"Well, some people are ill-bread. Loafing about all day..."

[desperance]

This, now? This is the bread of the world. My local artisanal baker whose praises I sing, he may have lost himself a customer, if it's as good in a couple of days' time as it is warm and fresh. The crumb is good; the crust, though? The crust is to die for. Walnut oil, honey and crunch. Om-nom-nom.

Also, now I want to form the dough around spears of rosemary and bake it thataway. Rosemary brochettes...

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

You, sirrah, are a shameless sensualist.

Not that this is a bad thing.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is true.

*is unashamed*

[julesjones]

Oy, you, watch those tendons. I had to give up on the bread-making until I got a machine, because the kneading was too much for my RSI. And *I* have not been to the hospital to be opened up and rinsed out...

I want a replacement bread machine now. I had to leave mine in 110V Land, and am not allowed to replace it until we get a Bigger Kitchen.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. I did feel it, in the shoulders there; they've forgotten about kneading, it's been so long. Not at all in the hands, though, oddly. I think it's such a different exercise, it's okay; might even be good for me...? (RSI does seem to come in such strangely various forms, given that it tends to have the same damn cause.)

But yes, I shall be careful; if there's kickback, I'll forego even the fun of this.

(I can't have a bread machine either, for the same reason, but I really don't want one. Breadmaking without the fun of doing it yourself? I'd just be frustrated, and constantly apologising, "it's only machine-made, I'm afraid...")

[julesjones]

My problem is that with us both working, it's not guaranteed that there will be decent bread left in the supermarkets by the time either of us gets out of work and goes shopping. I didn't need a breadmaker before I got the job, because the local Co-op five minutes walk from the flat has good in-store bakery stuff, but now I rather miss at least having the option to make it myself.

This is a particular issue given that I can't eat bread with wheat bran in it. There *is* tasty white bread to be had, but by definition it's the stuff that's sold out by the end of the working day. :-/

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Recipe?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Umm. A pound of granary flour, a healthy glug - I dunno, a couple of tablespoons? - of walnut oil, say one tablespoon of honey, a couple of teaspoons salt. Yeast, warm water. Knead for ten minutes, oil it with walnut oil, cover and prove for an hour till all swollen and lovely. Knock back, put in a loaf tin, oil, cover & prove for half an hour till all swollen and lovely again. More oil just to encourage the crust (next time, I might try a drizzle of honey as well, just to see what happens). Middle of the oven, gas mark 6 for half an hour. It's my bog-standard bread, really, just with the walnut oil and honey for emphasis and flavour. The joy is that bog-standard still works, even, oh, a decade after I last used it. I feared one might lose the knack, but it seems not.

In defence of bread machines...

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

They make bloody good bread. And I don't have time for doing it properly. Nor, to be frank, the cooking instinct - as you know. So, without ours, we'd be stuck at the mercy of shop-bought bread (which, on the few times we've had to buy it, has been not good enough).

And waking up with the smell of fresh-baked bread wafting through the house and then having a still-hot crust for breakfast. This, sir, is heaven.

Re: In defence of bread machines...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ja da, I do understand all that. They're just all wrong for me, and for anyone who is time-rich and self-indulgent in the kitchen dept.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

So, went the day well and buffily?

Just for the record, my friendly neighbourhood mailwoman brought me a copy of your friend Fox' Dragon in chains. I may start on that. Though I'm re-reading Paul Hazel's The Finnbranch, a dour but lovely (so far) Irishy fantasy trilogy with undertones of Norse myths. Maybe before going to bed at night, since Finnbranch hogs up my commuting time.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh - don't know the Hazel at all. Wonder if it's still available...? *runs to find out*

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

As I said, it's rather dour in style and mood, but I like it. It's well and moodily written, and it's about this giant of a son going to claim his inheritance, though his life seems at each step to have been prempted by the choices, sorceries and prophecies of his mysterious father. I read that decades ago, and have kept a vague memory of it, mainly of the fact that the third volume left be bemused by its impenetrability. I want to try again. So far (I'm reaching the end of volume one), so good.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Preempted. Not prempted. Though it may be that, too, depending on what you want prempted to mean. *grumble*

Read yesterday evening the first two chapters of your friend Fox' Dragon book. So far, so good, too. Really enjoyed it.

[maeve-the-red.livejournal.com]

Bad boy! You made me salivate all over my keyboard. Again.