Eff You Atkins!

After reading 52 Loaves, by William Alexander, I decided to try my hand at baking bread for the family.

Alexander urges all of us to bake bread with a wild yeast levain, otherwise known as a starter or sourdough. It's French so go with it. I did, and I'm very happy with the result.

Slasher

This device measures miles run in the last week.

Today, I was finally able to put together the time needed to gather up all my old meth lab equipment make Pain de l'abbaye Saint-Wandrille. This is the recipe he used to get the monks at that abbey baking bread for themselves and the local villagers - a craft they had put aside for the last bunch of years. Read the book if you want to learn more.

The whole process takes a while, but there are hours of slack time while chemical processes take place and families sleep.

The Blob

It took about 1/2 hour last night, then about 2 hours of work today to make two really nice loaves.

The recipe will make 6 loaves, but then the title for this post would have to be "Eff You Atkins, I'll Dig You Up, Chop Your Head Off, Then Re-bury You Because I'm a Bread Eater, In Fact, I Eat Flour Right Out of the Bag So Sit and Spin!!" So I did some calculations on my cell phone and got it down to two ginormous loaves.

I promise a running post very soon with a giveaway contest that will make you drooool!

And there is some whispering of an upcoming open-water swim/triathlon with a boring runner and an Engineer. Stay tuned!