Staff of life

In my family of origin, bread was our religion. My maternal grandmother only ever bought a commercial loaf called "Hollywood Bread" and there was great angst when we could no longer find it available. My paternal grandmother considered a thick slice of homemade white bread with butter and jam as dessert and ate it with a smacking gusto that remains one of my favourite memories.

In a long-ago post, I began a sourdough starter trying, finally, to get one to work. Using the methods outlined at http://sourdough.com I now have to lovely living starters, one white and one whole wheat, in the kitchen. I try to make two loaves a week from them and experiment occasionally with other things such as pancakes, cinnamon buns and, for the last couple of days, I have finally gathered the courage to do an artisan loaf.

What does courage have to do with bread you might ask? Well, artisan bread is a real commitment. While my humble daily loaves take a maximum of 20 minutes to put together (not including the 10 minutes spent the day before making the sponge or baking time), an artisan loaf requires some attention on each of four days. For the complete process see http://sourdough.com/recipes/pain-l%E2%80%99ancienne-two-modified-versions but basically you make a wet dough on day one, let it rest overnight in the fridge. Day two, fold it in half and put back into fridge. Day three take it out in the evening and each hour for 4-5 hours stretch it out and fold it, then put back in bowl to rest. Then after 5 stretches, put into a banneton (a very odd looking wooden oblong bowl) that gives artisans that distinctive oval shape and ridged crust. and set back into fridge for its final sleep. Morning of day 4 bake in a steamy oven at 420 F for 15 minutes and 410 F for 30 minutes. Voila, an artisan bread with the romantic name of Pain a l'Ancienne! Doesn't that just scream for a good cheese and red wine by the fire?

Ok so maybe the work load isn't that tough but just try remembering the stretch and fold routine while you are engrossed in a good book or movie!

Anyway, it turned out. Not exactly as pretty as the bakery loaves (more John Merrick than Angelina Jolie) but a good honest loaf. Now to figure out what to slather on it??

For those of you who prefer to gather your culinary expertise from a good book, try Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. It is a treasure-trove of bread varieties and methods. It was gifted to me by a friend from Honeymoon Bay and remains one of my favourite cookbooks. Not for the faint of heart but worth the adventure! 

In anticipation of bees

I have always been fascinated by bees. Their ability to transport their tiny bodies, laden with the pollen of summer flowers, on wings too tiny for flight is, truly, awe inspiring. Bees, in fact, shouldn't be able to fly at all. In 1934, it was recorded that bees defied all the laws of aerodynamics. But there they were, humming busily between the calendulas, apple blossoms, and bee balm, blissfully unaware that they should be treading about on the ground.

It wasn't until last night watching "Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds" (and the groundbreaking slow motion photography of Michael H. Dickinson that sorted all this out in 2006) that I learned what a feat of aviation marvel bees perform. During flight, their bumpy half-drunken flight, they actually use short choppy high speed flapping and twist their wings so that both the backward and forward motions create lift. For their body size, their flapping is outrageously fast. Nothing short of amazing!

But really amazes me about bees is honey. I love honey. Its gooey goldenness on a spoon was used by my mom as a cough suppressant when I was a child. An evening of laboured coughing was invariably met by a spoonful of sweet goodness to be sucked. I don't actually know if there is any medicinal benefit to honey in this use, but the slow coating of my throat seemed to help. I would drift off to sleep comforted at least.

For my children, when they were young and wouldn't swallow a pill, I would often crush it up and hide it in a thick dollop of honey on a spoon. One upping Mary Poppins' spoonful of sugar, I felt much better giving the kids something a little closer to the garden than the factory.

So tonight, I extend my affair with bees on their terms. I enrolled in a beekeeping course and have been looking to the first night for weeks. I have a spot picked out for the first of possibly several hives right along the drainage ravine that runs beside our house. It is thick with blackberry brambles and promises a sweet and dusky honey reminiscent of a forest in late August. If you ever had the chance to be in a Pacific coast forest late summer, you know the smell I mean...hot, musky, and above all blackberry scented.

As part of my overall yard revamping, my adopted children will gain a place of honour and we will have to spend many a day pondering their needs, their society, and their work. And while the payoff of honey may take until next year to really flow (pardon the pun!) we will likely have a little reward by early Fall this year.  They will also be the deciding factor for future plantings. Everything in the little land around our house will now be chosen with their bee friendly nature in mind.

Then the big decisions will come. Mead or gifts? How much do we hoard away for ourselves? What can I do to take out the sugar and substitute honey in my baking and cooking? What kind of jars would be best to give away at Christmas. Like the bees, I will be flapping quite hard here for a while.

(Thanks to IslandMoments Newsletter Jan/Feb2010 for the gorgeous bee picture at the top of the blog!)