Yeasty Beasties

Douglas can't work in Canada yet, so while I work in the daytime, he putters around the house, rides his bike, and dreams up things to build. I think he's liking life as a kept man. If only I could keep him in the style to which he is accustomed...

My favorite of his new hobbies is baking bread. From scratch, no bread machine. He's turning out amazing crusty whole wheat loaves that taste like they came from a fancy bread store. They're fantastic. (Suzanne, o Baking Queen, if you're reading, we have a question - the loaves are flattening out a little more than he'd like, just before they go in the oven. Any tips?)





We have this book called Bread Alone, which talks about the art of breadmaking in a really lyrical way. I swear, this baker thinks of his yeast like pets. He has whole paragraphs about cultivating your kitchen's wild yeast population. How the wooden bowl your bread rises in will become home to swarms of yeast cells waiting to help the next loaf rise. How if you bake bread regularly, your kitchen will be home to lots of rogue yeast cells ready to jump into your bread and leaven it. I like the thought of all those yeastie beasties roaming around in there, looking for warm bread...