Continuing with the Eastern European vacation recap, we go to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It has more of a college-town feel, more local folklore—I vaguely recall the legend of “the dragon” featured in the town’s inception story. I’m sure you will agree with both KP and myself that this dragon is an alligator.
We climbed the bell tower of the Brno cathedral and enjoyed a resplendent cityscape from above it all.
By the time we were in Brno, I felt guilty about not ordering “authentic, traditional Czech food” and ordered this meaty, heavy dish. Everything in Czech seemed like a variation of hamburger soup. But this one was spicy enough to be really good. Hotel Pegas.
In Michael Pollan’s Cooked he describes onions, carrots, and celery as the Holy Trinity for soups and stews. Tempeh is the sort of food I never would have found on my own. In fact, after I purchased it for this recipe, I punished the package in a dark forgotten corner of my refrigerator until a month’s time of nagging conscience prompted me to pull it forth and cook this. So glad I have a conscience. This dish does resemble most of the traditional food I found to eat in Eastern Europe. Very goulashy.
Jamaican Jerk Tempeh Stew
Adapted from a recipe at People’s Coop
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onion
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 tablespoons minced jalapeño peppers
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 tablespoon cracked black pepper
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 cups tempeh, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cups diced sweet potatoes
3 cups water
2 cups diced tomatoes
2 cups tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Louisiana Crystal hot sauce
3 tablespoons honey
In a large pot, heat the oil over high heat. Add the onion, carrots and celery and sauté for 15-20 minutes. If you’re like, am I done sautéing? The answer is, no. Five more, or ten more minutes. Then add the ginger and jalapeños and cook for 5 more minutes. Next, add the garlic, spices, tempeh and sweet potatoes and sauté 2 minutes. Pour in the water, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil 5 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, hot sauce and sugar and simmer 15 minutes until the sweet potatoes are tender.
It goes without saying that I have gotten a little behind on my bread blog work—technical difficulties mostly having to do international travel to Eastern Europe, but also with nearly losing a cell phone, lacking appropriate device chargers, and lastly, Charter’s decrepit modem that quietly expired while we were out of town on the graduation trip.
I am proud to say I am now back in the country, back online, AND, back in the kitchen. As we pack to move to New Orleans next week, the bread making supplies shall be assembled in the final box. I have many loaves to achieve between now and next Wednesday.
But first, a brief recap of the glorious travels—and to pace myself, I’ll do one country per post this week, starting with Czech Republic. Prague was absolutely breath-taking:
Even though it was chilly and raining most of the days there, the botanical gardens were blossoming and roses lined the gardens surrounding the castle.
This takes curly fries to a new dimension. Looks like something I might have found at the Minnesota State Fair.
Surprised by fireworks on a walk home along the river!
Another surprise– Prague has a replica of the Eiffel Tower on a hill. We hiked up there to take this old-timey picture. Paris of the East, indeed.
Survivors of communism memorial statue– eerie.
S
We stayed in the Lida Guest House, which I totally recommend– it was a great value, close to the metro and walkable to everything downtown– and the owners were precious. So kind and gracious as hosts, offered a great breakfast each day! The guest house is up on a hill, in a quiet neighborhood, and the view was spectacular.
We spent two days in Prague before heading to the south east corner of Czech Republic, Brno– which I’ll post on next time. As fun as it is to travel, there is nothing that compares to one’s own kitchen and making your own bread.
Rosemary Flax Baguette
Adapted Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Recipe makes approximately 2-3 baguettes
1/2 cup ground flax seed
4 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1.5 cups of sourdough starter
1 Tbsp kosher salt
3.5 cups warm water
1/2 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 egg white (for the egg wash, only needed when baking)
First, mix the dough. In a 5 qt bowl or dough bucket, mix the flaxseed, flours, wheat germ, and sourdough.
Next mix in the warm water, olive oil, and rosemary.
40 minutes later, mix the salt in like 10-20 mL of water.
Mix using a wooden spoon. No need to knead.
Cover the dough and let it rise for 2 hours on the counter or in a warm, not drafty place.
You can use it right away, form into a baguette and proof for another hour, or refrigerate the dough for up to 2 weeks.
When you’re ready to bake, use the following steps.
Remove the container from the fridge and dust a little flour on the top of the dough.
Pinch off a ball about the size of an orange and form the dough ball by stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn on each side.
Form the ball into a baguette shape. See the notes for an easy technique.
Let the dough rise on a flour dusted surface for 40 minutes.
After 10 minutes, turn the oven to 450, place one rack in the middle of the oven, and place a metal broiler pan on the bottom shelf.
Place a pizza stone on the middle oven rack to heat.
Using a serrated knife, cut diagonal slits in the dough.
Whisk an egg white in a bowl and brush it carefully over the top of the bread.
When the oven is hot and the bread has risen, slide the dough onto the pizza stone and pour 8 oz of water into the broiler pan underneath the dough.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Cool the bread for at least 10-15 minutes before slicing.
I’ve decided to also chunk the interim haikus by country:
Delivered on May 16th, 2015 at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine Graduation Ceremony in Rochester, MN.
“Education doesn’t make you happy,” wrote the not yet demented Iris Murdoch, “Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. “
I was going to use a diving board analogy to locate us as graduates perched here today on something like a high dive platform of education, but then I felt like an impostor-a Minnesotan medical student pretending to be familiar with swimming pools, and so instead I’ve decided to liken medical school to curling. Curling, the sport in which a massive, polished stone slowly makes its way down a narrow rink of ice while sweepers frantically scratch the ice in its path to coax the stone a hair’s width this way or that. I’ll leave it up to you to assess whether you identify more with having been a spastic sweeper or the heavy stone—either way, today is the day we arrive together, finally, at the target circle.
If Murdoch is to be trusted, and education is the means by which we realize we are happy, then after all these years of education, after the long, long shuffle down the ice rink, should we not then be some of the happiest and most self-realized people around?
Happiness is a funny thing. Even on a day like today, I imagine most of us in this room can think of just a few more things to make us happier still. Boxes we have yet to check, mile markers we have yet to pass.
Dear classmates, when I asked you some month ago “If a genie were to come out of a bottle of whatever you happen to be drinking right now, and ask you for three wishes, what would those three wishes be?” You could not have known that I, in fact, possess Magic Lamp genie-style powers; I was saving that news as your graduation present.
Graduation ceremonies are such magical, future -projecting spectacles that the genie concept, especially with this outfit, seemed more than apt. And, of course, the wishes you sent to me were a fascinating psychological cross section of the future of medicine. As taxonomied according to desire, the Class of 2015 is a cast of heroic characters but I’m sure all of you here today, faculty, friends and family already know the full truth of this.
It is said that the newspapers of the future are all blank. But in the world as it should be, and if all goes well, as it shall be, by the powers invested in me as a self-employed Genie to proclaim the wishes of the noble hearts of the Class of 2015:
There is world peace, there is no hunger, you all have become physical and mental giants, your partners are fulfilled, your children are even more successful than you shall be, you are in complete control of your neurons at all times, you serve the patients in greatest need, you love what you do on the day you retire with the same zeal that brought you into the profession, you do absolutely no harm, your debts are erased, your pride and selfishness has dissolved, it does not get in the way of love anymore, when you die, it is a swift death, but not before you find love, and not before you know thyself deeply. You never forget where you came from. These are your wishes, and at once they are all of ours, are they not?
A wish is a deeply personal thing, difficult to reveal to others, but one way or another our wishes declare themselves in time. We become them, don’t we? You are now a product of your own stale wishes from decades ago, both of those that came true and those that did not.
Now what of these genie-powers I claimed to have? I spent several years away from medicine reading novels, ahem, doing “extensive literary research.” I have been waiting for an opportunity such as this to share my one landmark discovery, which pertains to the story of Aladdin.
My thesis: the genie in the lamp character is a placebo. Whether or not the genie actually grants wishes is not nearly as important as the way in which the very asking bears the power to alter the Wishers themselves, to narrow and clarify their desires. And any of us can do this, asking for wishes.
The genie’s question, in its simplicity, forces us to assess our lives in simple terms, in limited terms. You only get three. I think most humans have about three things in common: we all want to feel loved, we all want to be heard, and we all want to be a part of something greater than ourselves. We define ourselves by what we wish for; we are emplotted to live in the slant of our risky desires. To identify your three wishes is to know your plot. Cultivate your wishes like seeds in a garden, it is after all, the only thing you are truly responsible to tend yourself.
There is a dark side to wishing, greed, of course. The business of wishing in a world with constrained resources creates a tenuous economy of desire—a natural balance in which we each exert a force of great moral consequence. My first wish (and yes, I have three) is that we may each carry forward into our lives what we practice here at Mayo—when we say the needs of the patient come first, I think we mean more generally, may the wishes of others come before my own. An ethical system made perfect if everyone plays, an impossible goal, I know, but one well worth striving after—the starry skies above me, the moral law within me sort of thing Kant talked about.
Declaring a wish also summons the reality of failure. Notice I did not say the possibility of failure. Our health, our minds, shall fail us, loved ones will suffer; our good fortune can at any moment spill out from cupped palms, between our fingers, like water. And there it is—the burning question that not just we carry, the hopeful graduates, but that each and every one of us in this room carries; you will see it burning in the eyes of each and every patient you care for in the days to come—together we all wonder: will I get my wish? And if not, what then?
“What if” is one of our most destabilizing questions. It is the fulcrum upon which the instant ever pivots. Upon which despair and happiness mete out their balance,…. perhaps. Education doesn’t make you happy, nor does freedom. Education cannot fight the Ifs, in fact, I’m quite sure education broadens our What If Differential. But education offers us the bold choice of happiness, whatever the if.
Today is the answer to a big If you had in Pawlina’s anatomy lab while you hovered over your cadaver four years ago untangling knot, the riddle, the harp of nerves in your arm pit, the brachial plexus. Who were your genies, then and now? Today we honor our family and friends, mentors and teachers, everyone here today who watered us just the right amount like the finicky cactuses Dr. Bostwick says we are. At this time I am proud to recognize two of our best professors, the Teachers of Year as voted by the students. Dr. Joe Grande and Dr. David Rosenman please stand and be recognized. We also recognize the Resident Teachers of the Year. Please stand as I call your name: Dr. Joy Beissel, Dr. Maile Parker, Dr. Diana Shewmaker, and Dr. Nafisseh Warner. My second wish is to be for others what you all have been for us—beacons and cornerstones at once. Thank you.
Education doesn’t make you happy. Happiness isn’t granted, remember, the genie is a placebo— happiness is realized. You are happy—today, you are seated here replete with hundreds of happy versions of your future selves dancing in your heads; all the different happy endings you are living toward. Your education is just part of the story of your happiness.
The greatest lesson I’ve learned in medical school is what illness teaches us—that life, properly lived, estimates very little future. We should enjoy our family gatherings this evening and this weekend without smug certainty that there are many more to come. We should treat this celebration—and each day, really—as life’s capstone—because if it isn’t, if we choose to defer our true happiness in wait for something greater yet to come, after watching all the right mile markers blur by, residency, chief year, fellowship, staff position, chair, professorship, grand poobah of your respective society— I fear the cost to us at the end, after all the boxes have been checked, might be to realize we have spent our lives climbing a ladder that may very well lead to nowhere at all—when all along, the place you thought you were headed toward—your Happiness– was not just beyond reach but was a choice within you all along, Wizard of Oz/placebo-genie-style: it was in your pulse, upon your tastebuds, with each fresh sound of your lungs, and surely, surely in the company and comfort of your loved ones.
My third and final wish is simply this: may you realize you are happy, may you carry this happiness with you always like a torch—with it may you light the dark halls of your hospitals with gratitude and grace. Find your happiness again, and again, there in your patients, in helping them and others to realize their own wishes, their own desires; may you be unto others just the placebo, the genie, they need.
The Happiness of Graduation Weekend Festivities as captured in photographs:
Dinner at Grand Rounds, and Family Reunion.
My Grandma Gigi
Graduation Day and Art on the Avenue
My godson Jude with some street art of his own!
Waffle UP! Breakfast pre-Pig Roast on Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution Day– Go Vikings!)
Pig Roast with Special Guests, Les Fields and the Turkey River All-Stars who let me have a go on the mic, what an honor! Click here for some video footage of the amazing sound! And here.
Mojo Marinade for Pork for Post-Pig Roast Cubanos
Adapted from Food and Wine
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup lightly packed cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup lightly packed mint leaves, finely chopped
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Kosher salt
Pepper
3 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, in one piece
In a bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients except salt, pepper and the pork. Whisk in 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Transfer the marinade to a large resealable plastic bag and add the pork. Seal the bag and turn to coat; set in a baking dish and refrigerate overnight. When you are ready to make the sandwich, toast your bread bun (buttered if you wish), add a little mustard if you like that, some slices of Swiss cheese, and dill pickles. Reheat the Mojo-battered pork, or serve cold. YUMMY!
Izzy had a wonderful weekend, but like the rest of us, it’s time to rest and recover.
Tis a chilly spring evening, perfect for a spicy soup. Like a stubborn sinus rhythm, I am marching out the last of my medical school days in the ECG reading room, with the PVC of my family arriving this evening to jump start the festivities! Got the house clean, got a new pair of glasses that perfectly illustrate my vision for the future (RED ALERT), and we might (just might) get lucky enough to have a band play at our Pig Roast on Sunday afternoon—a distinguished Rochester musician with a dixieland brass band who, he tells me, went to the first ever Jazz Fest. The stars are aligning.
Thai Pumpkin Soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
4 shallots, chopped
Sprinkle of red pepper flakes
2 small fresh red chili peppers or jalapenos, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped lemon grass
2 1/8 cups veggie stock
4 cups peeled and diced pumpkin
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
In a medium saucepan, heat oil and butter over low heat. Cook garlic, shallots, chilies, and lemongrass in oil until fragrant (be careful not to burn the garlic). Stir in chicken stock, coconut milk, and pumpkin; bring to a boil. Cook until pumpkin softens.
In a blender, blend the soup in batches to a smooth or slightly chunky consistency, whatever you prefer. Serve with basil leaves.
For those of you who have come to believe this is a health food blog, with this post, I burst your bubble with a slick sud of saturated fat. As a flexatarian, I readily celebrate calls for exception, calls for wild food abandon, when such calls satisfy certain theology and geometry. Graduating from medical school, say, is one such call. To all the graduates of 2015 and their families, get thee to your grills and brand the slats onto these sinful patties, served with homemade brioche, recipe below. No need to repent. You’ve done enough flagellating in lecture halls and board exam rooms over the years. And if you’re going on to residency next year, you may need a little extra fat under your coat for the 3-7 year distance run ahead.
Spicy 50/50 Burger on Tartine Brioche
Adapted from Food and Wine
INGREDIENTS
3/4 pound ground chuck
3/4 pound hot Italian sausage, casing removed
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 slices of Monterey Jack cheese (1/2 pound)
2 tablespoons water
4 brioche hamburger buns, split and toasted (see recipe below)
1 cup cilantro leaves
Thickly sliced hot or sweet pickled peppers, for serving
In a medium bowl, combine the ground chuck with the sausage just until they are thoroughly mixed. Form the meat into four 4-inch patties, about 3/4 inch thick. Season the patties with salt and pepper.
In a large cast-iron skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the patties to the skillet and press down slightly with a spatula to flatten them to a 1/2-inch thickness. Cook the patties over moderately high heat until very crusty on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip the patties and cook until well browned, about 2 minutes more. Top each patty with 2 slices of the Monterey Jack cheese and add the water to the skillet. Cover the skillet and cook over moderate heat until the cheese slices are melted and the burgers are cooked all the way through, 1 to 2 minutes.
Set the cheeseburgers on the toasted buns and top with the cilantro leaves and sliced pickled peppers. Close the burgers and serve right away.
Regarding the brioche, one can feel some modicum of righteousness in the recipe below factoring how butter has been completely replaced by olive oil (albeit a half a kilogram of olive oil, but olive oil nonetheless). The crumb is so light and moist and spongy, and it remains so for days without wrapping–just as you might imagine your skin could be if only our bodies worked to deposit fat there, instead of other shameful places, after we graduate toddlerhood.
Tartine Olive Oil Brioche
Adapted from the Tartine Bread Book
Poolish 400 g (200 g flour/200 g water—let sit overnight)
Sourdough starter 300 g
Bread flour 1,000 g
Salt 25 g
Dry yeast 15 g
Eggs 500 g
Whole milk 240 g
Honey 160 g
Orange blossom water 50 g (water with a splash or orange juice)
Olive oil 450 g
Egg wash
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp heavy cream
Prepare the poolish and add to sourdough. You will need a mixer. Place the flour, salt, and yeast in the mixing bowl. Add eggs, milk, poolish/sourdough, honey, orange blossom water and mix on low speed for 3 minutes. Let the dough rest in the bowl for 20 minutes. Then mix the dough for 6 minutes on medium, and add the olive oil until the dough is homogenous.
Transfer the dough to a big bowl and let rise for 2 hours for bulk fermentation. Give it two turns in the first hour. Put the dough in the freezer for 3 hours (this is key, I just did the refrigerator, and it exploded in the fridge)—after it has the freezer time, you can transfer the covered dough to the refrigerator and let it be there overnight. If you do not heed my warning, this will surely happen to you:
Coat the molds with butter. Using a spatula, pull the dough onto a floured surface. Cut it into pieces to fit each of your molds.
I used two big bread pans and two small ceramic ramekin things so I could make burger-shaped rolls. Let rise in the molds for 1-2 hours. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Wash the loaves in the egg wash (beautiful color–exactly the color of our kitchen in the last apartment– and in the photograph below, the artist in me LOVES the shadows on the green egg shells, so paintable, so sfumato…),
and bake for 35-40 minutes (the small ones you can do for 20 minutes). Unmold and let cool on a rack.
Regarding my mother, there is no example of her patience and grace more profound than to mention how she tolerated with relative indifference my Ewws and rolling eyes and snubbed nose at her cooking for nearly two decades—and now this:
Some seeds have very, very thick coats. Trust the loyalty of sprouts—in time they break through the toughest shells and head toward the sun that has always warmed them. I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for imbuing in me the Joy of Cooking. And coffee. Enjoy Poppa’s Haven, Mama.
Caramel Tart
Adapted from Baking Chez Moi
PASTRY
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 large egg yolk
FILLING
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 TB plus 1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup water
1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 1/4 cups heavy cream, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 large egg yolks
MAKE THE PASTRY In a food processor, pulse the flour with the confectioners’ sugar and salt. Add the butter and pulse until it’s the size of peas. Add the egg yolk and pulse in 10-second increments until incorporated, about 4 long pulses.
Transfer the pastry to a sheet of parchment paper,
shape into a disk and cover with another sheet of parchment paper. Roll out the pastry to a 12-inch round.
Slide the pastry on the parchment paper onto a baking sheet. Refrigerate the pastry until firm, about 1 hour.
Let the pastry stand at room temperature for 5 minutes to soften. Discard the top sheet of parchment paper and invert the pastry into a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom; fit the pastry into the pan and trim the overhang. Prick the pastry all over with a fork and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400°. Line the tart shell with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. I use pecans or almonds as weights. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the pastry is set and lightly browned at the edge.
Remove the parchment paper and weights and bake the pastry for 5 minutes more, until lightly browned on the bottom. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°.
MAKE THE FILLING In a microwave-safe small bowl, microwave the chocolate at high power in 30-second bursts, just until melted. Let cool slightly.
Pour the melted chocolate into the baked tart shell, spreading it evenly over the bottom. In a small skillet, stir 6 TB of the granulated sugar with the lemon juice and ¼ cup of water over moderately high heat until the sugar dissolves. Cook, without stirring, until the mixture starts to color, about 5 minutes. Continue cooking, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until a lightly golden caramel forms, about 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the butter, 1 piece at a time. Stir in the cream and salt, then let the caramel cool to room temperature.
In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining 1/3 cup of granulated sugar until smooth. Stir the caramel into the egg yolk mixture (slowly, tempering as you go), then pour the custard evenly over the chocolate in the tart shell. Transfer the tart to a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 24 minutes, until the crust is browned and the filling is still slightly wobbly in the middle. Transfer the tart to a rack and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until set and thoroughly chilled, at least 2 hours. Unmold the caramel tart and serve.
Stuff is the worst. Possessions are one thing, shoes are treasures, but stuff is a curse. It would be great if there were a giant flour sifter, a big silver cylinder, and I could just squeeze a handle to capture all the treasures while losing the dust, the stuff, that clutters my floors and shelves. Moving forces you to reconsider the preciousness of things. There is one part of me that champions simplicity and craves to purge the place; there is another part of me that feels the charmed power of each and every totem. All the stories we attach, the givers, the people connected through an object in time. The teddy bear that has been a witness to your whole life from a quiet corner in the room. In the end, that is what is so hard about throwing things away, what makes “stuff” in itself so tricky to discern—it isn’t the thing itself, it’s what the thing represents — memory, attachment, witnesses– that you threaten to abandon.
And so goes the rationalization of an early hoarder. Or, a romantic.
Turkish Pita
Adapted from Food and Wine
SPONGE
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup all-purpose flour
DOUGH
1 ¼ cups warm water
1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
Cornmeal, for dusting
Nigella or sesame seeds, for sprinkling
In a medium bowl, mix the water with the sourdough. Stir in the flour. Cover loosely and let stand overnight.
In a large bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the water with the yeast and sugar and let stand until foamy. Add the yeast mixture, the remaining 1 cup of water and the olive oil. Stir in the flours and salt until a dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand until doubled in bulk, about 3 hours.
Place a baking stone on the bottom of the oven and preheat the oven to 450°. Punch down the dough and divide it into 4 pieces. Flatten each piece into a round. Cover them with plastic and let rise until puffy, about 30 minutes.
Sprinkle a pizza peel with cornmeal. On a floured work surface, with wet hands, flatten each round into an 8-by-10-inch oval. Make 6 or 7 deep grooves with your fingertips down the length of each oval.
Spread olive oil across the top. Sprinkle the ovals with the nigella seeds. Slide the ovals onto the peel, then onto the hot stone in the oven. Bake until crisp on the bottom, about 10 minutes. Serve warm.
Ran another 26.2 again today in Kalamazoo—which sounds like the first line of a Dr. Seuss book, but it’s true. KP and I are 25 marathons into our 50 states! Half way there! Turns out that Kalamazoo is far more hilly, and hot-climated than we had anticipated. A rough go of it, but as always, the reward the finish line brings is a high like no other. We celebrated with jambalaya and Oberon brews at Bell’s afterwards.
Epi Bread
Adapted from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day Book (thank you for the gift Kim Wiseman!!)
5 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup sourdough starter
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
4 cups lukewarm water
I do it differently than the technique recommended in the book for two reasons: 1) I use sourdough starter, never yeast, and NEVER vital wheat gluten (that is sooo cheating) and 2) Tartine Bread book changed my life, and in my mind, they are the originators of the super-hydrated bread dough technique that does not require kneading—so I stick to their method with little deviation.
Start with mixing the water to and the starter to form a very wet dough. Add the flours, do not add salt yet. Mix this all up and wait forty minutes before adding the salt in a little bit of water. This gives the dough some time for the gluten molecules to align (as they must)—and because salt can retard sourdough growth, giving 40 minutes for there to be a jump start is a good idea. At this point, you can let the dough rise for hours and hours. Then you can put the dough in the fridge and pull off pieces from it to use for baking fresh bread all week.
Cover loosely (leave lid open a crack) and allow to rise for two hours at room temperature (if you decreased the yeast, you’ll need more time). NEVER PUNCH DOWN or intentionally deflate. The dough will rise and then begin to collapse. Refrigerate and use over the next 14 days, tearing off one-pound loaves as you need them.
On baking day, cut off a grapefruit-sized piece of dough (about a pound), using a serrated knife or a kitchen shears:
Now, quickly shape the loaf into a baguette. DON’T KNEAD or otherwise knock all the gas out of the loaf:
Cover the loaf loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest on a pizza peel covered with cornmeal or parchment for 90 minutes (40 minutes if you’re using fresh, unrefrigerated dough. This is longer than our 1st book because whole grains take a longer rest than white doughs. Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise; our loaves depend more on “oven spring.”
Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone placed on a middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other rack that won’t interfere with rising bread.
Just before baking, use a pastry brush to paint the top with water.
Slash the loaf with 1/4-inch deep parallel cuts on each side, alternating space to look like a leaf frond. Use a serrated bread knife held perpendicularly to the loaf, or scissors.
Slide onto the hot stone and carefully pour 1 cup of hot tap water into the broiler tray. After a 30-minute bake, cool on a cooling rack, and serve however you’d like.
Gorgeous stained glass at Bell’s Brewery and Cafe:
Make this as part of my Daring Bakers Club Challenge for last month. Wasn’t my favorite focaccia ever, I think a little too simple, too little leaven. It was like a glorified quesadilla. But tasty and a nice snack. Maybe it would have been better had I been able to find the proper Italian cheese.
Focaccia di Recco
1 lb all-purpose flour
1 lb Crescenza cheese, or Stracchino cheese, OR—Mascarpone cheese (no one in Rochester has ever heard of the two former Italian soft cheeses)
½ cup Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil
1 ¼ cups water
salt to taste
Begin by placing the flour in a large bowl. Add a pinch of salt and form a well in the middle. Then add cold water and 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Start mixing the dough with a fork, incorporating the flour, little by little. Once the dough has come together, start kneading it with your hands.
Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes, until smooth and uniform. When the dough is ready, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour at room temperature.
Divide the dough into two-six equal parts (depending on the size of round you want) and roll out the dough, trying to keep it round and as thin as possible, almost transparent. Once you have rolled out both pieces of dough, begin assembling the focaccia di Recco.
Grease a 10-in baking dish with extra virgin olive oil. Place one layer of dough on the bottom of the dish. I used a dish the first time, with little success, it worked better when I just fired up a pizza stone and slie it directly onto the stone with cornmeal as a nonstick. Add the cheese in pieces using your hands or a spoon.
Cover the cheese with the second sheet of dough. Use a knife to remove the excess dough from around the edges (and, of course, eat it).Seal the edges by pinching the dough.
Pinch holes into the top layer of dough above the cheese so that the steam can come out during cooking. Sprinkle with salt and brush with extra virgin olive oil.
Bake in a very hot oven (400/450°F) for about 8-12 minutes, or until golden. I turned the broiler on at the end to get a really nice brown speckle. When the focaccia is done, remove it from the oven and let cool. Cut it and serve as an appetizer or finger food to serve at an aperitivo. Surprise your husband with this tasty treat as he comes in the door.
Finally I have a day off tomorrow. The definition of “over-tired” is when you come home after a long day, set about make some simple snack, like a piece of peanut butter toast, and while waiting for the toaster, watch some late night sketch like Nonsense Karaoke and laugh so hard you have to lie down, crying, and then you fall asleep on the floor for three hours, the toast quietly cooling to a stale in the toaster. I actually think Nonsense Karaoke would be a fabulous Middle School English class activity for teaching assonance (rhyming vowel sounds in poetry).
I don’t know what it is about being on a cardiology service that makes me fantasize about being an English teacher—probably something to do with spending hours a day assessing meter (regular vs irregular, and heart rate) and the qualities of sound the heart makes. Heard an S3 today for the first time (nerd) (yes, I’m calling myself a nerd in parenthetical whisper.) Jolly good fun.
Flat Tire Beer Bread
Adapted from Penzeys Spices
3 Cups all-purpose flour (dare I say wheat flour is better for the heart)
3 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3 TB. sugar
1 12-oz. bottle beer (I used Schells Deer Brew, because what on Earth is that and who left it in my refrigerator? But try any beer, as you will), room temperature
1/4-1/2 tsp. garlic or onion powder optional
1-2 tsp. herbs, up to you—I used general Italian spices, rosemary, parsley, thyme, but this is optional
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and mix well, then add the beer at the end. Wheeeee! Volcano! Spoon into a greased 4 1/2×8 1/2-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 1 hour. Serve warm.
This is by far the easiest bread recipe I know, and the beer bread tastes great with chili or any hearty soup. Or just straight up if you’re too tired (like I am) to stand up long enough to cook something. This is a great bread for those who are worried they might fall asleep in a pike position over the kitchen counter while kneading. Low Risk bread endeavor here.
