giant bubbles that will become holes in the bread. holes as large as the moon.

seal-like little loaves resting in flour.

the biga has risen. here’s the final dough looking more like a batter than a dough. words from the great recipe (from maggie glezer’s “artisan baking across america”: If you are a very talented kneader, your dough will look smooth after about 5 minutes of kneading; if you’re not, it may look like the same mess you started with. Don’t worry about it…”

the meager beginnings of a ciabatta, pre-fermented the way craig ponsford endorses. quicker than this biga will rise, craig will become my new hero of bread making.

except for a trip to japan, where we were guided by our fearless friends m and k through a wilderness of sake, a whole head of lobster, and the ‘mayor’ of kyoto’s wine cellar to emerge, thalasso wrapped, for one last meal at the ultimate ramen master’s humble counter.
first we grazed on hand’s down the largest gyozas known to man kind. giant rats served with onions and red chili sauce.
next there was some discussion about whether we were hard core enough to have our chashu served separate from our noodles. at last he was finally convinced so we were given a separate plate for our pork and one giant bowl of organic chicken broth into which was placed the lovely mound of noodles. then the basket of salt was passed over which was a bamboo basket full of at least fifteen different kinds of salt, from which we were to select a few, making piles on the sides of our placemats and gently sprinkling kernels on top of each noodle before slurping it down.
now, if there’s anyone who needs a heated toilet seat it’s got to be him. m says we should just buy him one, though he’ll probably just take it home instead so we should really just buy him two.

when it seems like no one talks about things they know it’s easier if people just stop writing about what they don’t know.

is the title of my latest book, or at least it should be

the book mentioned below is the one with the asian on the cover. as far as artisan breads go it’s not often an asian comes to mind. apprenticeship, perhaps.