Added later (29 Oct 2017): I actually did move my blog here.
I am planning to move my blog here [nat.familykuhn.net]. Stay tuned! Nat
Bread-Making Equipment (with occasional remarks on technique, and a couple of edits, 3 years later)
Compared to photography, or opera, or boating, bread-making is a pretty inexpensive hobby. Nevertheless, there is a somewhat dizzying array of implements available to help (and sometimes hinder) you, all available in a vast range of prices. Many of the implements have fancy French names, and come to think of it, if you figure it on a per-fancy-French-name basis, bread-making must be about the cheapest hobby there is.
This post describes the equipment I have settled on at the moment as most helpful for me, with some comments. Continue reading “Bread-Making Equipment (with occasional remarks on technique, and a couple of edits, 3 years later)”
Making Bread with Natural Leavening (Sourdough Starter) Needn’t Be Complex or Time-Consuming
OK, let’s get a few things out of the way. I don’t really like to call bread made with natural leavening “sourdough” because a lot of people immediately turn off, saying, “I don’t like sourdough bread.” Naturally leavened bread doesn’t necessarily taste sour. The phrase “naturally leavened” is a little leaden and pedantic, so I instead favor the French word “levain,” which sounds pretentious and, uh, pedantic. Oh well, “You pays your money and you takes your choice,” as they say. “Starter” works pretty well when it’s not ambiguous.
Here are the top six reasons why I bake bread using natural leavening, in rough order of importance:
1. It tastes better.
2. It tastes better.
3. It tastes better.
4. It stays fresh longer.
5. It is healthier (lower glycemic index).
It seems amazing and delightful to me that the only store-bought ingredients in my bread are flour and salt. The water comes from the tap and the yeast comes from the starter, and ever-renewable resource.
Helpful Books on Bread Baking
tl;dr (that’s internet for “executive summary”): If you want to make really good bread with minimal effort, go for Jim Lahey. If you want the next step after that, so you can make great bread with a bit more effort, go for Ken Forkish.
This post discusses some of the bread books I’ve used, and the pluses and minuses I’ve found. I hope it’s of interest to you, and if you decide to buy any of them I hope you’ll use the links here, because Amazon says they will give me a small kickback.
Continue reading “Helpful Books on Bread Baking”
Why I Bake Bread Using a Scale, and You Should Too
I am doing some posts about my adventures in baking bread, including some recipes, and I realized that I have become completely attached to weighing ingredients rather than using measuring cups. So the first recipe had volume measurements but if you try that and want to keep following you will need to get a scale. Continue reading “Why I Bake Bread Using a Scale, and You Should Too”
A Purely Geometric Proof that the Square Root of Two is Irrational—With a Couple of Bonus Side-Trips
Lots of proofs are based on simple ideas, but get bogged down in notation or exposition that doesn’t bring out the salient points, as if the soloists and all the members of the choir were singing at equal volume.
Sometimes some warm-ups can help people understand what is essential in a proof and what is extra. They can help the simplicity of an idea shine through.
So the first warm-up is a purely geometric proof that the golden ratio is irrational. A number of years ago, I saw such a proof… but the diagram that went with it was laid out on a single line, and it got bogged down in a bunch of notation, and I kind of got it but it certainly didn’t excite me.
Then one day I was looking at my business card and I realized that the proof was right there. When I was designing my business card, I tried to figure out a good logo, and I eventually settled on a golden rectangle and golden spiral:
Making Really Good Bread is Really Easy!
OK, I have been meaning to do this post for almost a year now. In April 2016, I organized a workshop, and had dinner with four out-of-town colleagues afterwards. They asked if I was happy with how it went; I said that I was very happy with the workshop, but I mentioned that I was also happy because the previous week I had finally managed to make a loaf of bread that I was truly pleased with. All four were quite interested, and I thought I should put together a post about it.
I decided to do a demonstration using only equipment that most people have in their kitchens. So I made some videos, but I got distracted and then let it sit until now. Continue reading “Making Really Good Bread is Really Easy!”
Mac Browser Wars… and the winner is: Safari! [oops, not really]
Update not all that long after I wrote this: I discovered that if I don’t keep too many tabs open while I’m also running a Windows virtual machine on VMWare, Chrome does not get so slow, so I’m back to using it, which is nice because I like it a lot more than Safari. So please just ignore this post. Continue reading “Mac Browser Wars… and the winner is: Safari! [oops, not really]”
A (long) Comment on Scott Alexander’s Review of “Unlearn Your Pain”
My son Ben texted me the other day that his favorite blogger, Scott Alexander, had published a post reviewing Howard Shubiner’s book Unlearn Your Pain. Despite being a psychiatry resident, Scott manages to be a prolific writer in areas of interest which appear to be TNTC. Ben knows him through Effective Altruism, and sent me the review because it mentions ISTDP (Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy), the kind of therapy that I do. I had read some of Scott’s other posts with interest, always wishing I had more time to keep up.
I enjoyed the review, and sat down to email a response to Scott, since my thoughts seemed a little long to post as a comment. Scott asked me to post them as a comment anyway, at which point I discovered that his blogging platform agreed with my initial gut feeling. So I am posting them here, and will post a link to this post in the comment section of his review.
Continue reading “A (long) Comment on Scott Alexander’s Review of “Unlearn Your Pain””
OK, how big is a tablespoon, REALLY?
One of the handiest cooking factoids in our crazy US measurement system is that there are 4 tablespoons in a quarter cup. If you are doubling a recipe for a sauce that calls for 2 tablespoons of flour, don’t measure 4 tablespoons, just measure 1/4 cup and you’re all set.
So I was a little surprised when I was looking at a source I consider reliable (Samuel Fromartz’s In Search of the Perfect Loaf, p. 87) to see “Mix 3 tablespoons (30 grams) lukewarm water…” Now, “everyone knows” that a tablespoon is 15 ml, and 1 ml of water weighs a gram, so 3 tablespoons of water should be 45 grams. OK, precision is overrated in cooking, but it is more important in baking, and this is a 50% difference (45 being 50% more than 30), and that is actually significant.
