Bread: An intro

I'm not sure how or why I started baking breads.  It may have been inspired by a bakery that LJ and I use to frequent often when we lived across the street from it.  It was possible to eat breakfast (downtowner cinnamon roll), lunch (focaccia or bialy plus a cookie) and dinner (grilled cheese made on their rustic sourdough loaf) all from the bakery.  It got to the point that when we went in for lunch the girl behind the counter (referred to as the Vinman's girl when we saw her outside of the bakery) would reach for our usual choices before we even said anything.

We eventually moved away but we had become hooked on quality bread.  I've spent the last five years trying new recipes, figuring out how to create steam while the bread bakes, and increasing the thermal mass of the oven to keep the temperature up.  I get upset when people are not tolerant of gluten.  I wish there was some place they could go to gain tolerance so they could enjoy the chewy goodness of a quality baguette.

Often when I share my baked goods with others they seem convinced that the skills to create something similar are beyond their reach.  Baking, like most skills, is something that only takes time and practice to develop (I found reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to be very helpful in driving this point home in my own life).  I hope my future bread posting inspires you to develop this skill yourself.

As a teaser here are a few photos from past baking projects:

Salt bagels

Rustic loaf

Roasted garlic and rosemary ciabatta rolls

Pita bread and cracked wheat sandwich loaves