No, but really. It is quite ridiculous. I have mentioned this before, but I really do urge you to rush to buy this book. (A light application of your readerfingers upon this link will take you to the right spot at Amazon.)In it, it shows you how to make bread without all the kneading and fanciness. You need to buy a couple of things (e.g. a pizza stone and thing to shove the bread in the oven with), but for an outlay of a few quid, you get to make your own bread, every day, in a fantastic 'proper cook' style; and what's more, it is bloody delicious, yes yes, like the bread you get from fancy bakers that costs a tenner and is usually hand crafted by some humourless tofu-shoe-wearing white-dreadlocked worthy* at the local farmers' market. You know, the kind of bread that is probably good for you, and yet quite delicious.
I am quite overwhelmed by the whole thing. It is bliss. I shall put up photographs and you will see what I mean - right this very minute, for example, a loaf of that slightly sour bread, studded with dried apricots and pecans, is rising, waiting to be baked, smothered in my home-made strawberry jam, and finally crammed into my hot receiving monkeymouth.**
* This type of person invariably went to public school, is called Piers, and went through a phase of having a dog on a string and living in trees. At the weekend, he goes back to Mummy in Gloucestershire; she washes his tie-died pantaloons and feeds him roast pheasant. He tells the friends with whom he shares a 'space' in Hackney that he is going to a 'retreat'. It is only a 'retreat' in as much as he 'retreats' to the sitting-room, whereupon he sits in front of the television scratching his testicles and watching the EastEnders omnibus.
** I have attempted to fill this paragraph with some of the more unpleasantly vulgar food words; can you spot them all? The glaring omission is 'moistened', of course.
11 comments:
Thank you for your excellent recommendation. I have duly ordered it for my boyfriend, who is much more likely to bake than I am. He is also much less likely than I am to spend weeks shooting guilty looks at the fancy bread book whilst continuing to tuck into toast made from Sainsbury's own bread, slightly moistened by tears of self-loathing.
I'm Jeff Hertzberg, one of the co-authors of the book. Thanks for this great post. Come visit us at www.artisanbreadinfive.com, where you can post questions into any "Comments" field, or into the "Bread Questions" field on the left side of the homepage.
Jeff Hertzberg
www.artisanbreadinfive.com
Leonie. Get baking. No excuse. It is quite the 'fashion' nowadays, or so I hear.
Jeff Hertzberg!!! I worship you (and Zoe). I am speechless with pleasure at you commenting. Everyone! Go and visit their site! Make their bread!
The last commentator that was this exciting was the REAL Anna Raeburn. I was speechless for up to and including one hour.
I would! I really would! Really! Only it's seventy-leven million degrees where I live and if I heat up the oven I will spontaneously combust. However I can take up the word spotting challenge... "loaf" obviously and "dried" and probably "example" which is vulgar enough to cause involuntary dry retching...
A breadlebrity! Commenting! Monkey, you have arrived.
However I am sceptical. "Bread in five minutes"? Surely not. 'Five half-arsed attempts before I give up?' 'Five years?' Can this five minute thing really be right? It sounds most improbable.
Hi Megan,
Yeah, it is 8 zillion degrees here and 200% humidity so I've been firing up the BBQ to bake bread. A woman obsessed perhaps, but it is a GREAT flavor and you don't heat up the house.
Give it a whirl!
Thanks for the great post! Zoë Frnaçois
Hmm... no excuses? What about heinous laziness and general idiocy? Surely that counts.
This way I get to look like a nice person who buys presents, AND I hopefully get to eat the spoils without lifting a finger. It is win-win for me. Hurray!
For Piers I think you utterly, dear NWM. Thank you.
And yes, I had spotted something about that food paragraph, but I thought it might be just your natural ebullience...
Oh and if you had really put your mind to it you'd have had to include 'succulent', 'mouth-watering,' 'garnished', 'pan-broiled' (what does this mean??), 'juicy', 'dessicated', 'sprat', etc.
I feel so lazy - I've NEVER baked bread (well except for that "poppin' fresh" stuff. Maybe I don't like my family as much as you guys or maybe they just don't inspire me to bake. I'll try the book since you say it's easy.
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