smitten kitchen

I don’t think it is a big deal if other people buy sandwich bread pre-sliced in a soft plastic bag from some factory bakery that specializes in long shelf lives. But I do think it’s a shame that someone like me who: a) enjoys, nay, loves baking bread, b) always remarks that if something has no flavor, it’s probably not worth the calories, c) works from home, meaning that the 15 minutes of labor and four hours of idle time that goes into making a delicious loaf of light whole wheat bread is more than doable, and d) owns two of the best bread-baking books out there still buys that pre-sliced stuff all of the time.

This week I decided “no more!” And I set out to find a whole wheat bread recipe would be soft but tough enough for sandwiches and have such an amazing flavor that I’d no longer find that tasteless bagged stuff worth buying. You know, just a few stipulations. Not surprisingly, I had look no further than Peter Reinhart, whose Bread Baker’s Apprentice has not one but two whole wheat sandwich breads. In the end, I rejected the 100 percent whole wheat version, though I might get to it down the road, as I have to admit that I don’t need my sandwich bread to be that earnest and it felt like more work than I wanted to put into a bread that I essential use as a peanut butter and jelly vehicle. While we’re being honest and stuff.

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It’s not even January 1st yet and I’m already feeling the tug of healthier eating… or perhaps, more likely, a rejection of the butter and braise bender I’ve been on since Thanksgiving. Wait long enough to step up to the healthier plate and I think your body will do it for you; in my days off, I have only craved three things: greens, carrots and oranges. Okay, four if you count French toast from LeGrainne Cafe. But in my defense, they serve it with toasted almonds and a slice of orange and that’s healthy right? Right? [A pin drops.]

Well then. I think of homemade pizza as one of those perfect bridge foods, not excruciatingly unhealthy and yet it can be downright earnest if you do it right. We made Alice Waters’s Pizza with Broccoli Raab, Roasted Onion and Olives for dinner on Friday and it was delightful — chock full of greens with just enough indulgence (half a cup of cheese and a thin pizza crust) to have me vowing I would make it again, like this week, before we’d even finished our first slice.

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Did you know that you can make crackers at home? Crackers that are completely natural, have no funky or suspicious ingredients and also don’t cost more than pennies? And addressing my pet peeve: crackers that are actually firm enough for you to spread cheese and other deliciousness over?

I bet you think I am talking crazy [I almost said "crackers" -- see how I restrained myself there?] but for once, I’m not. This astoundingly simple recipe for crackers accompanied an article in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine about spelt versus farro and how some people mix them up but they’re quite different… and so on. The story is cute, but for me, the real gem was this recipe.

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I only know one Yiddish phrase (well, two, if you can count farshikkert, which is a pretty awesome way to say someone is three sheets to the wind), but conveniently, it is my favorite. A shonda for the goyim means, roughly, that someone of the Jewish faith is not only doing something shameful (shonda), but doing it in front of non-Jews, which of course is an entirely worse offense. Like, it would be bad enough to, say, eat ham and cheese on matzo on Passover (or, I suspect, ever and boy, do I have a great story about that but first let me see if I can get my mother to pay me not to share it) but it would be doubly more awful to do it in front of a person outside your faith. You would, in fact, bring shame upon your entire people, mostly because when given the choice between the most or least dramatic interpretation of an event, I think can safely say that my people will generally opt for the former.

Anyway, I love the phrase so much, I use it all of the time, including times when it’s probably totally inappropriate. For example, the other day someone suggested that I might consider adding a Jewish Recipe index to smittenkitchen.com’s new Topic Indexes. I began to look for Jewish or holiday-themed recipes in my archives and came to a terrible realization: The offerings were quite paltry. Not only is there no brisket in there, where are the kreplach (dumplings), the kugels and my mother’s amazing apple cake? How can I not have a single recipe for challah?

A shonda, indeed.

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It has been way too long since I baked a loaf of bread. You see, I went on a bit of a bread-baking bender after taking a class a couple years ago. There was White Batter Bread and Chocolate Orange Bread, a Fougasse, a Pumpernickel (later updated to my now-favorite Russian Black Bread), darling Bretzel Rolls, ever-so-popular No-Knead Bread, homemade English Muffins, a Potato Rosemary Bread (nom), an Italian Bread that felt like it took 100 years to make, oh and then some miniature Soft Pretzels, and this doesn’t even include the insane homemade pizza bender that followed. Is it any surprise I took a little break from bread-making for a while shortly after I started by yeast by the jar?

Nevertheless, it took something new and different to lure me back, something it would be near-criminal not to share. I’m talking about bread that doesn’t require you to dote on it or force you to adhere to an unforgiving schedule. Like, whoa, right?

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