Feeding My Passion

Until about 4 or 5 years ago, I was intimidated by yeast breads. The yeast thing seemed so precise or arbitrary, or both, whatever. So I avoided them. Well Mark Lahey’s famous (and famously easy) no-knead bread recipe, faithfully published by Mark Bittman of the NY Times, completely changed that for me.

When I can time the loooooooong first rise correctly so I don’t have to handle it in the middle of the night or when I’m out, it always turns out stunningly well, except for that time I smoked up a house. But that’s another story. Here’s my latest loaf, and it tastes even better than it looks.

A high-school friend on Facebook posted a link to Lottie & Doof’s recipe for brown butter shortbread, and it sounded so good (and it’s shortbread, so it’s very, very easy) that I had to try it since I’ve been baking a lot while I’m not working. Read more »

While it may not seem like a coincidence after such a crazy-ass weekend at the front desk and then working 3 days in a row of the front desk and baking thing, which is exhausting, mostly because it completely screws up my sleep schedule and I start getting a wee bit cranky at the front desk (never a good thing), I gave my 2-week notice early Sunday morning before I went home after baking. Sorry, that was a long sentence, but I don’t think it was a run-on.

Anyway, I wrote 3 nice letters, Read more »