Peter Reinhart's Weblog

Update, January 22, 2006

Hi Everyone,

     I am thrilled with the enthusiastic response from over 250 testers! I have to close the list now as it's time to move on to actually getting the recipes onto the page, develop the questionnaire, and get them out to you. Tomorrow I am heading to Asheville, NC to visit with Jennifer Lapidus, the owner of Natural Bridge Bakery. She specializes in wood-fired desum bread, the best desum I've ever tasted. I've asked her to contribute a short essay to the book on how she figured out her method, and I want to compare the amzing flavor she gets with the primary master recipe that I'm still tweaking. She's a passionate baker--cuts her own firewood, tends the oven, mills her own flour, and treats each loaf as if it were her child. No wonder people love her bread. There are many such bread heroes out there and I hope to feature a few of them in the book.

    By the way, if you can make it, Asheville will celebrate its Second Annual Asheville Bread Festival on April 1st, where you can taste not only Jennifer's breads but also some other amazing breads and local cheeses. Asheville and its surrounding area, with a very small population,  supports more artisan bakeries than most states. The bakeries are all small but truly artisan in the purest sense of the word. I'll post more details on the festival, such as location and time, as we get closer to the event (many of the details are still in discussion).

    One final note: I love the enthusiasm of  those of you testers who want to form discussion e- groups to brain storm the recipes. However, I need to ask you to hold off for now and focus on individually testing and seeing what questions arise in your specific test, and then communicate only with me on it. Group problem solving at this stage works against the test. Later, I'm sure we'll be able to open it up for group talk, but for now we need to keep it as confidential as possible and try not to share the results of your tests even with the other folks who you know are also testing--at least for now. That way I can look for trends and fix problems as they are reported. Thanks! More soon. Till then...

    May your bread always rise!

    Peter

January 19, 2006, Update

Hi Again,

        The response to the call for recipe testers has been overwhelming--thank you. Already, 250 people have volunteered. I will leave the call open for a few more days, but after Saturday, January 21 I'll need to close it, as I can't keep up. What a great problem to have! If you happen upon this after the 21st and feel that you absolutely must be a tester, I will consider each situation on a case by case basis, but no promises. After all, I have to get back to writing and developing the recipes for you to test.

        The good news is that I'm getting closer to finalizing the foundational Master Formula so I should have something to send out sometime in February. Ten Speed Press has been kind enough to extend my deadline so we can do this right. I am asking all testers to check this blog regularly; I plan to add updates at least every two weeks. Trying to communicate with 250 people by e-mail, even with all the e-bells and whistles, takes time.  The blog will be faster.

      For those not testing but still reading, thanks for logging on. Because I'm working on the book, I have curtailed all travel teaching except for A Southern Season in Chapel Hill (because I can drive there), at least until the book gets done. Haven't decided yet on when I can get back to King Arthur but I love teaching there and visiting Vermont (really a country unto itself, don't you think?) so, as soon as I work out a date to return I'll post it .

      On another front, I just completed my first residency (five altogether) towards an MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University. It was an amazing week, surrounded by talented writers, all younger than me (dangnabit!), and a very compassionate, superb faculty from all over the country. We meet twice a year at the Queens campus here in Charlotte, but 80% of the students are not from Charlotte. It's like Camp Bread, but for writers. I'm the only bread writer there, of course, though one of my fellow students wrote a wonderful piece on pawpaws, an unusual native American fruit that very few Americans have tasted. Bread, pawpaws, or just working out how we got screwed up during our youth--it's all grist for the meal when you get poets, novelists, playwrites, and non-fiction writers together. I learned a great deal about how hard my editors have worked in the past to make my writing look good.  I hope what I learn from this course will make their job easier in the future. The saying goes: "Hard writing makes for easy reading; easy writing makes for hard reading." What I learned is that good writing is every bit as hard to do as making whole grain breads that taste good. It looks easy by the time you taste it, but only the baker knows the real cost.

       May your bread always rise!

       Peter

    

Recipe Testers Wanted

Jan 2. 2006

      It's been awhile since my last posting and so much has transpired. The most important thing, though is that I attended Camp Bread in San Francisco back in September and learned so much from the amazing teachers and attendees (the "bread-heads" as I call them, over 200 attended) that I've had to completely revise the direction of the new book. This has set me back a little as I had to rethink the techniques and underlying theories and methodology, and dive into a deeper study of enzymes. So I'm still testing and tweaking the master formulas that will be the foundation of this new whole grains bread book. Baking with 100% whole grain is very different than using white flour, but I'm beginning to zero in on some methods that are real breakthroughs and will, I hope, create a new standard for these kind of breads and especially for baking them at home.

      I will soon be sending out a call for recipe testers through the King Arthur Baking Circle (go to www.kingarthurflour.com and then navigate to The Baking Circle) and also The Bread Bakers List e-group (go to www.bread-bakers.com to get on that list). Being a tester involves, well yes, testing selected recipes but also filling out a response questionaire. Unfoortunately, I cannot compensate anyone for participating, nor even send you a free book, much as I'd like to, as there will be over a hundred testers. But I will list everyone in the acknowledgements and your feedback will be critical to the final formulas and instructions, and you will have my undying thanks. Plus, you'll get an early look at some of the formulas and text.

    If you are interested, all communications of recipes and questionaires will be conducted at the following e-address: <Note: at the suggestion of one of our testers, I am now removing the address to protect against spammers, Jan. 22, 2006>  This address will be exclusively for testers. If you are reading this prior to my listing it at King Arthur and The Bread Bakers List you don't have to wait to respond. You can write to me there anytime and I will add you to the address book and send you the material when it's ready (along with updates). It may still be awhile before I send out the recipes, though, as I'm working on the final tweaks, and the final ones are the hardest. I can say this, though: I'm very excited about the flavor of these breads and about these new methods. The goal is to make them as simple and user friendly as possible, so that any home baker can make them, but more importantly, that they taste so good that those who try them will prefer them over white flour breads. Much as I love those ciabattas and hearth breads, I'm making the switch because, frankly, it's a better way to eat. But remember the flavor rule: flavor rules!  So if we are going to make a long term, sustainable switch it will be because the flavor is great, not because it's better for us. Better for us is good, for sure, but most people give up on that motivation if the food doesn't taste as good as what it's replacing--this is the real challenge, making it taste so good that we actually prefer it. So what I'm hoping for from our testers is honest feedback regarding both the accuracy and ease of the recipes but also the flavor. I need to know that these recipes work on both levels. Flavor rules!

    Looking forward to hearing from you and getting this testing off the ground. When you write, please spell out your e-address in full, as well as your name, so I can put you in the address book and properly credit you in the book. Thanks!

     Till the next post, may your bread always rise!

      Peter