BBA "French" and "Italian" Breads

Last night I went to a little event at a downtown bookstore that featured Amanda Hesser (NYT Food Writer), Julie Powell (Julie & Julia, and Judith Jones (Editor for Practically Everyone I Can Think Of) speaking about the enduring legacy of Julia Child. Hesser was concise and incisive, Powell voluble and mobile--intensely thoughtful, and Jones warmly patrician, with practiced delivery and a well-developed sense of humor.

I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to these three ladies, to hear the 'real' voices of the literary voices I've read eagerly. I was a little disappointed in the quality and quantity of the questions ("Did you really eat aspic?), but since I didn't ask any myself, can't really complain.

The event did make me confront an issue I've been wrestling a bit with, which is the focus and style of this very blog. I know food blogs are a dime a dozen, but I do enjoy mine (and enjoy my cooking more), and I want to spend some real time working on the quality of the writing here. It's going to take attention, and time. Ideally, each post would be a well-thought-out, honest, mini-essay, with something new to say or instruct, possibly some good links, and connected to an overarching goal or writing persona that is uniquely mine. Writers like John Thorne and Julie Powell have raised the bar in their different ways, daring me to engage with the food I make on a visceral and intellectual level, to examine it from the vantage of appetite and history and my honest understanding of self and family. Perhaps tellingly, neither of these writers use photographs or pictures on a regular basis. They rely on the quality of their prose and the urgency of their interest and passion. I could read John Thorne's work forever, and while he comfortably fills his own niche, he makes me believe there might be a niche for me as well.

This is just to say, look out for some longer musing and hopefully some material more probing than 'I made this! It was good!" though there will be those as well.

By the way, as a part of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, I made these French and Italian style breads. They were good. I present the recipes together because they are essentially the same. Both begin with a prefermented dough to simulate the leftover dough that would be used in a similar bakery recipe (Once again I wasn't on top of it enough to just save some of the French Bread dough to make the Italian...go me). The method continues exactly the same (the Italian gets a little sugar and oil enrichment along the way) until the shaping. For the French, I made one baguette, one batard, and one little round loaf. I turned the Italian dough into a pile of picturesque little rolls.

Both formulae produced sturdy, flavorful sandwich breads. Matt's happiness as being able to have a simple turkey sandwich was a firm reminder to make this kind of bread more often. I preferred the Italian style, in as much as there was a difference, but that might just have been my fondness for the little roll shapes.

In Words

One of my favorite things that anyone anywhere has ever said can be found in the introduction to the 1976 edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. She says that:

"The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words."

This succinct and elegant paradox is at the heart of a great deal of what I believe about not only fiction but theatre and about life as well. The techniques of the mundane, used rigorously and honestly, are essential to the creation of the un-nameable, the extraordinary, and the transcendent. The simplest things contain mystery and the most mysterious, simplicity. It is possible to say in words what cannot be said in words. This is more to me than some koan to ponder abstractly (apologies if I'm misrepresenting the nature of koans here, I'm guessing they actually are not particularly abstract to those who make them a part of their lives). It reads like an imperative, a command to go forth and be complicated, to go forth and allow ambiguity. Most of all, it is an almost irresistible invitation to write.

Every time I start to think about that particular quotation, I am overwhelmed with the need to write, to make strange plans and verbal circles and what Dorothy Allison calls 'mean stories.'Lately, much of my writing (at least the part that doesn't revolve around reference services, special collections, and information policy) has been here, on this blog. While I consider Second Dinner largely a kind of journal, a record of my life in food and kitchen, and a means to share that record, it is also a record, intentional or un-, of my personal philosophies, my likes, dislikes, loves, obsessions, breads, and hopes. And it's largely a written record. I take pictures, yes, to keep you all coming back, but they are usually an afterthought, and it shows. (Sometimes Matt takes them, then they're better). I've thought a lot about improving my photo skills, and I will and I am, but truthfully, presentation as a whole isn't my thing. My thing is making and writing. Sure, I like all the pretty pictures on other people's blogs, but what really gets me is...the writing. Re-reading Julie and Julia last month, I was suddenly struck for the first time by the fact that Julie Powell's highly influential and addictively written Julie/Julia Project had been completely photo free. The attraction was the writing itself, the narrative of writing about reading and making, the intersection of writer and...book. I like that. I like that a lot.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop taking photos. I like remembering, and it's easier to visualize sometimes (though it does clog the hard drive). It just means that I am taking up the narrative challenge, to say in words, to chronicle something meaningful in a meaningful way. Even a little blog can have a dream.