"May your crust be crisp and your bread always rise."

Oh Y'all. 

Operation Avoidance is a go. Yesterday, I pulled out my RUSSIAN NOTES. What was going through my head was a combination of 'I really wish my Russian vocabulary was better. I was really getting quite good. Shame shame,'  and 'WHAT A BUZZ KILL. Only sheer panic will get me to work on this stupid project.' Sounds like me yeah? 

I am being excessively melodramatic (which is so unlike me). I have a simple project that I have to do on Peter Reinhart. They may as well have said, 'Take a look at the books on your shelf. Do a presentation. You may have to bake.' I have had a crush on Peter Reinhart for a while now, ever since I found his bagel recipe on Smitten Kitchen.  He is such a sweet man with such a genuine and unobscured passion for bread. Go to YouTube and type in Peter Reinhart. You will see countless demos of his showing folding techniques, shaping techniques, how to prepare a home oven to bake bread in. He is currently an instructor at Johnson and Wales in Charlotte, North Carolina. I do not go to that school. And thank goodness. Because taking a bread class from Peter Reinhart would be akin to me taking a creative writing class from Margaret Atwood. I think I would die on sight. Which is really so embarrassing, especially when you have questions you wan to ask them and you were trying to make a good impression. My favourite clip of Peter Reinhart, however, is his TedTalk. He found out that he liked to bake bread when he was in Seminary. He was just kicking in Boston with some friars, making their meals for them. And then we thought, "I. Am. The bomb dot com. Let's open a bakery." And so he did. He and his wife, Susan (who I imagine being similarly lovely), started up Brother Juniper's Bakery -Brother Juniper was a friar alongside St. Francis of Assisi. IMAGINE the name dropping. And Brother Juniper's became a BIG DEAL. It was in San Francisco and soon it was supplying the entire Bay Area with his line of breads. 

All of this informed Reinhart's opinion of bread and bread baking. He has this beautiful spirituality about and it comes through in his TedTalk where he parallels the process of bread baking with the spiritual walk and with the internal process. 

After you watch his profoundly spiritual pontifications on bread, you have to watch his Pizza Quest videos. They are hysterical. It is Peter Reinhart, wearing a little red kerchief around his neck, talking to hipster pizza makers in the Castro district in San Francisco about what makes their pizza so good. And some of them are super hipster and too cool about it but some of them have a really genuine passion about making good food for people. And all the while, Peter Reinhart sits there with a huge smile on his face, totally engaged, unfazed by any mention of 'coolness' or performance. 

But now I have to do a presentation and it's got me thinking that I don't have a clue and that everything is going to be awful. I can't just make one of his breads. I have to interpret one of his bread recipes. I have to plate it. WTF. This is not a pastry project. There is no PLATING of bread. You stick it in a basket with maybe some oil to dip it in. And I know which recipe my Chef wants me to make because Peter REinhart is KNOWN for that bread. And my Chef straight up told me that's what she wants me to make. And the girl in the other class already did her Peter Reinhart presentation and hit it out of the park. And now I have to step up to that. Crap. 

Reinhart is known for his bread called, Struan. It is a whole grain bread, out of his book called Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. He came up with a new method of fermentation that breaks down the harsh fibres in whole grains and produces a lighter, better tasting full grain loaf. I have yet to really give it a shot because like I said, I'm AVOIDING him. I don't want to make a loaf of bread like I am known for making here. One that is dense, rubbery and doesn't taste like anything. I find home bread baking so very deflating and I don't want to be deflated right now. I also don't want to go into my presentation blind. And so here I sit. With my Russian notes on my lap. Totally forgot about 'Kookla'. Gonna slip that into conversation tomorrow. 

If you are interested in baking bread at home at all, I highly recommend Peter Reinhart's books. The Bread Baker's Apprentice is easily his best. It is an accessible method and it produces gorgeous artisanal bread. And try his bagels. They are damn fine bagels. And you will feel like a damn fine baker. 

Find a cookbook. One with pretty pictures. Pick one. Make it. Eat it. Like it. Repeat.