan,after hearing of my new resolution and goal, gave me a bread making book for Christmas . It is a book he has used to some great success, and so I’m starting with Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day (you can check him out at http://peterreinhart.typepad.com/), and my first attempt: French baguette. I’m only just starting to learn, but already have picked up new vocabulary. Bloom, boule, batard, banneton, couche, fougasse, cold fermentation, seed culture. This should be an adventure.
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