paul o' vendange

"Schrot und Korn," from a friend of mine, the family physician, author, blogger teacher and accomplished baker Dr. Björn Hollensteiner. 100% whole grain - two different coarsenesses of home-milled cracked rye, whole rye kernels boiled until "al dente" soft, a blend of roasted sunflower, flax and sesame seeds, and touch of liquid brewer's malt extract, Munich malt in this case, which I find gives a more rounded sweetness than something like beet syrup. My family wanted a very rustic rye, and this suits the bill well.

Absolutely gorgeous Yvonne. That satiny sheen is amazing and the crumb looks perfect.

Thank you so much everyone. I will look into the online sources you mentioned and also realize I've spaced - we have a local farm for "Black Mountain Welsh Sheep," and they do sell their meat. One thing I've noted of local farmers who butcher their own (we also have a wonderful beef farm, Seven Seeds), is that they understandably cut for what most people are looking for. One example is they cut their chops more thinly than I like to use, which limits how I would cook them. Grateful they're here, but I do sure miss working with providers for our restaurant, when we had it! Weinoo, you're right. I need to dig more deeply with the butcher I mentioned. They source fantastically and it's very likely they can find what I'm looking for. And YvetteMT, thanks, too, for the Ag Extension. Our UW has a very strong program in dairy and animal science and they very well might have some options. I've looked into our state's sheep dairy org. - I used to make French Savoie cheeses, all raw milk from Ayshire raised on pasture by two good friends, but love Pyrénées hard cheese like Ossau-Iraty and was always hoping to source raw sheep's milk. Our state's dairy sheep farmer either make their own cheese or sell their mllk to cheesemakers who do, so very happy for them. So I've never looked on the meat side and will do so. Thanks again.

Thanks AlaMoi. We're in WI. Thankfully we have a good butcher here in Madison and I can get humanely raised Red Wattle and Berkshire pork (I love Berkshire) but outside of already frenched racks, no idea where it comes from, probably all the way from NZ through massive brokerage and distribution channels, no lamb. Jamison lamb was extraordinary. (Small sidenote, mentioned alive and well. Lot of help along the way, encouraging anyone in need to reach out to people who care).

Hreat, thanks Smithy. I'll look into it.

Thanks Darienne. Congratulations on your time together! I'm 64 now, married coming up on 28 years only. But yes, amazing to look back on life. I was in terrible health for many years, until diagnosed properly some years ago (and then again with EDS a few years ago). I was up to 280, on a road to an early death. But per below, things have turned to the good. Began cooking before 10, French food by 12 when my mom bought me La Technique and I worked it cover to cover (below, the famous "cream puff swans" from Christmas, when I was 13). I cooked the entire Christmas meal. Fluent by 14 owing all to my beloved teacher, Mme. Lewis, who took a damaged kid and made him, for all intents and purposes, her TA for all 6 periods by 9th grade in an attempt to keep me in school. Life was since then a wandering through many things and I have no regrets - currently swimming up to 7500 yards daily, in fantastic health, though I mourn this pretty ancient connection to "Frenchness". We'll see if I find my way back. All good. Thanks for your post and again, all blessings for many years more.

I have been out of cooking a long time now, and it has been fitful coming back. Not sure I ever really will. To show how long, I was saddened to just read Jamison Farm shut down back in 2021, in good measure due to the restaurant closures suffered under Covid. They were our sole lamb provider for our short-lived restaurant Waterstone, in the Upper Peninsula (2004-05). Where do you obtain your lamb? Things like shoulder clod?

Very sad news. The world and cuisine was a better place because of her.

Not much, but we're not doing our usual. No whole roast bird, buying a whole duck and breaking down the legs for confit, breasts for pan-roast, jus/sauce of some sort from the carcass, Robuchon mashed, Tom Colicchio's brussel sprouts (love his recently released Why I Cook!) and a mix of Estonian and German sides. German or French dessert.

In case it's helpful for some folks, just came across this on KA's website - a breakdown of names and whether sourdough or cultured/commercial yeasts are used, per type. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2020/02/05/baking-with-preferments

Yep, agreed, it can be confusing. To me, a biga is a stiff starter using cultured yeast. A poolish, a liquid starter using cultured yeast. A pâte fermentée, also typically from dough using cultured yeast. Levain, sourdough. The wonderful thing is we can design things to do what we want, and how we want to do it. Rubaud was something of a monk. His "chef" was a stiff starter that he refreshed every 5 hours - day and night. I did that for a long time and finally just gave it up in the interest of a full-night's sleep. Instead of "levain" I should call it "chef," what Rubaud renewed. I mean starting over fully from scratch, a new mother as I mentioned. He felt his ongoing chef would drift per the quote above. Up until then I had maintained a starter from Chicago, something like 15 years old. It was liberating for me, to be honest, to let go of something like reverence for the starter. Here's Rubaud's process for a new chef. Note that these quantities are 1/4 of those he used - he felt there was a certain "mass effect" requiring the larger amounts for proper thermal mass, etc. He's probably right but there's no way I wanted to generate that much discard so I cut all to 1/4. Note he maintains a small amount of salt in his chef. This is to regulate activity.

No, totally agreed. I don't mean added yeast, I mean that starter is always a dynamic system, an ecology that develops naturally over time, some blend of wild yeasts and bacterias (which we can manipulate via changes in ambient conditions). There will always be some drift because it's not static, just wondering if the method would tend to naturally move the overall balance one way or the other. I maintain three basic starters - a liquid rye, which is renewed with "ASG," Anstellgut, cold starter left in the fridge maybe 3-4 days; water at 40C; and Central Milling's "Medium Rye," which is equivalent to the German T 1150 rye at 1.15% ash. I find that gives a good, steady development when refreshing as whole grain rye can really cause the starter to scream. Occasionally I will do whole rye, to goose the starter if it's not been refreshed for too long. I also maintain a Lievito Madre (AP & Water), and a Hefewasser (water, some existing Hefewasser, and Munich liquid malt extract, used in brewing). Point of interest, the late great French baker Gerard Rubaud started a new mother every month or so, for this reason - he watched performance constantly and felt his starter drifted too much for him over a matter of weeks, so he always regularly started with a new starter about monthly. After learning that I stopped worrying if I had to let go of an old culture and start another. http://www.farine-mc.com/2009/11/meet-baker-gerard-rubaud.html

Very cool, thanks Ann. The only thing I'd be curious about is whether the scrapings at the bottom have a different population mix of yeasts v. bacterias, and if over time that would tend to move the population ecology to favor one or the other over time. Don't know why it would, but it would be interesting to learn more about this. Very nice to avoid waste, like you say, and your starters look robust and healthy!

Beautiful!

"Das Ultimative Sauerteigbrot," recipe from Rene Dasbeck (https://www.brooot.de/weizenbrote/das-ultimative-sauerteigbrot/?fbclid=IwY2xjawN2XQVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFmZDQ0dXFLZVRZbnlySVZuAR6hdP13QyH-HhP9AdzvLk-AfgyuXpbVn9A_CDxbzA1oBZZXDMvxB4ouTVqCKw_aem_KdbnKjzYidqkmIDMHPC5qQ&brid=1mib5OTjoleHhLhjZdlu9A). Nice in that it has a relatively small amount of pre-ferment, and a touch of beet syrup. Very aromatic, as he indicates, a pleasant everyday levain.