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I would love to get some authentic French bread and goodies next week when a couple friends from Paris arrive in town. Where do you recommend finding real French bread in Vancouver? What are the top French bakeries around town? Any stores that you can recommend would be greatly appreciated!

When I am in southern California I always stock up on Barbari bread whenever I find myself near an Armenian bakery in Glendale or along east Santa Monica Boulevard. This is wonderful flat bread about one to one and half inches high. It has a crisp crust and a soft chewy interior. It freezes well and is a bargain at about $ 1.00 a loaf. Needless to say I have not found anything like it here in Ontario. There is a recipe for Nan-e Barbari floating around the net that I’ve tried but I think it’s a Persian bread and it’s not what I am looking for. The bread I’m trying to replicate looks like This If anyone can teach me how to bake this, I will be forever indebted. Elie

Well, it’s officially Sunday and we have a whole lot to cover this week, so...hello and welcome to Missouri. I’m a troll’s troll. And as much as I’d like to pretend that I actually DO live under a bridge waiting for goats to walk by, I am looking forward to putting my OCD to work and showing you a little bit of “MY Kansas City”. To begin my blog I’ll open it with an absolutely true story…in addition to changing the way I approach food, whether it’s dining in a new city or trying a new recipe, I owe the largest part of my happy life to eGullet. For it was HERE that my lurker wife (I’m sure she’ll pop in here at some point) first spotted my gleefully grammatically challenged wordsmithing and began to stalk me…and it went like THIS- A few months after my gastric bypass surgery in 2007, I hosted a dinner party and talked about it on the Sopranos food thread: The Sopranos Dinner Thread So she saw that and was like “Oh man, this guy is going places!”, and she fell into the vortex that is my blog (which DOES contain adult themes and language…BIG time) after hopping over there to read the extended version of the dinner. My blog is kind of like a landfill and gets about ten accidental visits per day, one comment every three months…it is absolutely shill and self-promotion proof. So in the interest of including some important non-food info I’ll link to a specific post without feeling too bad about possibly boosting my traffic to twenty over the next few days. If you skip to the third comment, that is where this whole story took off after a random dinner party report. My wife-to-be happened to post to something I wrote about online dating...comments complete with John Cusack references. Anybody here have a heart?!?! Isn’t it PRECIOUS?!?!? Thoughts about dating that reeled in a wife... And so thanks to eGullet we were off and running! I was in Kansas City, she was in Richmond, Virginia...and after several months of phone calls and literally hundreds of pages of emails we arranged our first face time. Planning for a worst case scenario, she would drive to DC (which would give her a quick escape if needed), and I would fly in and have three days to eat and drink in that town…with our without her. So where was our official “first date”? Is that a rhetorical question? We were going to be in DC, and you don’t remain a bachelor until almost forty without learning a thing or two about “classy” first dates. So no brainer…minibar. BOOM. You can’t make that stuff up. And my wife mentioned how much she likes it when the eG food bloggers include a picture, so here you go- this is us on that first date, at the bar at Café Atlantico, waiting to be summoned upstairs: We had a small destination wedding in Savannah, Georgia in Whitefield Square’s gazebo. On June 25th we celebrated our second anniversary during a roadtrip to Deadwood, South Dakota (Corn Palace, Wall Drug, the works). We live in Parkville, Missouri, which is about ten minutes northwest of downtown Kansas City (Missouri…there’s another one in Kansas  ). No kids, but we do have three rescue animals...one cute but common decency-challenged cocker spaniel and two one-eyed cats. Overall, life right now is grand. And this is a FOOD blog, but I will add that what makes life so great is making it through a pretty crazy first couple of years...I mean, we did everything you’re NOT supposed to do. Long distance relationship where we both bounced back and forth between Richmond and KC, planning a wedding with the full knowledge that in a few months I would be laid off from my job, getting married and then having her leave home to move a thousand miles away...finally arriving here with no job prospects and me being out of work for what ended up being seven months. 2009 was crazy….five people in my family died that year, I got married, I quit drinking, my whole team got laid off, my bachelor pad was about to be retrofitted for estrogen-friendliness, wife looking for a job, a one-eyed cat thrown into the mix...you don’t realize how crazy it is when you’re in the middle of it. So now I am literally thankful every single day for what we’ve got; we’re both employed (I’m in IT, she’s in healthcare), we have a happy home, great family and friends...and we love our food. When the good times come you devour them, and you pass on as much good as you can to others. And life will always come back and happen to you at some point…and sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, the good times will return. And when they DO return, YOU CELEBRATE WITH A FANTASTIC MEAL! So I just wanted to give that little backdrop to set up what I’m wanting to do with this week. I could have gone a million different directions or just try to make this what I think of as “eGullet-y”. But as my wife told me, there isn’t really any NEW ground to cover on this site, so best to just personalize it and see where it goes. I’m just going to blog how I blog, food-centric and minus the wildly excessive profanity... other than that pretty unedited and full of self-amusement. You’re going to see some good food, I promise you that. I’m going to test your limits with my rambling, horrible photography, and movie references...and I AM the king of the ellipses... but it’s going to revolve around food, who we are, and what makes us love eating in KC. I’ve lived in Arizona and Minneapolis, but Kansas City Kansas is where I was born (on the 4th of July!) and most of my life has happened in the major metropolitan area. I moved to the Missouri side after my broken-hearted return from Minneapolis in 1995, because it is just better than Kansas. Sorry, it’s just true . I’ll have to leave a lot of stuff out that may tweak folks familiar with the area, but I’m always available for questions, requests, and whatever is of interest about food in my town. If it exists here, I’m probably at least aware of it, I am deeply familiar with the current scene, and we eat EVERYTHING, too bad we've only got the week. Like many eG bloggers it will be a big one-off as far as overall dining costs and calories in a seven day span. Oh, and here’s the big kicker...no BBQ. I create world class bbq, I love talking about it, and am happy to chit-chat, but that is one serious all-or-nothing topic. Plus, a Kansas City blog without bbq is just funny. I gotta be FREE! Some NEW stuff! For its size, Kansas City has an amazing food community, and I will give you just a tiny fraction….and please ignore any eye-rolling and fact checking from other KC eGulleters because MY KC is the coolest version...full of folklore and intrigue!!! Oh, and “zeemanb” is a screen name I’ve used since around 1995 when I first got online. Sadly, some from KC think it has something to do with the Z-Man sandwich at Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ…but cheese belongs on bbq about as much as mango chutney or pop rocks…or bbq sauce…so not hardly. I took the name from the character Z-Man Barzell in the Russ Meyer classic “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”, written by Roger Ebert. My holy trinity of movie directors would be Stanley Kubrick, John Waters, and Jim Jarmusch...so there is a big clue into my voice and worldview- with deepest apologies. In the morning I’ll detail how we approach hard narcotics, er, I mean COFFEE in this house. We’ve got friends coming over in the afternoon for some Ad Hoc fried chicken, and I am DYING to post dinner from tonight. I know it happened a couple of hours earlier than the start of the blog, but I assure you it is not to be ignored. Gotta hit the hay, so until then here are a few random shots to tide you over: Photo of my favorite spoonrest. And by favorite, I mean my only spoonrest: We find that the best use for the extra plastic grocery baggies we steal is- cheap cat toy: Lastly, before I head to bed, here is some super cool food photography we bought while we were on our anniversary roadtrip: More rambles once I get the caffeine in my veins.....

So I picked up some Ischia Island ( Italian ) Yeast from Sourdough International. Activated it by Sourdo.com instructions!! http://www.sourdo.com/home/activation-i ... s-english/ 90 degree water bath: Day 1 24 hrs 1 pk of yeast Ischia Island 225 g of Mountain Spring Water .. close to 1 C 105 g of Guisto OO Flour So after 24 hrs in a 90 degree water bath: I seperated the culture into two containers, as said I feed both containers with : 140 g of the " 00 '' Flour and 170g of spring water after the morning feeding of Day 2 3-4 hrs later I had this!! So it looks activated ? I'm making pizza dough today.. How do I take care of this stuff, now? Can I leave it on the counter, for weeks? Or should I refrigerate it till using it next week? Little help please and any pizza dough weight recipe?

I recently moved from Victoria to Vancouver and was surprised to find a lack of great bread. So far the best has been Ace Bakery bread at the Superstore!!!!!!!!! I've been spoiled by Wild Fire and Fol Epi and Church Bakery in Comox. I realize this question keeps getting asked but I'm still stuck on where to get decent, slow rised, natural yeast, possibly wide fired oven bread. Any suggestions?

Greetings, baking experts! Here's a mix which King Arthur Flour sells to "improve" rye breads: A blend of rye flavors and sours, diastatic malt, vital wheat gluten (for a good, strong rise) and potato flour (to help combat the "dry crumblies" Does this mean one can add some of these things to a rye bread recipe to lighten it up? I have a tasty recipe from a class I took years ago at The French Pastry School in Chicago -- great place, BTW. Anyhooo, when I make this bread at home, it rises a fraction of an inch in several hours' time, and bakes up like a brick! Waaa? It has great flavor, but you need the jaws of life to get a bite. Any suggestions?

Greetings, bread bakers! I saw something fascinating on a YouTube video that profiled French bakers working in their fabulous kitchen, recently. They had what looked like a portable oven loader thingie for bread -- they hooked the platform-y thing onto the front of the open deck oven, and shoved the handle in, and voila! The bread slid into the oven on some sort of shelf, then the cover retracted, and they removed the thingie. Nice terminology, huh? Anyway, it seemed to be a smaller portable version of the deck oven loader that's attached to those serious baking ovens that I can't afford, let's put it that way. Any thoughts about where to acquire one of these wonders, besides in France? And no, I don't have that YouTube link -- I wish I'd made a note of it. The breads looked unbelievable!

Hi, Was going to bake some sourdough tomorrow so I prepared everything yesterday and today. I turned my wet starter into a firm one and let it ferment for 8 hours. Then I turned my firm starter into a levain and let that ferment for 8 hours. Then I let my levain retard in the ref for the final dough mixture tomorrow morning. But, I got a call and I can't work on it tomorrow anymore. So my question is how long can I keep that fermented levain in the ref and keep it fully active until I can finish the dough for baking? Thank you!

I recently decided to venture into the world of sourdough. I wanted to use a wild yeast starter. Following directions I found on the web I mixed 1oz of water with 1 oz of flour. Mixed. Day 2 I mixed. Day 3 added same amounts of flour and water. A few bubbles. Day 4 more bubbles, fed it again. Day 5 and 6 still more bubbles and fed each day. Day 7 fewer bubbles, texture thinning, fed again. Added a small amount of dried yeast. Day 8 tried to make bread. Did not rise. What happened?

Hello, I bake danish style rye bread (similar to this) about every 2 weeks and I have a good sourdough going for this (called Charlotte for the work colleague who gave it to me - one does get attached to one's sourdough). My sourdough starter is all coarse rye flour. Here's the question: is it possible, and how do I go about it, to convert a jar of the all-rye starter to a starter that can be used for lighter bread types, pizza etc - the flavour in the rye is very good. Thanks

I'm on the hunt for "Catalan" style bread - I don't know what else to call it... I guess it's sort of like a ciabatta, but very light with a crisp crust - not dense or chewy.

I've recently started cooking from Reinhart's newish "Artisan Bread Every Day" and I really like the book. I think the technique he uses throughout the book is pretty easy to work into even a very busy schedule. My first bread from the book was the Focaccia and it turned out to be spectacular and really reminded me of a bakery that I used to live near that had the best rosemary focaccia I've ever eaten (I used Reinharts herb oil as a topping). The only problem I had was that I forgot to put down parchment and the bread stuck A LOT. I had oiled it well and the sheet was non-stick but none of that seemed to matter. Has anybody else done much baking from this book? What are the must try recipes?

Greetings, baking professionals! I'm a hobby baker, who's been invited to demonstrate bread forming and braiding techniques at an outdoor art fair. I'm thinking it would be fun to have people watch my demo, then do their own shaping and forming with their own little piece of dough. Everybody wants to learn how to make bread! But the rub is that the dough can't be consumed, as the health dept. will come down on me like flies on sh*t, if you know waddeye mean. So I'm wondering if there's a recipe out there for dough that might kinda act like bread in terms of moisture and texture, but not rise (I'll be outdoors in June), or even be edible, necessarily. Any thoughts?

I have a friend who has some pretty severe food allergies- gluten, corn, soy, dairy to name just a few. I've managed to put together two bread recipes he's able to enjoy and have been asked to utilize one of them to make a cake for his SO. One of the two is actually made in a bundt pan, but that's not the one she has requested, and since I've never been tasked w/such a conversion (and won't be there to taste test!), I wanted to pose the question here before I begin (was asked this afternoon to drop off tomorrow on my way out of town, yikes!). Both recipes come from the Gluten Free Goddess blog, both were incredibly good, receiving raves from the large group assembled the day I brought them to share. Here's what I am needing to get to be beautiful and yummy from a bundt instead of a loaf pan, already modified with changes made for his diet (original here): Can use loaf pan or 8x10 baking pan per the recipe. Combine: 1 cup canned pumpkin 1/2 cup safflower oil 1 cup packed organic light brown sugar 2 teaspoons McCormick vanilla extract (w/o corn syrup) 2 antibiotic-free eggs 1/2 cup orange juice Whisk together in a separate bowl: 1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend (Red Mill AP mix) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon xanthan gum 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon cardamom 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves Add the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture and stir until smooth. If the batter looks too thin and wet, add more gluten-free flour, a tablespoon at a time, to thicken the batter. Also... I'd like to make a glaze and was originally thinking 10x, ghee, a little vanilla, maybe steep a chai bag in some almond milk to stir in... but it just occurred to me that I will be unable to use regular 10x sugar due to the cornstarch. I would REALLY appreciate any insight or ideas to get around that, as well. Thanks so much!! Stephanie

So i tried making this Laura Hart's sourdough recipe which involves making a starter dough with a 1:1 ratio of 'strong' plain flour and water. Im not sure what she meant by strong so i just used half and half of bread flour and AP. Now i basically messed some part up involving me putting the starter inside the oven set onto warm and it warping the plastic container i placed it in accidentally (stupid i know, i didnt even need to put it inside the oven i dont know why i did that), so i tried scooping out what i could but now the ratio of flour to water had been messed up. I tried adjusting it by feeding it with another 1:1 ratio of flour and water and waited to see what would happen. Anyway i carried on with the recipe but in half and forgot to half the amount of salt put in also. The dough i felt didn't really rise during the supposedly rising process but i carried on and also did the whole kneading thing. OK so i FEEL like i might have overworked my dough (i just kept on kneading it every now and then hoping something would happen)and its been sitting there for the last 24 hrs or so. I decided to cut a chunk off to make a mini-roll of sort, baking it at the same temp (less time) and the results was what i was expecting: heavy tough bread. It had some holes in it so im guessing part of it did rise but so im wondering whether: 1.) Did i over work it? 2.) My amount of flour + water to starter was way off (not enough starter) 3.) too much salt (but i think thats for flavor) Ideas? Also anyone have any suggestions on what to do with over worked sour dough? I tried kneading it down to make a sorta pizza thing but again, its just tough dough which didnt do to well to rolling out thin. If not i was thinking just bake it off and turn it into bread crumbs

I'm thawing fish to make a favorite fish fry for tomorrow. The breading is made with besen, yogurt, water and selected spices. You can add egg but my teacher told me that it dries out the breading and his secret to make the coating for the fish crispy was to add a few tablespoons of rice flour. This got me thinking, what are techniques for making the breading in fried foods crispy and what is the science behind it? When I was in India I'd go by some street venders and eat crunchy fried vegetable snacks but the same snacks down the road, fresh out of the frier, were soft by comparison. Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan says extra crispy but it's oily and soft. I suspect temperature has something to do with it but I wonder what ingredients make the better, crispier batter. Any thoughts out there?

Greetings, expert bakers! I've been baking for farmer's markets in a commercial kitchen for a few weeks now, and am trying desperately to get a prettier product from the gas convection oven I'm using. It has great capacity, and is calibrated perfectly, but bakes so evenly that my breads have an all-over brown color, even the grigne, which makes them look very dull, in my opinion. I was getting fabulous beautiful loaves (and I think they rose higher, too!) from my Vulcan electric, which has a top control, which I set to "high" when the breads went in, on a stone, at 450°. I was able to use steam, also, since there was no fan. Now I'm baking on a sheet pan at 400° convection, and not really liking the results. So can I just not use the fan? There's a huge disclaimer right on the front of the oven that states the fan MUST be on when the gas is on, yikes! Don't want to blow up the kitchen, but isn't it OK to bake without the fan in a convection oven, usually? Your valuable input gratefully acknowledged, thanks!

Do you slice it thick, thin, on the bias, never? I'm starting to realize that there's a lot of variation here.

Greetings, bakers. I've recently leased a commercial kitchen space to bake a poolish-starter white/whole wheat flax bread to sell at Farmer's Markets. The oven I'm using is a gas convection, with no provisions for steam or stone baking. Just racks and the fan. At home, I was baking on a stone, with steam provided using an old sheet pan and chunks of marble in the bottom, heated with the preheat, and hot water splashed on, when the loaves went in. Now I load the loaves onto a sheet pan, and shove 'em in at 400°F for about 15-20 mins., depending on the size. I get a nice oven burst, and they look great, but I'm finding more tunnels at the tops, than I did with the home baked loaves. Here's my recipe: Poolish: 100% hydration 12 oz. strong flour 12 oz. water 1.5 tsp. instant yeast ferment for at least 4 hours. add: 65 oz. water (62% hydration) 90 oz. strong flour 20 oz. whole wheat flour 2 oz. ground flax seed meal 1 oz. whole flax seeds 3 T. salt 1.5 tsp. instant yeast The first rise is at 100° in a warming oven, the second after shaping is at room temperature, which is about 65 degrees (I work in a meat processing plant), and each takes about 1.5 hrs. I form the loaves in the standard baguette manner, fold, seal, fold, compress and roll a bit, to make 17 oz. torpedo shaped loaves. What is your experience with large holes at the tops of breads? Are they formed during shaping (my internet search indicated "poor machining of dough" as a reason -- I have no idea what that means!), or is it because of the baking temperature/time/method? Help! No one will buy my loaves if they're holey! Thanks in advance for your expert advice.

Greetings, bread experts! I've been baking in a commercial gas convection oven for loaves sold at a Farmer's Market, and struggling to get the same spectacular rise I used to, out of my electric oven. I've learned a few things: proofing for longer in the pans makes breads rise higher in the oven; just a little overproofed results in a higher rise in the oven, for some reason. Also using a stone makes a big dif! Even when strap pans are just placed on the stone, the breads seem to be higher. And using steam, of course. But still not nearly as good as with an electric oven, on a stone, with steam just sprayed. I'm wondering if my first bulk rise could be cooler, and it would create more energy for the second rise, and final oven burst. Currently, I'm bulk rising in a warming oven at 100 degrees or slightly over, for about 1.5 hours. Maybe a cooler 90 degrees (or lower?), for longer would help? I'm also wondering if turning off the fan for the first 5 minutes or so would make for a higher initial burst, when steam is applied to the sides with a sprayer (also over the tops of the loaves). I've read that gas won't give the same results as electric, and that turning off the fans results in not much. I've also been told that using a cover, sprayed on the inside with water, over the loaves works well. I've had limited success as far as getting my loaves to look like their electric counterparts, with this technique. And it's a pain! What's your experience/recommendation?

Hi everyone, Its been several years since I've posted on this forum but hope to get involved more in the future now that I've changed jobs! Anyway, before buying Frederic Lalos' book, I mulled over buying it for almost 1 year. There is very limited writeup on this book and surely others would be going through the same decision making issues. In addition, we'll never know when this book'll be out of print. The reasons for my reluctance to purchase it is that here in Asia, this book + shipping from Europe would cost more than US$120. Do I really need to spend that kind of money when Hamelman, Dan Leader and Reinhart and other books would cover it? Thanks to my new job, I decided to buy it and it was the best decision I ever made. Firstly, this book touches on lots of basic knowledge covered in other books in terms of kneading, flour types, etc. Bear in mind that the recipes in this book use French flours, which are not as strong as American flours. Asian bakers may rejoice because our flours are quite similar in strength. Here in Bangkok, and in Singapore where I come from, we can get flours from Waitrose and other Italian as well as German flours. The most important aspect of this book for a professional baker or a serious home baker is that there are recipes dedicated to direct proofing, delayed overnight bulk fermentation method and a deferred overnight proofing method. All in the same recipe. This gives you timings and recipe options to better plan your baking. In addition, he gives the exact starting temperature and recommended end of mix temperature to ensure that the bread grows at the suggested pace. I have not come across any other bread book that is so detailed in this aspect. There are a lot of interesting French breads in here, but if you are looking for something really uniquely European, Dan Leader's book 'Local Breads' may be more your thing. However, if you are looking to get a first hand insight into how a professional baker executes his recipes, Frederic Lalos' book is exhaustive in this aspect. This link gives a more thorough review for this wonderful book. I as well give links to where to buy this book, with no commercial benefit of my own. I hope this review will help in your purchase making decision because it was something I wish I had after hours of fruitless web research.

I am enjoying good success with the Tartine Bread book, and am really enjoying the wild-yeast risen bread I am producing. My wife is also really enjoying it, and just about refuses to eat a sandwich on anything else. I have even modified the process to suit my weekly schedule: I do a 4 hour initial proofing phase in the evening, and then shape it and let it rise for about 18 hours at 50F, baking it the next day when I get home from work. Even with that, I have the problem that it keeps well for a few days (it usually disappears before it stops making great toast), but I dont have the time to be baking a new loaf every 3 days. This leads me to my question. I have been thinking about par-baking off a few loaves of bread so that through the week I can finish the loaves in the oven and have decent bread in the house. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there a specific internal temperature I am looking for before I take it out and cool the loaf quickly (I was thinking about blowing a small fan across the loaf)? Baking the bread in the dutch oven for the first 20 minutes means that I do not have an issue with the bread browning at all and I get fantastic oven spring, but I am still a bit unsure as to when to remove it from the oven. Thank you, Joshua Attached is an image of a previous loaf. Very tasty

I am a novice in baking and am attempting to make some brioche out of curiosity. The recipe that I got instruct me to add in some milk, yeast and sugar and wait until its ready to mix with the rest of the dry ingredients. How would I know when its ready? I googled about it and I know that they are meant to go frothy, but it has been almost over 45 minutes now and it still seem rather liquid. I did warmed up the milk a little, and am wondering what did I do wrong? Could it be the content of the sugar, which was 1/4 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of sugar and i sachet of 75 g of dry yeast! Any advice?

I recently read about sprouted wheat flour in Peter Reinhart's Pizza Quest blog. That discussion led me to try making some sprouted wheat flour bread, after I sprouted some wheat, dried it, and milled it. Then I made a simple flour/water/yeast/salt loaf with 90% hydration--as Peter suggested, the flour easily accepted this extreme hydration and remained intact and elastic. The dough was prepared in the food processor, with several breaks for the flour to hydrate before the final kneading; left to rise about an hour before retarding in the refrigerator for 3 days (unexpected work problems interfered with the original plan of holding the dough overnight only before rising/proofing/baking); then the dough was turned out, lightly kneaded and shaped into small round loaves, proofed in a 100° oven, and then baked. I am still lousy with a lame so it was essentially unslashed. The problem? Despite cooking the bread to an internal temperature of 205 degrees, the crumb was damp, sticky, and gummy (though still quite tasty): and I recognize this is a common fault in my breads that long predates the experiment with the sprouted wheat flour. I usually am working with fresh non-sprouted whole wheat flour, prepared in my impact mill a few minutes before I make the dough, prepare the dough in the food processor per the directions from Van Over's Best Bread Ever and many of them experience extended refrigeration between the first kneading and before shaping/proofing (not always intentionally). I'm not sure where to look for the source of the faulty crumb: if the loaves are simply underbaked, does that suggest that these high-hydration whole wheat breads need to be brought to a higher internal temperature than white flour breads? Is the long-rise a likelier suspect? A problem common to freshly milled flour? Or is there some other systematic fault I should be investigating?

Okay, it's time. Time again for me to try another one of those Cook's Illustrated recipes. Just like I did last December, when I tackled their "Best pizza ever" recipe. Without hesitation, I can say that the pizza dough I made using that recipe really came out great. Well, once this month's Cook's Illustrated arrived, how could I wait? There it was, right on the cover - "Secrets to Perfect Whole-Wheat Bread." Of course, the whole cover of Cook's Illustrated is, ummmmm, covered with those types of pronouncements. For example, just on that same issue's cover we had: Dressing Up Steaks - Shortcut to 4-Star Pan Sauce Broccoli-Cheese Soup - Throw Out the Rule Book Real Boston Cream Pie All About Butter Who knew it was so easy? But that's what makes Cook's Illustrated great, and also one of the few food mags that I literally read cover to cover. Now, onto those perfect loaves of whole-wheat bread. First, understand that it takes 18 - 24 hours from the start until you actually have something resembling a loaf of bread that can be eaten. Second, I can literally take a 10 minute walk to the Essex St. Market and buy a great, artisanal whole wheat bread for about $4 a loaf, which makes me think that it's a lot of work, and takes a lot of time, to make my own. And unless it's categorically better than Pain d'Avignon's, why bother? Well, I'm a cook, and I'm a food geek, so why the hell not? Also, I had all the ingredients on hand. I didn't take pictures of the process, only the results, but you start the night before with a biga (which is a starter, which is a pre-ferment, which is…well, plenty of topics about that) and also a soaker, which allows the whole-wheat flour to develop to its fullest potential. The next morning, you actually put the dough together - and having a Kitchen Aid or other heavy-duty stand mixer comes in handy; otherwise, prepare for lots of kneading. Once the dough comes together, then it's only about 3 more hours till it's baked, and 2 more till it cools enough to cut into. Whew. Now, before showing you the finished product…a mea culpa. Instead of the bread flour called for in the recipe, I mistakenly used all-purpose flour, and that may be the reason for one of the admittedly minor grievances I had with my loaves. So here's what the bread looked like after baking… And then the loaf cut in half… And finally, a close-up… A couple of things. Take a look at that 'tunnel" up in the right-hand corner of the slice. Not good. Not terrible, but probably not something I should be proud of. Next, see how the "crumb," which is the interior texture of the loaf, gets tighter and tighter towards the bottom of the slice? That's called, I believe, pudding-y (jack?), or at least something like that. Whatever it's called, it's not what you're looking for. It might be due to the lower gluten content of the flour I used vs. bread flour. Taken altogether, not a bad first attempt, and when I made Significant Eater a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, she commented on how delicious the bread was . But, if anyone has any suggestions as to what might've gone wrong - I'm all ears. Although next time, I'll probably just head over to the market - it's so much easier.