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Quote by Lionel Poilane

“What many bakers don't realise is that good wheat can make bad bread. The magic of bread baking is in the manipulation and the fermentation. What has been lost....is this method.”

Quote by Lionel Poilane

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Lionel Poilane

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“Sourdough isn't only for bread. Any grain-based baked good- from crackers to waffles, from muffins to pasta, can be made with a wild yeast starter. Why would the home baker want to incorporate sourdough into their regular baking? First, it's an excellent way to use the starter you remove during feedings. Instead of throwing the excess in the trash, add it to your pancake batter or chocolate chip cookies. Second, a sourdough starter is an ecosystem of wild yeasts and beneficial bacteria that work together to add B-vitamins to grains, to break down gluten for better digestion, and to neutralize phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. In other words, it's good for you. And finally, because sourdough eventually becomes a way of life. Experimenting with different ways of using it is one of the most satisfying aspects of using wild yeast in your kitchen.”

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Book:Stones For Bread
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“Sourdough causes certain endocrine glands to secrete hormones that affect your feelings and behavior by making you happy. Therefore, it counteracts depression, in turn reducing the stress of depression. Your stress-free life helps you maintain a youthful disposition, both physically and mentally. So, eat lots of sourdough bread! - I'll be honest, I stole a quote about chocolate, but I'm sure it still counts!”

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Author:Chris Geiger
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“Chicken Francese, or lamb chops, or plump spinach gnocchi that she'd roll out by hand and drop into boiling salt water. When her brothers came home for the holidays, she'd spend days in the kitchen, preparing airy latkes and sweet and sour brisket; roast turkey with chestnut stuffing; elaborately iced layer cakes. She'd stay in the kitchen for hours, cooking dish after dish, hoping that all the food would somehow conceal their father's absence; hoping that the meals would take the taste of grief out of their mouths. "After my father died, I think cooking saved me. It was the only thing that made me happy. Everything else felt so out of control. But if I followed a recipe, if I used the right amounts of the right ingredients and did everything I was supposed to do..." She tried to explain it- how repetitive motions of peeling and chopping felt like a meditation, the comfort of knowing that flour and yeast, oil and salt, combined in the correct proportions, would always yield a loaf of bread; the way that making a shopping list could refocus her mind, and how much she enjoyed the smells of fresh rosemary, of roasting chicken or baking cookies, the velvety feel of a ball of dough at the precise moment when it reached its proper elasticity and could be put into an oiled bowl, under a clean cloth, to rise in a warm spot in the kitchen, the same step that her mother's mother's mother would have followed to make the same kind of bread. She liked to watch popovers rising to lofty heights in the oven's heat, blooming out of their tins. She liked the sound of a hearty soup or grain-thickened stew, simmering gently on a low flame, the look of a beautifully set table, with place cards and candles and fine china. All of it pleased her.”

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Book:That Summer
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“What's on the menu for tomorrow?" I ask. "Celery root soup with bacon and green apple. And bean and Swiss chard." "Why don't you ever do something normal, like chicken noodle?" Gretchen asks. "If you want that, buy a can," Tee says, stirring the creamy goodness in her speckled enamelware pot. Gretchen begins preparing for the morning. I hover, watching, though by now she knows what to do. She'll make the dough for the soup boules, challahs, sticky buns, and Friday's featured sandwich loaf, cinnamon raisin. I start the poolish- a pre-fermented dough- for my own seven-grain Rustica as she weighs the flour and fills the stand mixer. The machine wheezes, rocking a little too much, as it spins the ingredients together. It's old and will need to be replaced soon. Vintage, Gretchen calls it.”

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Book:Stones For Bread
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“Cecelia and Seamus both have a day off, Columbus Day, and I invite them to the bakehouse for... well, for no reason in particular at all. They show up mid afternoon while my hands are varnished with molasses and rye because I have it in my mind to tweak my mother's pumpernickel formulas. While I respect dark breads, I'm not a particular fan of eating them. I know I should offer the classic at least weekly, though, so I first find and then photocopy the pages in my mother's journals where she'd kept notes about her adventures in pumpernickel bread. She has three versions- one using the crumbs of stale rye bread, one with a hint of cocoa powder, and one featuring a commercial yeast booster- all of them with ingredients I want for my own version, and also with this and that I plan to eliminate.”

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Book:Stones For Bread
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“I spend the day finalizing the seed bread and also making a variation with dried sour cherries, which add a lovely sweet-and-sour tang and yield a loaf that would be equally delicious topped with cheese or slathered in fresh jam. Since both loaves will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator, I leave half of each in Natasha's fridge and decide I'll take the rest home with me. In my head, I'm already concocting uses for both: a smoked trout spread for the plain version, and a whipped vanilla-bean ricotta for the one with cherries.”

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Book:Too Many Cooks
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“Within weeks of ownership, I invested in two used industrial mixers and a brand-new stone deck oven, and branched out from bagels to my personal passion: leaven bread. We make the basics like baguettes, ciabatta, pagnotta, whole wheat, rye and sourdough. But I love to experiment. Custom orders for chocolate-cherry pumpernickel and piñon-nut queso blanco con mango whole wheat garnered so many requests they quickly became store staples along with gourmet delights like bittersweet chocolate croissants, bourbon pecan cinnamon rolls and focaccia pizzas. Friends call my creations the haute couture of bread-making.”

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Book:Icing on the Cake
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