Thank Jeebus, I finally have some client billable work, and since work is the gooey center that validates my life (but I like to sneak away and fool around with my sultry mistress, Tivo, who is now happily humming away wirelessly - also, there's someone in my building who has a wireless network they call "whore") this current development has made me loosen up and decompress a little bit. And on my way to work today I began thinking that maybe I ought to get a religion - one of those real ones that's put down on paper and includes other people, instead of a potpourri of convenient personal superstitions like I have right now - to help fill some of my extra time.
My favorite baguette recipe is simple and easy to remember: 10 oz AP flour, 1/2 tsp yeast, 1/2 tsp sea salt (use a little more if it's coarser grain - 3/4 tsp for table salt), 6 oz 110F water (this is the low end, up to 7 oz for a really loose dough). Make one batch of the dough 3 days ahead of time. Store it in the fridge, in a bag (preferably one that doesn't impart off flavor). Cut up the old dough (pate fermentee) and put it in your Kitchenaid brand stand mixer. Then put the same ingredients - 10 oz flour, 6 oz 110F water, 1/2 tsp sea salt and instant yeast - in there (THIS RECIPE IS RECURSIVE! DOES THAT FREAK YOU OUT?). Mix on speed 4 with a dough hook for 10-12 minutes (dough should be tacky). Let it double, but refrigerating it overnight yields nice flavor development. I only make one 16 oz loaf and reserve the remaining 16 oz for the next time I make it (typically the next day). Shape the dough, preheat oven to 450. Let oven preheat for an hour, while the dough rises. Bake it a stone with improvised steam production for 20-25 minutes. When you pull it from the oven the internal temperature will be 200-205F.
(P.S. to myself - you need to buy groceries at some point in the near future)
The Mystery Bag game. I carry the same bag with me almost wherever I go. What's in it right now? A yellow legal pad. McSweeney's 12. An alumni magazine, that continues to bore me with uninspired alumnotes. About 60 Halls brand mentholyptus flavored cough drops. Chopsticks, unused. 3 floppy disks, 2 have data on it from a project I worked on about 3 months ago when I couldn't connect to my work's VPN. Bunch of pens and pencils - 15 or so. A wool and flannel hat, that my old roommate would call a "tobaggon". Gloves. A Rubik's cube. And up until I bothered to look for something in my bag, there were 3 bills in stamped envelopes that I forgot to take out and mail last week, which scared the crap out of me because I'm kind of actually really anal about money things.
