The Germ of an Idea
Flour, Water, Salt and a Blooming Good Time!
"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight," said M.F.K. Fisher. That smell is intoxicating. My children can attest to my near obsession with it. "It's that smell!" I once cried triumphantly to my young children, rushing them up the narrow, Provencal cobbled street towards a little boulangerie. The tantalizing, yeasty aroma of fresh bread infused the warm summer air, drifting in tantalizing currents, beckoning passers-by into the spotless bakery. 'Can you smell it?" I asked as we stepped up into the shop. I stood, eyes closed, inhaling deeply. The children thought I'd gone slightly mad. "Mum, mum, are you okay? asked my daughter. Given the quizzical look on the owner's face, I'm sure she was asking herself the same question.
'Madame?" she asked, pointing towards the baguette and pain au levain filled shelves. I had momentarily traveled back at warp speed (memories do that to you), back to one of my earliest childhood memories, to the smell of freshly baked bread. It is imprinted in my very being like an olfactory time stamp. I'm perhaps three or four; I'm holding someone's hand, my mother's or grandmother's, standing in a bakery; it's a definitive image, albeit one with the most tantalizing, seductive scent. I regained my composure and bought bread. 'You'll remember this moment,' I told my children as we walked away. They were skeptical, as only children can be.
So, what is it about bread that is just so seductive? Why do so many artisan breadmakers go into trance-like reveries as they wax poetical about all things bread? How is it that this simple grain can be so transformative? Bill Buford, the American writer and author of Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking, has the most apropos explanation in his video filming Yves Richard, a renowned artisan bread maker in Lyon, 'Is wheat the most poetic ingredient on earth?' he asks. 'Grind up any other grain, add water; you get porridge. Grind up wheat, add water; Metamorphosis!' he enthuses, then adds, 'It becomes stretchy, push it, pull it, it's sticky, glutens are forming. The Chinese call it the muscle of flour…' His fervor for bread matches the intensity with which Yves bakes. I'm mesmerized every time I watch the video. There's so much passion!
I have come to understand this passion. 15 or so years ago, I unexpectedly embarked on a sourdough adventure. I had baked bread before but never sourdough. I became slightly obsessed after an informative hands-on tutorial from my friend John, whose sourdough bread and pizzas are legendary. After we baked together, he gave me THE most precious gift—a jar with some of his decades-old starter. This was a gift of time, of history, and the transmission of know-how from the creative hands of one person, one family, to another. It is hard for me to describe how life-transforming this jar filled with two simple ingredients-flour and water-has been!
Chad Robertson, master baker and owner of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco spoke about the unique chemistry of those ingredients in a video about bread baking. 'Bread to me is a mixture of flour and water that is transformed into something through the course of fermentation that transcends the simplicity of those basic ingredients.'
Bakers I've spoken with talk about bread as an extension of themselves, the place they reside, and creating something that has soul. Part of the charm and seduction of bread making is that you start with a blank canvas each day, working with and adjusting to the elements around you, such as the ambient temperature and humidity that affect every loaf you make. For me, making bread is grounding, nurturing, calming and deeply, deeply satisfying. There is, for instance, a magical moment when you add the salt, which transforms the shaggy, sticky mixture into a smooth, elastic dough. This alchemy takes place in less than 30 seconds and this metamorphosis makes me smile every time.
Once I started baking, I couldn't stop myself. I baked dozens and dozens of loaves on a weekly basis, giving most of it to friends to get their feedback. Is the crumb airy enough? What is the flavor like? Is the crust crunchy? Too hard? Too soft? After months of experimentation, successes and failures, doughs that failed to rise, doughs that were over-proofed, and testing different flours and fillings, I felt I had finally nailed the technique and started teaching other people how to make sourdough. To this day, this is one of my favorite classes to teach. It is not just satisfying for me, but as I watch each participant ooh and ahh as the seductive aroma of baking bread fills the kitchen and their faces light up when the first loaves are pulled from the oven, I know that it is satisfying for them, too. Better yet, when students send me photos of the bread they have baked at home, I am chuffed to bits that their baking journey has bloomed.
Just as I had been given a starter when I first embarked on my sourdough journey, I give each participant a jar of my starter to take home at the end of every workshop. That starter contains traces of the past 15 years in my kitchen and that of the starter it was nurtured from. This lively, microbial, organic history has been passed on to everyone who has shared the bread and continued the bread-making tradition here in Santa Barbara and now in towns across the country, in 15 states by my last count, as its custodians have traveled home. I treasure the sense of continuity that blooms from each gram of the 'Mothership'. Yes, I named my starter. People do! There's even a Reddit discussion about starter names underscoring just how attached people are to theirs, from the comical Herculyeast to the musical Doughlene.
Barnaby Draper at Santa Barbara Hives named his 'Madre Mia.' 'Mother' in one form or another is prevalent among bakers, no doubt cultivated by the burgeoning nature of the product starters produce. Barnaby is one of the people who, after taking the bread workshop, was bitten by the sourdough bug to such an extent that he went on to launch his own sourdough menu, including an excellent charcoal sourdough bread and pizzas in his honey-filled shop in Carpinteria.
Jennifer Gonzales-Neely, co-owner and baker at Mother Dough Bagels, also started part of her sourdough journey in my kitchen. After months and months of perfecting her bagel recipe, she launched her business to wild acclaim, with people lining up for hours to sample her sourdough bagels. Her starter, by the way, is called Rocky. I was (and still am) tickled pink; all this from a jar of flour and water! As famed Parisian baker Lionel Poilane said, 'Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It's no coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.'
After numerous conversations with bread bakers worldwide, I concluded that just the aroma (let alone the taste) of freshly baked bread elicits an almost Pavlovian response, one that is almost universally linked to a cherished childhood memory. My daughter proved that point. Years after I had pulled her reluctantly into that little boulangerie, she came rushing into the kitchen one Sunday morning, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, shouting excitedly, 'Mum, it's THAT smell!' I laughed as we reminisced about our travels, the different breads we had tasted, and our favorite bakeries. The conversation made us hungry. What's for breakfast?' she asked. 'The bread has to cool, and then I'm making poached eggs for brunch,' I replied, eternally grateful for that transformative gift of flour and water long ago.
Poached Eggs on Fava Bean Toast with Asparagus and Smoked Salmon
A poached egg on toast is probably my favorite breakfast. My mum would make them for Sunday breakfasts before we headed out for long walks across Hampstead Heath in London. My brother and I have carried on the poached egg tradition, each with our own flair. He makes a fantastic eggs benedict, while I like to serve them with all sorts of herb and vegetable pestos. In this version, I’ve added al dente asparagus and some smoked salmon for a special breakfast or brunch-worthy treat.
Per person
2 tablespoons fava bean pâté (see below)
1 slice of toasted sourdough or bread of your choice
1 slice smoked salmon
1 teaspoon olive oil
6–8 asparagus spears — trimmed and cut into 3-inch-long pieces
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
1 or 2 eggs
1 teaspoon finely chopped chives
1 tablespoon microgreens
Fava Bean Pâté
2 cups peeled fava beans
1/3 cup finely chopped chives
¼ cup finely chopped green onions
Zest of 1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
10 grinds of black pepper
Purée the fava beans in a food processor fitted with a metal blade for 2 minutes to create a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides before adding the chives, green onions and lemon zest. Blitz for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides again. Then, with the motor running, pour in the olive oil and lemon juice and pulse until just combined. Season with the salt and pepper. Pack the pâté into mason jars. Keep refrigerated. It will last for 7–10 days.
Wild Mushroom Crostini Salad
My long-time friends Frederic and Fatos owned one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. The setting was hip and romantic, a mix of jazz bands played on a weekly basis, serenading guests to Django Reinhardt riffs and bluesy vibes. It was the place where you’d pop in for a savory nibble at the bar, or lounge over a long Mediterranean-styled meal on the terrace. It was my bistro du coin. One of my favorite items on the appetizer menu was a deceptively named dish, a single Mushroom Toast. The toast in question was piled high with a giant mound of shaved mushrooms that had been mixed with truffles and some grated cheese. It was so succulently decadent. This salad is a little tribute to that dish, and the lovely times spent with everyone at The Little Door.
Serves 8 people
For the salad:
7 oz mixed salad greens
For the vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or Champagne vinegar
Pinch of coarse sea salt
8–10 grinds of black pepper
For the crostini:
2 oz butter
Olive oil
2 lbs wild mushrooms — cleaned and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
3 tablespoons crème fraiche
3 oz grated Manchego or Gruyere cheese
16 thin slices baguette — toasted
Bagels with Tomatoes and Herbs
Bagels are a lovely addition to any brunch menu. I like to serve mine with savory and sweet toppings to go along with whipped cream cheese. Classic toppings such as smoked salmon are delicious, but I also love a mix of cherry tomatoes and freshly chopped herbs which pair beautifully with the richness of the cream cheese. In the summer I’ll use slices of juicy heirloom tomatoes and figs too.
Serves 4 people
4 Toasted Bagels of your choice
Whipped cream cheese with tobiko roe (optional)
For the tomato topping:
16 oz cherry tomatoes — halved
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped basil leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
Pinch of coarse sea salt
5-6 grinds of black pepper
Combine all the topping ingredients in a small bowl. Spoon on top of a cream cheese covered bagel.
For the sweet topping
4 Toasted Bagels of your choice
Whipped cream cheese
Stone fruit preserve or jam
Spread the toasted bagel with cream cheese and top with large spoonfuls of your favorite jam or preserve.
