The Breads of France

My head is reeling with thoughts of the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in early March. Have decided to wear a copy of  "The Breads of France" by the late Bernard Clayton Jr. With that under my arm, I can't help but start a conversation with people I don't know. They'll see it and want to know where I got it since the paperback is hard to find and truth be told, I won mine for helping a chef at Le Cordon Bleu. She has great taste in books.

The big awkward about going all the way to Paris for a bread competition is this: I don't know a soul. Most of the world's best bakers have thrown flour together for years. I picture them glad-handing, back-slapping and standing each other to a glass of bubbles as they call out "Tchin-tchin!" in perfect French.

There I'll be, wearing a book, standing apart and looking pasty. I am prepared to discuss, if asked, my favorite recipes in the book. See those little twists above? They are Gateaux au Poivre - pepper cakes. Clayton called them tiny twisted golden wreaths of yeast-raised dough, speckled with pepper and formed around your index finger. They have the 3 attributes that are good to have in bread: great taste, quick turn and ease of execution.

These cakes can translate into an appetizer (I imagine weaving in strips of proscuitto), and they freeze well, too. I battered them with Grains of Paradise, a spice my Denver sister introduced at Thanksgiving. She claims Alton Brown uses it in his apple pie as his secret ingredient. Some day I'll tell you about Karen Berner's "Real Deal" apple pie and why I think it stands above all others. Karen is Food Editor at Taste of Home magazine, but don't let me digress on how good the Real Deal really is.

Shoving thoughts back to Grains of Paradise, it's also known as alligator pepper, atar, baking pepper, Guinea pepper, melegueta pepper and Roman pepper and is native to the coast of West Africa, according to its label. Find it at savoryspiceshop.com. And since I'm giving out pointers, dash over to Crate and Barrel for their mini pepper grinder, to fill with the Grains of Paradise. Perfect size, perfect price ($5.95) and good at reducing paradise to manageable heaven.

Racing onward toward more thoughts of flavor, consider the Pain d'Epice from Clayton's book, with similar attributes and made fragrant by the use of anise seed. Learn more about anise in the December issue of Taste of Home magazine. I wrote the headline, "Almighty Anise," while I was externing there and so if anybody asks about anise, I'm prepared to remark on how the Romans broke anise cakes over the heads of their brides for good luck. The result of this aromatic bread infused with anise, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, rum and orange rind  reminds me of Swedish Limpa Bread.

One last tout to a jaunty bread that's ready the same day and easy to make. Judith Jones in "The Book of Bread" describes Earl Grey Tea Rolls. The use of tea and lime zest will surprise you; I prefer the smokier Lapsang Souchong tea and an extra squeeze of lime juice along with the zest, but taste as you go and see what you think.

Bread flavored with pepper, anise and tea are good ideas on how to increase flavor without proofing and retarding dough for days and hours on end to fully develop the essence locked inside the various flours you use. Only think of what the Coupe bakers will know, if I can just get them to open their bouche.

Bread Stenciling: Do That Not This

Did you ever think you could do something and tried it, looked at it and thought "what was I thinking?" That's how it is with stenciling bread. I thought if I took a template from a Hawaiian quilt pattern, cut it out and laid it over the bread, I would have a marvelous design the world would embrace as pure genius. (I still believe in the concept.)

Lucky for you I made all the mistakes up front with my ukulele pattern, so you don't have to.

Here's how I will scale the pinnacle of success next time:

1. Cover the proofing basket with cloth to diminish effect of flour rings. Rings just distract from the template design.
2. Learn from YouTube video on how to stencil bread. You don't add water, butter or egg wash to the bread surface, apparently, to make the flour stick. For the reverse view on this, shift over to The Fresh Loaf for a discussion on why some people do mist the bread.
3. Don't use your hands to glom the flour over the stencil, creating rustic volcanic fissures. Use a small sieve and gently tap the flour onto the stencil.
4. Score the bread. At least that way you control the splits in the crust.

Or how about this: Rise up and go watch the artisan masters and learn from the best in the world. That's my next scheme. I'm jumping across the pond to the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie March 3-7 in Paris. This is the Olympics of bread, and you can follow Team USA: Harry Peemoeller on artistic design (keeping my eyes on his hands r.e. stenciling), Mike Zakowski for baguette and specialty breads and Jeremy Gadouas for viennoiserie. Shout out to the Bread Bakers Guild of America for telling me all about it. Read more about the Europain trade show going on during the Coupe for a look at how Europe rolls. My plan is to attend said Coupe and Europain, tour bakeries and make the devoted pilgrimage to the palace of wisdom, Poilane Bakery, in five days.

All right oui, so Paris is a long way to go to embrace a loaf of bread when we have Empire Baking in Dallas, Central Market, Whole Foods and Eatzi's, to name a few fine loafers, but where will I find the best breadmakers from the USA gathered in one spot in a fabulous location? This is a "gotta go," dump everything else from the bucket list and get thee to hallowed ground strategic planning. They'll talk to me, won't they?

Why not? I'm an amateur with a heart full of flour.

Bread Sculpture

Behold, my rooster, perched majestically next to our head chef's sugar work at culinary school. (I like to think he comes to life when no one's watching and pecks his neighbor.)

Why did I make a bread rooster, an inedible one at that? Because the world's greatest pastry chef (you know who you are) offered to show me how to do it. I recently spent a Saturday morning glomming this rooster together from pieces of baked bread dough, using isomalt as the glue. Isomalt is a sugar substitute, a type of sugar alcohol that when heated to 300 degrees has excellent stickability similar to hot glue.

I am no sculptress, ask anybody, but something about this felt like Play-Doh. We weren't getting a grade on it, and there was no time limit for presenting to the chef. It was a chance just to play with dough, and it felt fantastic.

I had asked for this special class outside of class, because our curriculum doesn't cover bread sculpture and who knows, somebody might need a showpiece in this new economy we live in, I don't know. I live in hope.

Meanwhile, I did complete two original recipe entries for the California Raisins competition. Here's a glimpse of Blackbird Bun and Pain au Raisin. Done, gone, and in the hands of the U.S. mail.

Toque's off to the pastry chef who encouraged me to work on this lengthy project - the same one who taught the bread sculpture class. This journey is worth the sticky hands and the floury eyebrows.

It is my raison d'etre.

Inside Singing Wheat Kitchen

What does Singing Wheat Kitchen look like, the place where I hurl the flour, splash berry gelee on the floor and stir the pots till they splutter and hiss with promise? Singing Wheat is my kitchen, to be sure, with a sink and an old stove that barely qualify as equipment. It is a kitchen where anything happens, but it's something more.

Singing Wheat is a state of mind, not a workspace or horrors, a cubicle. It's a playroom and a tearoom like Nancy Drew used to visit when she was out chasing clues. You wouldn't think it a suitable space for a baking & patisserie student like I, not with those Persian rugs on the floor and a piano in the corner.

Singing Wheat used to be part of a garage, but we made it over. Notice the antique secretary with the blue-on-white plates? Gives the room a sense of timeless beauty. There are many oddities that find a place here. There are assorted leftovers of 1930s Fiesta ware, a non-singing cuckoo clock, a collection of cobalt blue glassware in a window, an antique turtle table with a marble top, which is where the bread dough hangs.

The family kitchen queens who came before me saved everything - assorted pitchers large and small, Depression era crockery, ice picks, silver service, even children's tea sets. There are white linens that make you think of The French Laundry. Crystal sherbet glassware. Candelabra. Tattered cookbooks. It's all here, with fresh flowers some days, and often, whacking good bread.

I go in there every day, but I'm never sure what will come out. Today it's a twist on herb bread, two twists, made with rosemary, thyme and basil from the garden. Tomorrow, maybe cream roses, or a fresh batch of diminutive madeleines. I never know, I just let the whim carry me off.

As I child I was given a chemistry set, now I have my own lab, a gentle place of aromas. Experiments. Poetic crusts. Drop in, we're always open on days ending in why.

(Photo by John H. Ostdick, Singing Wheat's Chef de Partie)

Daily Bread Part II

It's Spring Break at culinary school, which gives me time to fling flour and try out a few ideas worthy of play-dough. I love the tip from the book Tartine Bread to try baking loaves in a Dutch oven. Author Chad Robertson said the cast iron would give the bread a soft interior and a crunchy exterior - it's just the right vehicle so you can preserve moisture inside the baking loaf. This means you no longer have to use the cast iron skillet under the baking loaves, throwing water in the hot skillet to create a sort of steaming effect. Pfish. The steam always seems to escape before I can what-ho the oven door.

To use the Dutch oven in an oven, all you do is plop the dough in the vessel, slash the loaf top and cover with lid. What could be simpler?

The boule comes out with a marvelous shape, too. It looks like this.

I have another pile of dough rising right now that's headed for the Dutch oven, Pain de Campaigne Poilane, Poilane's Peasant Bread. Nothing has ever compared with Poilane bread from Paris. I don't know if they still do this, but there was a time that you could have a loaf FedExed from Europe France to your house. And I did. It's that good. This is not the place for me to go into the history of Poilane, but suffice it to say that when an author claims to have a recipe of Poilane's, I like to give it a go.

This particular version comes from a book published a few centuries back, 1978-ish. The book is called "The Breads of France" by Bernard Clayton Jr., which appears to have been updated for release in 2004 with Patricia Wells. Good for you, Bernard! I'm working from the old version and having a decided run of luck. The author spent time traveling the byways of France and digging out bread recipes the rest of us have no access to. For instance, he writes about the use of old ship blankets to cover the French rolls aboard the passenger liner the S.S. France, which is no longer seaworthy. Unless you got aboard and worked with the boulangers as monsieur did, then you have no access to the petits pains or stories about rolls cloaked in old woolen blankets. I made the rolls, and they are good as golden. The ship is no longer working, but the rolls do.

Another recipe in the book, called Pain Brie Normande, is a must-do this week, because when would I feel like beating dough with a rolling pin for 10 minutes while in school? You beat the dough. You hit it firmly and repeatedly with authority. It's a pummeling sort of process that requires a striking repose. I must know how this turns out. I also want to try the Gatueau Basque - not a bread, not a cake nor a pie, but something of all three with pastry cream and cherries, too. Who has time for such baking romance when human resources management is next up at school, in a class called "hospitality"? All in good time.

Meanwhile, you know those chocolates twists they have at Amy's Bread in The Village, NYC, USA? They can be yours if you venture inside "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread."  I did as part of Spring Break, and have been guzzling them ever since, though they're secured in the freezer under leftover crepes from International Patisserie class and my final practical loaf of nuts, cheese and cranberry from breads class. I  recommend that you choose a good high-quality chocolate instead of the bittersweet baking chocolate I found lurking in the pantry, masquerading as a staple.

Heavens, I've just eaten one twist too many. Hoist the rolling pin! Bring out the Normandy dough!

Daily Bread

What are you reading? Answer, The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. Why? It's a quest. I'm always in search of how to get more flavor out of the flour. These two books are good road maps for the journey.

Friends know I'm loaf loony. They want me to teach how to make good bread. Mon dieu, I'm still trying to figure it out.

One thing I know: Better bread doesn't come in a day. Oui, you can find recipes that simply explain how to mix flour, water, salt and yeast for a bread you can eat in a few hours. In fact, my first bread book was a gift from Dear Val, called Judith Olney on Bread. If you're just starting out with home-baked breads and you're impatient, Olney is there for you. Get started.

The day will come, though, when you ask yourself why the bread doesn't taste earthier, deeper, like artisan breads. Stroll into Poilane on the rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris, open le bouche and you'll know what I mean. Better bread is made over time, certainly more than a day, and with advanced skills at understanding the use of clock, temperature and ingredients. This is why I have trouble with my friends, who want a demo class that's sure-fire. That would take a few days, a bread camp, maybe. I don't presume to know everything about how to get the best results, but I'm willing to eat my way through it.

Years ago after Olney, I jumped into The Village Baker by Joe Ortiz and have never looked back. Ortiz and his wife, Gayle, have a bakery in Capitola, Calif., and have made countless pilgrimages to bakeries in France, Italy and Germany to learn the true heart of artisan baking in the European traditions. They have done the hard part for you.

Aha! Thought I, reading how Joe learned to "build" his pre-ferments (bread dough starters) over several days. See, it takes time to build flavor, I knew it all along.

Joe's book still has an honored spot on the shelf near my stove, along with Gayle's book The Village Baker's Wife, with a great collection of croissant and pastry recipes. Next to those, I added Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Right now I'm baking off recipes from 3 of the aforementioned books, just to compare taste, crust, crumb and aroma - Pain de Campagne, Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat and Whole-Wheat Bread with a Multigrain Soaker. Doing this while eating handfuls of bread pudding from Commander's Palace that we made in class last week. Bread, always bread.

The moral of all this bread talk is - work it. Find recipes and try them out. Listen to what these knowledgeable and passionate experts know about grains, weather conditions and yes, math. Follow your bouche, and your nose.

Get your hands doughy.

Goodnight, bread. (Vermont Sourdough loaf and rolls in Singing Wheat Kitchen)

Friction Factor in Bread

Do you remember me saying that water temperature for dough was an important bit of breadology I learned at school? I burrowed into one of the textbooks and found a reasonable explanation of how to figure out the temperature your water should be when making bread for best results.

It goes like this:

1. Let's assume you want your final dough temperature (final meaning after it's mixed) to be 80 degrees. Why 80? Because dough that is too warm or too cool won't behave predictably and move through the 12 steps of dough production in a manner that suggests uniformity and professionalism.

So multiply 80 by 3 (assuming here that you aren't using a preferment as a starter. If you are, multiply by 4). It's a fixed rule. Use 3 in this case.

2. 80 x 3 = 240.

3. Now using your thermometer, take a temperature of the flour and the room, plus 20 degrees to allow for the friction caused by mixing (there is a way to calculate this number, but let's keep things simple for starters). Say the flour comes out to 68 and the room is 72, and the friction is 20. What should the water temperature be for your dough?

4. 68 + 72 + 20 = 160. Now subtract 160 from 240 like this: 240-160 = 80.

5. 80 degrees is the number you want your water to be before you add it to the dough.

Please don't get all analytical here and say "hey, you started with the number 80, so why not just go with 80?" Well because frankly, the room and the flour were fairly warm in this example. Suppose the room was ghastly scorching, or you had stored your flour in the fridge. You need to take those conditions into account to get the best result for your bread.

Not to preach but ingredients cost money, so why throw good money after a bad result? The equation above gets interesting when you have to make the water very cold, because it flies in the face of what you've thought all along about yeast needing a sort of balmy bath water in which to spring to life.

And speaking of yeast, keep it simple, too. In general, use no more yeast than is necessary in the recipe. Adding more yeast will not improve the flavor, quite the opposite. It will speed up fermentation, but that can be a bad thing. When it's too fast, the dough doesn't develop the depth of flavor you're looking for.

Long, slow and cool is what you want.

Bread Alone

I am eating handfuls of foccacia from the freezer, and to throw in a few more "f's," I am feeling fit to be fried. That is because we have to change our longstanding email addresses and switch our ISP package. One doesn't think how connected we are to those little email addresses until they vanish. And then voila; you are spending hours cleaning house on your email folders, notifying friends and eating fistfuls of old bread that once was good about four months ago. Switching tactics from whining to wonder of everything, let me refresh with a few Twizzlers and try a different outlook.

This fall I had a marvelous and gifted Chef Instructor for the breads and viennoiserie class. Although I added several new burn to my arms - they might as well be tats - I learned incredibly good things about bread. I've always had a strong and passionate relationship with bread of all shapes and sizes - but I didn't know that in each loaf, there are secret relationships that make large differences in outcome, just like life. All bread is based on relationships between flour and everything else. Salt and yeast have a relationship; sugar and protein, butter and eggs, it goes on and on. Each ingredient affects another in such unusual ways that you could spend your whole six weeks just looking at reactions in mixing bowls, our version of the petri dish. Each of these relationships has a percentage tied to the weight of the flour.  I'm not here to explain how this works; for that you can read in Peter Reinhart's book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." 

Just know that with the following percentages of ingredients, you can create an original bread recipe that is unique to your household:

Ingredient Levels

Flour 100%
Hydration (such as water)  65-70%
salt 1.8-2.25%
fresh yeast 1.2%
sugar 0-15%
fat 0-15%
herbs 0-1%
nuts/seeds 0-20%
dried fruit/cheese 0-20%

You're thinking Mama Mia, where are you going with this? Here's how it works in baking. Using the weight of the flour in your recipe, you can calculate how many ounces each OTHER ingredient should weigh in order for the bread to come out right. Some recipes don't have fat and sugar, herbs and nuts, and that's fine. But if you want them in your recipe, you need to add them in correct proportions for the best outcome.

One of our class projects required us to create an original recipe, using the structure of math percentages, and to use only ingredients from an approved list. I loved it. Such a challenge made you think about the relationships and how best to work them. How do you actually DO the math?

I'll tell you how. Decide the percentage of each ingredient (except the flour; it is always 100% or, if you're using more than one flour in the recipe, must add up to 100%) you want in your recipe. Base your numbers on the percentage ranges I just gave you above. Now add up all the percentage numbers in your recipe to get a total baker's percent. For example, if we used all the highest numbers from the list above, the total would come to: 229.45%.

That is your total baker's percent. Now what? Well, how many ounces of dough do you want to make? Let's just choose a number, say, 60 ounces of dough. OK, it's simple division from here. Divide 60 by the total baker's percent, 2.2945 (remember, you have to move the decimal over 2 places to the left when turning the percent number into something you can plug into a calculator). The result is: 26.15 (rounding up to the 100th place).

What does 26.15 stand for? That's the weight of the flour in your new recipe. From there, you multiply that flour weight number by each of the ingredient percentages to get your recipe weights. For example: 1.00 (100% times 26.15) = 26.15, and that's your flour weight. Now take salt at 2.25%, or .0225 x 26.15 = .59. And that is the weight of your salt in ounces. Grab a scale and you're ready to go.

Did I mention we weigh all our ingredients? Now repeat the math step, multiplying each percentage by the flour weight and fill in all your new numbers for weights. Easy, yes? If I can do it, it can be done.

Baker's percent was one of the most outstanding and useful lessons I learned - and there's another one to know about. Friction math. Yes, the impact of heat from friction on mixing dough. I always thought that the water in which you proof the yeast should be like baby's bathwater, not too warm but not too cool. Turns out this is WRONG. Sometimes the water needs to be cold!

Why, you say? Think about it: You can't do much about the air temp or the ingredient temps, but you can alter the warmth or coolness of the water you add. And if you can control the temperature of your final dough such that it falls between, say, 75 and 78 degrees, it will always perform in a predictable way that results in a good ending. To do so, you need to take into account the air temperature, flour temperature, even the temperature created in a mixing bowl by the process of mixing - the friction temperature- before you know how cool or warm the water you use should be.

I was going to try and explain how to calculate the friction factor, but you know what? Here's information on how to calculate the temperature your water should be.

Play with it. And when you're through mixing your dough, take its temperature and see where you land.

Play dough.

Bread in Santa Fe

Some people seek the turquoise, others the high-end art and the funky clothing and cowboy boots. Me, I go shopping for bread when I'm in Santa Fe, the City Different. What am I doing in Santa Fe when I'm supposed to be in culinary college? I'm looking for bread, of course, examining how things get plated, tasting laminations, that sort of thing. It's summer break, n'est-ce pas?

Here are two delightful pieces from Clafoutis, a French patisserie on Guadalupe Street within walking distance of the plaza. A local told us about it, so we sailed in and waltzed out with some pain au chocolat and a croissant. Here they are, resting on a plate made by the skillful hands of porcelain gallery owner Heidi Loewen. That's how things work here. One moment you're hearing French spoken in a high, lilting voice over the bakery counter, and then you're just a few strolls down the street, watching clay become a handcrafted bowl of exquisite design.

Heidi's work looked so delicious, it felt important to give her the bread as a token of appreciation.

Our morning actually began at Sage Bakehouse on Cerrillos Road, a bakery I always try to visit when I'm in town. I love the chili cheese bread and the rustic, hearty nature of the loaves. It's good to know that Santa Fe can support both French pastry and artisanal breads - it doesn't have to be one lording it over the other.

Lunch at Restaurant Martin produced another discovery - their excellent organic bread comes from Albuquerque. I'm told that the restaurant Aqua Santa on Alameda makes its own, but we didn't quite get there.

I ended up going back to Clafoutis for breakfast and was delighted with the plating of the coconut French toast with fruit, lovingly squirted with a ripple of chocolate so you could swish your berries in the chocolate sauce. C'est mervellieux.

Here you see the happy toast, and below is a shot of co-owner Anne and her daughter, Charlotte. They'll greet you in French, which seems just so right with morning latte and sunshine in the City Different.

Fruit tart, anyone? Meringues? Eclairs? So many choices, so little time.

Bread for My Friends

Today in the Singing Wheat Kitchen I wrapped my arms around bread, because tonight is the annual "just the women" cocktail party on our neighborhood street. You've got to hoist something to the communal table, and I'm not one to make rum balls. I like a handcrafted bread you can dip into an herb-infused olive oil or top with a fine Montenebro from Molto Formaggio, our house of cheese in Dallas. Gimme the salty over the sweetie any day.

I wonder if the scent of baking bread slips through the cracks in our doors and windows and fills our street with irresistible aromas? Just yesterday a neighbor stopped in to place an order for croissants and crackers for a big party on Saturday. I'm not open for business, but my door is open for my gal friends, and from there it's an easy stroll to the kitchen, where dough can change hands. Anyone who has a passionate love for bread will get served.

I was on a mission to see what happens if you take the dough from the Pain a l'Ancienne recipe found in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and stuff it with proscuitto and pepper. This dough is a real hands-off kind of heavy dough that doesn't want much manual labor. It is supposed to stay in a gassy, bloated state. I'm crazy about this recipe because most of the work happens in the fridge, and the taste results are absolutement wonderful, like fresh bread for Madeline and Miss Clavell in their old house in Paris. You can freeze it or bake it off as a pizza, a baguette or a fine square of foccacia.

I won't really know the end results of the "proscuitto and pepper" experiment until I cut the baguettes into rounds for the cocktail party. First glimpse looks good, though. I did drop one of the baguettes in the oven - it rolled off the back of the inverted cookie sheet I was using, just rolled off. With quick hands, I hefted it back in place, spritzed everything with water and slammed the door. You can't let a minor slip define your success.

Here is a Pain a l'Ancienne recipe that is available via the web but is absolutely Peter Reinhart's work. And what marvelous work he does.

Soup's On

Jeanne's, what's on your stove today?

It's a wintry day in Dallas and for this, I like a hearty soup and loaves of fresh bread that can fill the air with warm aromas, promoting the senses that all is well. If you're facing high winds (as I know they are in Tennessee, according to the warnings for the Smoky Mountains region), a cold drizzling rain without the hint of snow or even a certain mistful feeling due to waning twilight, get out your big knife and get into a good roasted red pepper and eggplant soup. The one featured in Bon Appetit takes time and effort, but the results are a spoonful of something wonderful.

This soup is thick, it's loaded with veggies, it makes a goodly large batch to freeze or share with friends. It is a very charming soup - but do allow enough time to work your way through it. You'll be chopping eggplants, red bell peppers, leeks, onions, garlic and fresh herbs, but you'll feel thankful in the end.

There was real flour power in the Singing Wheat Kitchen today - I took dough from the Pain a l'Ancienne recipe featured in the "Bread Baker's Apprentice" book, made two baguettes and knocked back two balls of dough for the freezer (for future pizza dough) and set two more balls in the fridge to make foccacia tomorrow. What a wonderful, versatile bread dough for dividing and conquering. The baguettes turned out very rustic-looking but tasted marvelous, like French bread. They would be even more terrific if loaded with pepper and proscuitto. I must try this.

The bread recipe recommends using a plastic dough scraper, so I hauled my boots over to Sur La Table and nearly swooned with all the goodies they've got on their shelves for the holidays. If you're looking for Christmas ornaments shaped like wheels of cheese, an espresso machine or peas in a pod, this is the place. I had to force myself to focus on the scraper and look straight ahead, neither to the left or right. Have you seen the colors they're doing on immersion blenders these days?

You can work in a quick trip like that if you're allowing the dough to rise, but don't overdue it. Don't get lost in a Whole Foods aisle on the way home, browsing the chocolate like it's research.

Get back home and get the chopping done for the soup. Once those flavors are in the pot and filling the air, you can butter up your bread knowing that the soup's on, the day is done and good things will happen.

(Photo: Loafing around at Home Slice Bakery in Dubois, Wyoming. By John H. Ostdick)

Christmas in Connecticut

This time of year I love to go into my gleaming kitchen and pop in a tape of Christmas in Connecticut. Watching Barbara Stanwyck try to fake her way through a career in food writing lifts my spirits, and my bread dough seems to enjoy her capers. It always rises to this occasion. In another life, I actually had my Christmases in Connecticut, and none of it looked like anything depicted in the film, but who wouldn't be drawn to a horse-drawn sleigh and a home with a fireplace taller than the Christmas tree? I've never had a boss like Sydney Greenstreet - the publishing lions just weren't that entertaining - nor an Uncle Felix who owned a restaurant around the corner who could bring me mushroom omelets while I worked.

Sigh, I love this black and white and tinseled version of the holidays. Christmas always looks more beautiful in black and white, I don't know why.

Just the other day I was taking a whirl at making a pain de mie I'd seen Julia Child do on television. To get the loaf rectangular, or sandwich-shaped, Julia placed a cookie sheet on top of the pan and a brick on top of that to keep the dough from rising in the oven.

For this I knew I better watch Ms. Stanwyck try again to fool the public with her Martha Stewart expertise. As dough cleaved to my fingers, I heard her say "I took crisp lettuce, romaine, and crinkly endive from my own garden for my husband’s favorite salad. For this I made a rich, creamy blue cheese dressing." Oh my! She was growing her own salad greens, just like we encourage today. This isn't a new concept. And it was during the war years, so rationing made gardening a good idea.

Oh wait, she wasn't really doing it, she was inferring she was doing it. Barbara, Barbara. You don't really have a horse-drawn sleigh at your beck and call either, do you?

Some of the lines in the movie get past me, for example, I have no idea what a potage Mongol and a roast goose Bernoise with walnut stuffing are - and that's for a Connecticut Christmas dinner. I did a swift search on the web and found a blog called "Cooking With the Movies," and Leischa! What do you think? They've got a good overview of all the dishes mentioned in Christmas in Connecticut.

Why did I show an image of my Christmas cactus on top of my sister's skater skirt (really from Christmas in Connecticut), instead of Barbara Stanwyck flipping flapjacks on Christmas morning? Because images of Hollywood stars, whether they are real housewives who cook or not, are rights protected.

I gotta dash. I think there's a horse-drawn sleigh outside with a driver, some jingle bells and a quick exit strategy. I'll be back, though. I have more favorite holiday movies to flip through.