All About Bread

Something you might not remember about Roger and me is that we are bread-aholics. We love love love bread, especially toast. We are absolutely the connoisseurs of toast. I've been baking some part of our daily bread intake for several years. I started using the Tassajara Breadbook recipe by Edward Espe Brown in the early 70s. It makes beautiful sandwich loaves, tall and thick. Roger and I have joked that a prison sentence of bread and water would almost be okay for us. But only if the bread were homemade and the water had a teaball of English Breakfast steeping in it. But still… bread and water works for us!

My twin brother, older brother, and sister in 2008

I grew up in a bread-lovers family. We all still remember with salivating fondness the delicious rye bread that my parents would bring home from Silvers Bakery in Newark, New Jersey. Some of you long-time readers here might remember that I tried baking rye breads when Roger and I were still up in Port Townsend, WA. They were okay, but nothing to really rave about.

Then, a wonderful thing happened, a fellow blogger and Facebook friend posted something about a bread recipe, and his accompanying picture made me want that recipe. I wrote Mark, and he sent me the Sullivan Bakery recipe that the New York Times posted in 2007. So, I gave it a try with a little tweaking (of course!). I swapped out a 1/4 c of the white flour and put in 2 tbls wheat flour and 2 tbls rye. The top photo is my first loaf. Delicious.

I googled around a bit to find more information about this recipe and found this incredibly delightful video. I thought it really helped to have a visual sense of what to expect.



We totally loved this bread, and the ease of the process. I knew I had to send this recipe all of the bread lovers we know.

Marc's farm in Virginia

My older brother Marc who lives in Virginia is a foodie-- he grows a lot of his own food; he raises his own beef; but he's not a baker. I knew if he tried this recipe that he would love it. He did, and he does. Now we write and call each other all the time with updates on our newest tweaks. The latest is closely flavored to our old family favorite: rye bread. This loaf has 2 c of white, 3/4 c of pastry wheat, a 1/4 cup of rye; 1 tbls of caraway seeds. Everything else stayed the same (1/4 tsp yeast; 1 1/4 tsp salt; 1 1/2 c water). The toast is divine.

The joy of bread cannot be overestimated ever!