smitten kitchen

While I know I’m not the first food blogger to post about the magical, no-knead bread of Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery fame in the five whole days since The New York Times published the recipe, since I am the only one to do it one-handed, I believe I should win. (Also, please tell me you know I am joking.) But really, we all win because … Look, just make this bread, okay? It’s dense and chewy, but unbelievably moist. The crust is crisp but not leathery, you don’t need to gnash your teeth and injure your gums to get through it. The loaf rivals even the most exciting results of my fifteen hours of bread-baking classes, and aside from the part where Alex will be furious because I didn’t wait for him to get home and endangered myself lifting a 19-lb 450 degree pot out of the oven, it can totally be done one-handed.

This is why the bread is so vastly superior to other loaves: one, it has a very wet, sticky dough. Yeast loves this; it’s the ideal environment for it to invade and multiply. But, breads this wet are nearly impossible to knead - it’s more like smearing dough across the counter, doable, but not very pleasant. Two, it uses very little yeast and less is always more in bread-making. Sure, a bread that requires nearly a tablespoon of yeast is super-speedy to make, but it doesn’t have as much time to develop all of the rich flavor and texture in a long-tenured rise. Finally, as Bittman notes in the article, the bread is a dream-come-true because that crazy step at the end - baking it in a covered Dutch oven, or a casserole dish if you don’t have one - creates a misty, humid environment like the one introduced in the early stages in a professional bread oven. This moisture keeps the bread chewy and delightful, and allows for a dreamy crust to form.

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Oh, my lovely bretzels! What happened to you? When we went to bed last night, you were the absolute height of bretzel perfection: round, dark, shiny, speckled with tiny cubes of sea salt and popping out from your plus signs, as if your goodness inside was just too much for you, also, to bear. This morning, you are damp, your exterior has shrunk a little and your salt particles wish to slide off your crust. I know it rained cats, dogs and elephants last night but not in here, not in your zip-lock bag!

I’m not kidding about that storm, though; I could argue with some confidence that the world did actually tip upside down last night. Specks from the bathroom ceiling are on the floor, water dripped through the kitchen skylight as well, and the top of it, as if it were the most normal thing on earth, is crowded with leaves. This is Manhattan, people, there are no trees anywhere near this window.

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At Sunday’s final bread class, I was a little slow-moving after Saturday night’s festivities and the cause of last week’s cupcake extravaganza. We focused on whole-grain breads: semolina, Swiss rye, seeded rye and pumpernickel, and though I was a little, um, dehydrated, I think I did all right, surprising myself by getting all four doughs together before noon. It was at this point that I realized I might just have achieved my goal in this class — which was not, by the way, to effectively knead bread with a margarita headache — but to get comfortable enough with the process that I could dive into recipes confidently and know instinctively what to do if things get off-course (or underslept). I’m almost there, and not a moment too soon, because the instructor dug up a recipe for Russian Black Bread for me with about 20 ingredients and it’s calling to me. No rest for the weary, or at least certifiably insane, I suppose.

As there are few things better on earth than a grilled cheese sandwich on seedless rye with a slice of tomato and arugula, I was pretty excited for my take-home bounty and while it did not disappoint, I have to confess that the next day, just the appearance of all those loaves of bread making it impossible to tightly shut our freezer made me feel a bloated, too. Is it possible to have a bread hangover? Fifteen hours of bread baking over three weeks is quite a bit, and while I wouldn’t trade the class or what I’ve learned for anything, those leafy greens and roasted squash are looking mightily more appealing these days. When this phase passes, as I am certain it will, I’m certain we have enough stashed away to get us through the long winter and then some.

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Monday night, Alex and I attended a bris. (It’s okay, I’m giving you time to Google it.) The mohel (go, I’ll wait right here) had a bit of a stand-up comedy act going on — “It’s okay, folks, there’s still five minutes to tip-off!” — as did the caterers — “Pigs in blankets? Is this really necessary?” “I can’t believe you’re eating a pickle, Debbie!” — all which did nothing to alleviate the excruciatingly uncomfortable excuse to see, well, just the tiniest, cutest little man on earth who has quickly shed that, well you know, kind of underbaked looked infants have when they’ve just come out.

For a guy pretty much having the worst day in his life so far, he was a champ. Twenty minutes later, wrapped snugly in a soft blanket - this impossibly tiny burrito - his mother tickled the underside of his chin while he slept in her lap. Later, we went with a few others to the tasty Sofrito with two couples that seem to want a baby very soon and another that already has two (enthralling Alex with stories of their three-year-old who implores visitors to “eat his butt”).

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Sometime over the last couple years — arguably, just as this carbohydrate castoff moment has crossed the American table, or more likely in subversive rebellion of it — I’ve become obsessed with baking bread. There’s something so elemental, primitive about setting fungi loose in milled grains to feast! ferment! to their unicellular heart’s content, guiding it along with humidity and simple sugars and just when things can’t get any better for the little guys — Wohoo! It’s warm in here! — well, we off them so they’ll taste better for us. Hey, I said primitive, right?

So, it is with unbridled excitement that I began at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning the first of three five-hour bread baking classes at the ICE, the perfect 30th birthday present from Alex after months of shameless hints from me. Exactly as I had hoped, I learned a whole lot of new things, some of which I will happily sum up for you in a hopefully less-than-five-hour format.

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