Bread, part one of probably a zillion

I have Jim Lahey’s book, My Bread as well as Apollonia Poilâne’s book, Poilâne. They are filled with all manner of recipes on how to make bread. Lahey has a bakery in New York; Poilane ships bread all over the planet from France, where they produce it.

My mother made bread every week for years. 8 loaves a week. It was a mixed white/whole wheat loaf, with lots of kneading and a very specific ‘route march’ as she would say. I grew up on it. It was great. But I’m not sure I can ask her for direction on making bread. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I just need to figure it out for myself. Perhaps I know better. I don’t know.

My grandmother was never good at bread. It’s a strange thing to say, given that I would have happily taken a bullet for her. She survived so much – Her name was Frances May Chambers. When she was born, her father was in France, and he was supposed to be home for May. Enough said. The story was that she couldn’t make bread well because she could make great pastry, and the techniques for good pastry (gentle, calm) didn’t translate well into bread (knead, aggressive).

I like to think I’m more like my grandmother than my mother when it comes to baking, and the reason why I struggle with bread is because I excel at pastry. Which is true, except for that last part. My pastry needs work, too. Lots of work.

My pizza dough sometimes works; other times it doesn’t. I use Beddia’s recipe from his book, Pizza Camp. It’s an overnight dough you raise in the fridge. And it’s always at least OK, but it’s rarely great. I have to take it out to rise on the counter for several hours, and I tend to use more yeast than what is called for. When it works, it’s great. But often it’s just… OK. My no-knead bread is coming along, but sourdough starter was a total failure and my most recent sandwich loaf was greeted with the reminder that I have other strengths.

Maybe I should talk to mom about bread. Couldn’t hurt.