oraklet

yippeee! i'm off to buy them!

just found this: http://www.cunillexport.com/produit.asp?nu...m=6504.30&gam=1 i think it looks like a good buy. do you?

i'll try refreshing it. thanx!

while i'm writing this, i'm having lunch: my sourdough bread. it's got lots and lots of taste/aroma, which is great, and is quite sour, which is not so great. will it "stabilize" with time?

i just came across a nice, cheap, medium sized heavy enameled casserole. does it have a place in a well-equipped kitchen?

actually i don't like refrigerators at all for any purposes, as the normal temperature of 5?C is a compromise, and is too cold for some stuff (like doughs, white wine, butter) and too warm for other (meat, fish, milk). perhaps with winter approaching, or at least fall, i could keep my starter on the countertop in the already noticeable colder kitchen.

jackal, last night i made a dough with my new starter. the left over starter is in a jar in the fridge like i believe you suggested: "Use an old fashioned canning jar with a rubber gasket (like these). What you can do is remove the rubber gasket and the metal stuff so all you have is the jar with the glass top resting on it. This keeps things from getting into your starter and also allows the gasses created by fermentation to escape." i think the starter smelled a bit of alcohol, but sure also of vinegar and yeast, and the dough seems to be doing fine. this is exciting! should a new starter be fed more often than an old, well-stabilized one?

No no no. The blessings are never to be found in recipes. St. Jacques' or anyone else's. These are the merely the deluded ramblings of the measurer and the mad mutterings of the accountant. Recipes are the Devil's "Little Black Book" of souls that have been lost. The techniques. It's the techniques. Et la methode, n'est pas? i think nigel slater's got it right. he gives you a recipe, and then tells you what is essential to a good result and what is not. and why. makes the reader think.

what made you do it? how did you find it?

maybe it's because my english is poor, but i find the instructions in the link very hard to decipher. also, a bit different from jackal's. so, i've started out 3 days ago with 1 c. flour and 1 c. water. by yesterday it started smelling sour, and i added the same amounts again. today it smells sour in a nicer way. was this wrong? i definitely don't want to produce sour bread. and jackal mentions that the ready starter will be equal weight amounts of water and flour. at what time do you switch from weight to volume? please forgive me all those questions.

65% is pretty low compared to what i mostly use (c. 75%). has this to do with it being sourdough instead of biga? or is it just a matter of using softer flour (i tend to use quite hard flour)?

if i remember rightly, the handles on furi knives are welded onto the blade, global style, but without the groves - so they might be even more slippery. perhaps rgruby was thinking of using the spine for "smashing" the bones?

that's nice of you, but as i live in denmark...anyway, i should be able to find one near by. i'll try bathing the handles in oil, frequently.

You can ge them at IKEA for less than 20 bucks... real end grain. yes - and though they're not absolutely even, they're much better than most edge-grain. chad, as for dried handles: i've got this huge old sabatier, and the handles have shrunk a bit - du you really think they could be made to "fill out" again? and could a handle with a crack, too?

macrosan, a beautiful post. i hope it will open some eyes. in particular, i find this thought-provoking:

and equal quantities is still by volume? would it be too warm in an oven with just the light on? could it catch some wrong culture there (heh, it would be a rather sterile environment, i guess)?

last night when making a biga, i thought i'd have a go at sourdough. my memory is not the best, so i just mixed, by volume, 1 cup of graham's flour with one cup of lukewarm water. should i have any hope of success?

Use an old fashioned canning jar with a rubber gasket (like these). What you can do is remove the rubber gasket and the metal stuff so all you have is the jar with the glass top resting on it. This keeps things from getting into your starter and also allows the gasses created by fermentation to escape. i like that idea (i used to think that it should be more exposed to the air...)

one should be able to find a decent cote de ventoux at that price.

nice loaf, jackal! i'd like to know how to keep the stinking flies away from a starter-in-progress.

Thanks! I really appreciate it. After your knife skills class, I felt I had to keep up my end of the tag-team . I'm glad the steeling method worked for you. It takes a little getting used to. It took me forever to force myself to slow down and pay attention to my angles. But it's a lot more effective (in my opinion) than the usually-taught method. Chad i actually saw that way of honing first time on some knife site, but always felt uncomfortable with it. then i found out that it worked much better for me if i had the steel at an angle of, say 20 degrees. made it a lot easier to keep the knife at a steady angle. only trouble is that one will have to be pretty sure one holds the steel still. the reason that i found it easier is that the angle is of course much more obvious on the steel than on the knife. you can even do your sharpening in front of a mirror to check if you've got the angle right.

oh, and never allow anything like a plastic bag or a towel to be accidentally left on top of a sharp knife. aïe!

for relatively cheap knives, they're good. the handles are a bit deep, so that your knuckles will hit the cutting board, but you can buy those with a wooden handle, and file it to the desired shape. they sharpen well. they actually make fully forged knives, too, that look good. i think you may find them on the victorinox home page. edit: http://www.victorinox.com/newsite/en/produ...dukte/index.htm /professional knives/chef's cases/page 6, scroll down

ah, yes. though i think there was another that showed how to sharpen along the stone?

on another knife thread there was a link to a very good video clip from a high end japanese knife store. wish i could find it... and thanks for good answers.