Winter Warming

As the next draft of the novel nears completion, I'm going to start focusing on freelance food writing -- I've already secured a name and a site and I'll update you as soon as there's anything worth reading up there.

Today, I'm baking bread, using the autolyse method Charlie suggested, as well as making a few other modifications: I'm using wetter dough, I'm not using a bread pan but a stone, and, instead of punching the bread down, I've been letting it rise and folding it on itself every 20 minutes or so, a technique suggested on some artisinal baking sites I visited. I'm also playing with the baking times -- starting with a high temp for the first fifteen minutes then switching to a lower one for half an hour. It is baking now, so I can't speak for the results.

The bread is a simple, unbleached white with no added ingredients.

It's snowing too hard for me to head in to teach (four hour commute? Sorry, guys. I'll be there in spirit) so I'm also making a sausage lentil soup: I've added tomatoes, roasted cumin and coriander, dijon mustard, celery, a single lime leaf, and other standard spices. I'm slow cooking it. I didn't have access to stock, so I'm using water. I add pepper about ten minutes from completion -- overcooked pepper adds an unpleasant, bitter taste. A pinch of salt, and I'm serving it up with the bread for a snowy night's feast for the family.