SethG

Two more for me: Carol Field, The Italian Baker. Rose Levy Beranbaum, The Pie & Pastry Bible. Both bought at a used bookstore, cheap.

mdt: your walnut loaf puts mine to shame! I almost bought a banneton the other day, then I rejected it as too expensive. But I think your bread is making me reconsider. Thus far I've taken pride in doing things without the "right" equipment-- I have no peel, no banneton, and I use unglazed ceramic tiles (33 cents each at Home Depot!) instead of a baking stone. Was your crumb darker than mine and Rhea's? I really wonder how the loaves pictured in the book got so dark. Maybe they just chopped their walnuts finer than we did. The galettes look great. I'll be making mine today or tomorrow. I like the idea of combining berries and pears. As for the book question, it looks like we'll be sticking with BWJ for a while yet. We've done a bunch (but by no means all) of the bread, and we've done only a few pastries. We've kind of neglected the cakes. I think we'd all be interested in anyone's ideas for the next book, though. Personally, I've been thrilled by people's participation in this thread. I proposed it thinking I'd be lucky to find anyone interested, and it's been such a joy to find several folks, of varying levels of experience, interested in baking so often. And it seems like everybody's agreeable about everything, which is so refreshing. On that note, what are we doing next? Babas?

Edit: I'm changing this post completely. Here's my walnut bread: The walnuts, and the huge boule shape, change the mixed starter dough into a different bread entirely. This bread is incredible. The walnuts are put in raw, but by the time the bread is done the whole loaf is redolent of roasted walnuts. The nuts also give the crumb these beautiful purplish streaks. The loaf from the recipe looks nothing like the ones pictured on page 66. Those loaves aren't slashed with a sunburst shape, and they're clearly colored with something (cocoa powder, coffee grounds?). The crust on this bread is among the best I've ever tasted. And today (the second day) I think the bread might be better than it was yesterday. I just had (who'd a thunk it?) a totally kick-ass turkey and cheese sandwich on this bread! I really want to try the walnuts in a sourdough. And I want to try putting in some cheese, too.

devlin, welcome to eGullet and I wish you the greatest success in your business. It is always inspiring to see a person try to make her dreams a reality. I hope you'll stick around eGullet and give us all some insight on bread, your business, and whatever else you know about!

Well, I had suggested croissants or matzoh, and matzoh seemed to spark a little interest, but only a little. I'm going to try matzoh anyway, but I have no problem with us doing something else if there's not a lot of interest. I don't blame anyone for wanting to avoid matzoh. I do the same thing 51 weeks a year! My own preference among the enticing choices you've selected, Dahome, would be the Baba. I have a third of my brioche dough from a few weeks ago in the freezer, so it wouldn't be hard for me to do those savory pockets either, and they sure look good. I'm not sure I'm ready for another cheesecake yet. What do others think? Any interest in croissants? It's a big undertaking, I know. Baba? Whichever we choose, I'll probably make it in advance of the weekend, since Passover looms on April 5.

So.... galettes this weekend? Doesn't seem like there's any real consensus for next weekend.

All I can say is that I'm intensely jealous. That looks very tasty.

Thanks for the compliments! I owe it to arbuclo. That King Arthur tutorial made it very easy. I wouldn't have even tried if I hadn't seen arbuclo's post. Now that I've made a lot of the bread in Baking With Julia and done some other loaves from some other books, I think the BWJ directions on forming loaves can be a little cryptic sometimes. Of course, if you saw the television segments you'd have a much better guide. Must have been a challenge for Dorie to describe so many different bakers' methods-- there's no universal method used by all of the bakers to form a batard, or whatever. It helps to have another resource to look at for guidance when you occasionally get stuck. I'm not dissing the book. It's been very good to us! Just an observation of one of its relative weaknesses. I loved this mixed starter bread, by the way. It tasted like regular French bread, but it had great depth to it. Great crust, too. I saved a nugget from the completed dough, and I think tomorrow I'll start again, with the aim of making walnut bread on Thursday. P.S. I also made a baguette that looks like crap. My rolling and slashing both suck. I couldn't sully the picture of my attractive epis with that shameful baguette!

What a tour! Hats off to you for what must be one of the best surgical strikes on NYC ever attempted! Interesting that you made it to Cobble Hill and Sahadi's. It is one of my favorite places in New York. It is always teeming on Saturdays but the place is the real deal, run by the same Lebanese family since time began. Great food, at very reasonable prices. And friendly as can be.

Mixed Starter Bread-- epis!

I use King Arthur flour. I get it at the supermarket in Brooklyn.

Any of peter Reinhart's books would be a good place to look for answers to questions like these. I'm pretty new to this stuff myself, but I believe that when dough is chilled, yeast activity comes nearly to a halt. Bacteria in the dough continues to feed, however, which creates depth of flavor in the dough. Eventually, this bacterial activity will create a "sour" flavor-- which I'm guessing Steve Sullivan likes just fine, but not in this bread. The galette sounds good to me. I made the savory one last week, and would love to try with fruit. The recipe suggests using apples or pears in the winter. I was going to suggest croissants for after that, but how would people feel about matzoh?

Beautiful bread everyone! I made pizza dough last night. So my bread won’t be ready until tomorrow.

Agreed as to both.

I am a Jew. I was even an Upper West Side resident for about five years. My whole family hails from the New York area. For a time, I went to sabbath services regularly. Yet this Cholent is wholly unfamiliar to me! I don't believe I've ever tasted it. Where is my heritage? Am I fit to raise my Jewish children? I must remedy this situation immediately. I have a couple weeks before Passover arrives.

I made the brownies today. They are the best I've ever tasted. I'm floored. I also made the tomato galette. Very easy. I wasn't in the mood for Monterey Jack, so I made one with goat cheese and the other with Gruyere. I sprinkled a little fresh thyme and rosemary between the cheese and the tomatoes, and right before I popped it in the oven, I thought a little brushing of olive oil couldn't hurt either. (I sound like one of those recipe user reviews on Epicurious, right? "I loved this recipe! I changed everything about it, and it was great!") The galettes looked and tasted very nice when they came out, but I forgot to snap a pic. Edit: Sounds like a consensus for mixed starter bread.

This is very funny. Our favorite meal in the Dordogne region was a lunch we had at La Belle Etoile! If the house you rented was Les Rosiers, then there's some kind of "Double Life of Veronique" thing going on. We didn't really go out to dinner while we were in the region. Our daughter was about fourteen months old at the time. We had lunch out almost every day, then cooked in the house we rented. So I can't tell you if the food at L'Esplanade is good. My comments above were really about the view, which you can also get free of charge.

Sarlat is, of course, another beautiful town. The market days there (Wednesday and Saturday, if I recall) are really something. We were there at the height of strawberry and asparagus season, and I'll never forget those berries. They were the best I've ever tasted, and they are arrayed by the sellers according to their ripeness/hue. Sarlat is much larger than Domme, and has some suburban areas around it. You might be able to get from Sarlat to Domme in as little as half an hour or 45 minutes (it's only 10 km away!), but you may find that there's quite a bit of traffic going in and out of Sarlat on the little two-lane roads that serve it. We went to Sarlat twice while we were in the area, and during one of these trips we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the outskirts of Sarlat for at least an extra half-hour. Just a suggestion, but you might come to Domme in the late afternoon, take a look around in daylight and then have dinner. It is a pretty little town with a nice feel to it, and some well-preserved walls and gates. It's also a very easy ride to Domme from Beynac and La Roque-Gageac, two other tiny towns I'm sure you'll want to visit. Enjoy your trip!

I can tell you that the setting is lovely. I rented a house in Domme with my family last May. We were there for a week, and considered that restaurant a number of times. But we never actually ate there. It is a rather formal-looking dining room. Unlike most of the other famous towns in the area, Domme is perched atop a hill (hence its name). The L'Esplanade restaurant is situated next to the town square at the very top of the hill. There are very nice views of the valley and river below from the restaurant and the square, and from the square there is a nice little trail that follows the town wall. Domme itself is worth a visit primarily for the view. It is a pretty, but very small town. You can walk the whole town in about half an hour. We found it to be a very convenient base for seeing the area. In the summertime, I think it is mobbed with tourists (mostly French), but if you're going soon you will likely find it charming and empty. Sorry if this post is a waste of your time-- we had a nice time in Domme and I like to reminisce!

You should go for it, B! Lemon curd is a wonderful thing. If you need an excuse to use the lemon curd, I made this dessert a while ago and found it delicious-- and its presentation is striking, too.

New York gets no mention..... and deserves none, at least at the retail level.

fifi, after reading most of the above I bought the most basic crock pot in the 6.5 quart size, mostly because it was the one pot available in the store other than the Smart Pot, which I knew from your experience not to bother with. I've found it to work just fine. But I noticed this morning that I could've bought the pot with the "warm" setting for the same price! Mine just has off, low and high. Part of me feels cheated. Part of me thinks the perfect crock pot is the one with the fewest options. I might be happiest with a pot that has nothing but an on/off switch. Or even better, a pot with no buttons at all! Just plug the sucker in, and it's on.

Next: mixed starter bread, page 113? What do you guys think? Rhea, would this cut you out, since you just made the walnut bread? Other ideas: Bagels, p. 87; Eastern European Rye, p. 98; or Finnish Pulla, p. 106. Or something else. Edit: By the way, on Rhea's recommendation, I picked up Paris Sweets. Gotta support Dorie! I haven't had a chance to really look at it, and there's a multitude of desserts we haven't tried in BWJ, but if any others have the book, we might think about doing some stuff from there too, eventually.

See this I just don't get. My confit, which is all gone now, alas, came out tasting and smelling decidedly beefy. This is no bad thing, as I've mentioned above. I served the last of the confit to a couple friends we had over on Saturday, and one of them was heard to exclaim that "This stuff is great, it's like French onion soup, without the soup.... it's, it's French Onion GOOP!" But I used five or six ice cubes of my eGCI beef stock. I would think, with demi glace, especially a half cup (!) of that stuff, you'd get more beef flavor, not less. And before you ask, fifi, my onions were plain old yellow onions from a supermarket 3 pound bag. Not sweet onions.

My in-laws came over today. Guests for two days running = cookies all gone! I'm cursing myself for only making a half batch. But I'm not about to make some more tonight. Your photo looks great, mdt. I think I'll make the brownies maybe Wednesday.