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It's a Cajun country staple as well and made simply: -fried egg over hard (never, ever runny), fried in old oil (from leftover roux-making) or bacon fat (solidified in a jar near the stove) or butter -salt -tons of black pepper (20! turns with the pepper mill) -couple dashes of Tabasco or Louisiana hot sauce (yeah, there are many, not just Tabasco) -never lettuce, cheese, or meat -always served on untoasted white bread (the Wonderbread kind) -sometimes mayo, but only if eaten immediately (else, would sour from the heat of the egg) -wrapped in aluminum foil and taken to work or on the school bus We made them with duck or guinea hen eggs (also known as conehead eggs because they're pointy at one end) and sometimes goose eggs (which are large eggs and would make two sandwiches or a triple-decker (bread slice, 1/2 goose egg, bread slice, other half, bread slice), my favorite!) I can't tell you how much Grand Dame, one of our geese, hated me. I was always stealing her eggs for egg sandwiches!

Someone will pirate it (as a scanned Adobe PDF document) and post it on the interwebs. I can't say "Someone will hopefully..." can I?

Restaurants in the US are now commonly serving bread with olive oil (as a dipping sauce) on the side. I've seen olive oil alone, olive oil with drops of balsamic vinegar, but not much else. The dipping sauce dishes I have allow 3 sauces, so I'm thinking of just using three different olive oils with distinct colors and flavours. I don't particularly like the acidity of balsamic vinegar with bread. What interesting offerings have you seen served with bread?

That explains it. Thanks! For me, a nightmare is one of those soft, Costco "all butter" croissants.

You're going to smite me for this, but I'm guessing the heat was off or somehow maxed out. If there's heat, it will go all the way to carbon before stopping. Me thinks you have discovered some new type of chemical. Even rubber was an accidental discovery.

True that. I lived in Acadiana for 17 years and it's a staple. It's seldom hiding in the back of the pantry, but sitting happily near the stove, like a self-confident garden gnome beckoning you to make chicken fricassé. I make my own now with half butter, half olive oil and don't make it as dark as it comes in the jars, but I can't say it's any better than the jar roux. I still remember Mr. Frank and watching him make "chocolate" on the stove when I was un petit garcon. He asked me if I wanted to taste. You bet I did! The result: a mouthful of roux!

Ooooh, don't get me started on @#$% Kitchenaid. I'll likely pop a gasket.

I just bought the OXO from BigTray for cheap ($26). It's rather spiffy. I don't know how I've gone so long without one. And for that price, who cares if it breaks after a few months. I'll more than make up the cost by spinning my own salads, avoiding the perchlorate-rinsed grocery store, plastic bag salad. The button brake is neat, but it's more gimmick than anything; it's not like a salad spinner is going to take a finger off or anything.

I'm not, as the purchase is reaction to my PTSD after breaking several mixers. I guess I don't want someone else's problem. If I was making cake batter, I would; but, this is for bread, so I want something new. Someone tipped me off to a Canadian brand called BakeMax, saying they're basically Hobart without the service organization, a Canadian Hobart. When I saw the price of their 20qt with near identical specs to the Hobart 20qt, at 1/3 the price, I jumped for it. I hope not in error, but we'll see.

I'm seldom one for frozen over fresh, if ever, but... I find reheated, frozen croissant (which were frozen immediately after being baked and cooled) to be superior to the fresh product. The croissant are (seem to be) more crisp, more buttery, just better all around. Is it psychological? Maybe my over exposure to butter when making the pastry and smelling the butter as it bakes lessens their deliciousness when eaten fresh? These are all-butter, hand-made croissant, French size, not American giant croissant, reheated for 15 minutes in a preheated 350 F oven. Can you think of other items previously frozen that are similarly resilient?

Yes, it's like people who buy commercial sourdough starters from San Francisco and are convinced that their starter is creating true San Francisco sourdough bread. I forget where I read the article, but the gist was that a starter created from a San Franscisco seeder culture, but maintained in New York, was about as San Fransiscan as Yankees, or not San Franciscan at all. The author said local yeast would quickly overtake whatever yeast were in the original seeder culture. He actually slammed San Francisco sourdough as being an bad example of artisan bread: the acidity conflicts with just about any meal its served with, the method used to maintain the acidity as perfect example of a unbalanced starter, etc.

I can see that. In fact, more: That it takes so long to build the starter as instructed is probably the main reason I'm afraid to whittle the volume down as much as you all suggest.

She says the starter can take advantage of them. Where does she say they're essential? Where does she imply that this is necessary, fundamental, basic to the equation? I don't see it, either expressed or implied. Correction: OK, I guess I do see how it's implied...

It does sound like quite a few herein maintain minimal amounts of starter and build large amounts with small inoculations. I'll try it; if it works, that's ultimate solution to my starter maintenance problems. I'll have to adjust all of my schedules, etc., but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. I'll keep a close eye on (perceived) leavening strength, as the starters I currently use could leaven concrete (j/k). As for these untruths, I'd be interested in knowing if they were known untruths at the time of publication. If so, then maybe there's reason to be harsh. I, for one, will always respect her contributions. This is what she says re:grapes "Ideally, you will use unsprayed, organically grown grapes; if you leave the grapes unwashed, the culture can take advantage of beneficial wild yeasts that cling to the grape skin's waxy coating. If you can't find organically grown grapes, wash the grapes you buy." (p. 32, ISBN 679-40907-6). I'd wager she's right. There are yeasts all around us by the quadrillions, so why wouldn't the waxy coating contain them? She doesn't say they're of any essential variety or even that they're essential to the starter, even if the procedure so implies by their use. I couldn't even find organic grapes last time I built from scratch, so I used organic raisins instead. That starter took off like rocket fuel, but I didn't take a census and don't know who was doing what to whom.

I think I'm still missing this: what are the untruths? I see differences of opinion, but untruths? Mythology? I defend against this because I have 5 years and 1000 loaves launched by these mythological untruths. I think this an opinion, and opinions are fine, but they're not fact. As for burden to home baker, I don't agree. It's a burden to me because I'm juggling 3 starters in volume. I make volumes of bread and need volumes. Once Nancy's starters are active, they can be perpetuated as you've said above. I'm trying your 1:5 now and it's coming along nicely. Is it better? I don't know. I appreciate the other comments. Do you have a source link to the study or studies that from which you quote? To me, yesterday's science is as valuable as mythology. Who knows when, where, how this study was conducted? Who's to say that a strain of yeast from San Francisco has anything to say about yeasts in Denver, for example? You're right about not locking yourself in with this or that process. I've found that once you have a strong starter, you can almost use them interchangeably if you're careful about ratios, math, etc. You can even use it slapdash and, if in enough quantity, successful bread will result, albeit not to the precision intended by the formula writer. And I dare say that, if my grandmother were alive to read this, she's laugh at our ridiculousness. Her starter lived outside on the porch through every season. It's probably still alive somewhere! I love Nancy's hybrid doughs, but guess what? I never use the commercial yeast, especially the fresh cake yeast, which is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Do I have to wait longer? Yes, but bread for me is patience, and the results are worth the wait. I have two loaves of her hybrid "Red Pepper Scallion" baking in the oven right now. The smell is intoxicating, the color beautiful, the crumb gorgeous!

Ha ha. Thanks! For steam, I've used Peter Reinhart's setup from his book, Crust and Crumb, ever since I started baking 8 years ago. Just scroll to page 25 and read through page 27, starting at subsection "Oven Techniques" on page 25 here. He uses a bottle sprayer, but I go a bit further and use a pressurized garden sprayer, like so:

Thank you all very much for these. And now I'm off to Amazon.com to make myself poorer in money, but richer in life...

Sure, thanks for asking. These are from my Flickr photostream. All except the torpedoes are from Nancy Silverton formulas. Sunflower Bread (Olive Bread derivative) Fig Anise Bread Torpedo Loaves with Biga Naturelle (my recipe, not Nancy's) Sunflower Bread (Olive Bread derivative) Sunflower Bread (Olive Bread derivative) Sunflower Bread (Olive Bread derivative) Sunflower Bread (Olive Bread derivative) Walnut Bread Walnut Bread Collection of "Mission Fig, Almond, Anise" and "Medjool Date, Cashew, Molasses" Breads Making the "Mission Fig, Almond, Anise" and "Medjool Date, Cashew, Molasses" Breads by Hand Fig Anise Bread Walnut Breads

I just bought an industrial mixer. It's just too much effort to do it by hand. When I make just a couple of trial loaves, I always do it by hand (did so last night with the Red Pepper Scallion recipe). There's no match for learning a new dough than the tactile. Silverton's recipes are spectacular. I never understand why people give her such grief over her techniques when the results are just so astounding. Her Olive Bread is good enough to make a person cry! Her Walnut Bread is so extraordinary that I can sell them for $15 a loaf and people come back for more.

On a microbiological basis, we know that your feeding process (1:1 refreshment) is very bad for the health and vitality of the culture, and likely to result in the culture coming to be taken over by less desirable microorganisms. I should hasten to point out that this is not opinion or speculation -- this has been determined by scientific research. For example, in a German study no Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis[i/] was found in cultures refreshed at 50%. Much better for the health and vitality of a culture for the kind of sourdough bread we would like to make is something like 1:5 refreshment. Plenty of people (myself included) simply leave whatever starter remains clinging to the inside of the jar when all the starter is taken out, and fill the rest with new flour and water. This is great for the health, vitality and propagation of the culture. ← Thank you for this. Would you have more information on this study? I have to say I've been surprised by just how little starter is needed to regenerate volumes. If a ratio is healthier, that's even more interesting. If it produces a starter that leavens a loaf in 7-8 hours instead of 3-4, then that will be a problem. I mean, healthier is great, but how does health of the starter contribute to leavening strength, flavour. The refreshment I use, again, is Silverton's and it just makes some of the best bread I can turn out.

I understand. It sounds like I'm feeding my starters far too much "food". Intuitively, I think that if I start with a small ratio of starter:flour, then it'll take that much longer to come to strength. It's sounds like a few people here are saying that's not the case. Interesting!

Let's take the recipe for Olive Bread, which requires 6.25 oz of white starter per (1lb 14 oz) loaf. To make 10 loaves, I use 62.5 oz of white starter, or ~2 quarts. I'm not maintaining that much all the time, but I'm maintaining enough of each such that I grow tired of feeding them all the time. If I was wasting a lot of it, I would change my method, but I'm not, so I just maintain it as I do.

Agreed. It basically looked like a milkshake. When I fed her, she didn't even eat (or at least that's my perception). Usually she starts bubbling away and, in a few hours, is so happy she's making herself drunk with alcohol production. I poured her all out minus 1 cup and rebuilt yesterday and she's back to her happy self. I don't know what the immersion blender did exactly (a friend said I incorporated too much oxygen and that's bad?), but I didn't like it and won't do it again. FWIW, the immersion blender did NOT speed up the process. It took longer, both the mixing and the cleaning. And I'm an artisan baker, right? What was I thinking re: using a machine. Blasphemy!

Recover yes, but that's thing: the immersion blender damaged it badly. I didn't want to recover it. It was happy snappy when I was using a fork. The answer to my original question is: An immersion blender will damage your starter.

It's reasonable for me, as I make 10 to 20 loaves some weekends. You should see it and you'd rethink that. She was "very" not happy this morning. I reduced her to about 1 cup and am rebuilding. I will never use an immersion blender again. If I didn't need to volume of starter I do, that would be practical. I need volumes and so I make it as such. The 10s:50f:50w method is interesting. Mine is more 50s:25f:25w. I'll create one as such and see how it comes out. I've exhausted what energy I have defending Nancy Silverton on this topic, so I'll be brief: Her feeding method is for initial starter creation. The only mistake she made in her text is in failing to say, "Now that your starter is active and strong, this is what you have to do to perpetuate it." Hordes of people, who can't/couldn't read between the lines, make/made what I think is an asinine assumption that one must feed the starter in volume in perpetuity, which is just ridiculous. Yes, she made that error in her text, but that's no reason to extend it to "perpetuating a lot of misinformation about sourdough microbiology".