The Texture and the Flavour

My Dad did it for years. The former Mrs S did it for a while. A number of my friends are doing it on a regular basis. Our mutual blogging chum John Medd is a past master at it. My social media platform of choice is full of photos showing the results of complete strangers doing it. I'm referring of course to the baking of bread. And now, at the ripe old age of 60, I can report that I too am belatedly getting in on the act, after giving further consideration to a comment I left over at Alyson's place last month....

'While on a birthday Skype call with a couple of friends last week, they each impressed me with tales of their respective sourdough bread making exploits. I absolutely love sourdough, but haven’t got the first clue how to make it – nor the patience to try I suspect. Also, if I did somehow manage to make an edible loaf, I doubt that it wouldn’t last more than five minutes before I demolished it! I try not to eat too much bread in general, but have little willpower where a fresh, warm loaf is concerned. 

Towards the end of his life my Dad got into baking his own bread, baking two loaves at a time – one for he and Mum to use straight away and one to put in the freezer for later in the week. It took him a very long time and lots of tweaking to perfect his own particular tasting recipe, but it was well worth the effort. The highlight of any visit home was a big toasted slab of Dad’s bread. When he died suddenly in 2007, his last loaf was left in the freezer. A couple of weeks later, Mum and I defrosted and shared the loaf, knowing that we’d never taste his bread again – it was quite a moment.'

So last week I had a go at baking my first ever loaf of bread. Fully expecting to have to chuck away my first half a dozen failures (as I recall my Dad doing all those years ago), I attempted the most simple, straight forward, plain white loaf....... and was frankly astonished to produce a surprisingly edible debut effort.

This week, still flushed with success, I, perhaps over-ambitiously, attempted a boule and added a selection of seeds into the mix. The result was visually a little lacklustre, but the seeds improved the taste considerably. The long term aim is to move on to sourdough, but patience is a virtue, I have to learn to walk before I can run.

In the old world, I was scheduled to catch up with Mark Lanegan in concert again this week, but it was not to be. Here he is with Screaming Trees back in 1992 covering The Small Faces.

Screaming Trees - Song of a Baker

Marmalade

There was a time when I would have bread with every meal. Three pieces of toast for breakfast, a sandwich or two for lunch and a couple of slices of bread and butter to mop up my plate after dinner. Those days are long gone though, along with the almost permanent bloated feeling and a couple of Stone in weight. These days, bread is more of an occasional treat, as it was a couple of days ago when Mrs S baked a scrumptious heavily seeded loaf. I had two slices, lightly toasted, topped with a big dollop of thick cut marmalade and washed down with freshly brewed black coffee (Guatemala El Libano Caturra, since you ask). Some things are just made to go together - toast, marmalade and black coffee are three of them.

This isn't actually Mrs S's loaf, but the resemblance is close enough to get my mouth watering.

This is The Geraldine Fibbers, fronted by the redoubtable Carla Bozulich. They were only around for a few years in the mid-1990's, but still managed to put out 2 excellent studio LP's, a live album plus a selection of singles, EP's and mini-albums.

If you know one song by The Geraldine Fibbers, it's probably 'Dragon Lady. The video is a little dated, but the tune still kicks it.