bread & butter, or 100% whole wheat and lovin' it

First, I decided I love the Poilâne-style Miche I made last week. The BBA recipe notes that Poilâne thinks his bread tastes best on day 3 after the flavors have time to meld. The author, Reinhart, says he likes it 3 hours out of the oven. I agree with Poilâne. I didn't like it much on day one. But on day three, I kept eating more and more. The flavors were more complex and it had retained so much moisture. This is good bread.


it's flat and ugly, but oh, so good

Second, I had some leftover whole wheat from the miche and decided to try a 100% whole wheat bread recipe from Crust & Crumb, an earlier Peter Reinhart book (BBA author). It uses a poolish and has a pretty high water ratio to keep it moist and light, unlike most whole wheat bread which is really dense. Well, this recipe delivers what it promises. This bread is sooooo yummy, so moist, so flavorful; I can't stop eating it. It also has cooked brown rice, which makes for a fantastic texture. I've been eating it with huge chucks of this organic local butter shown below. At the time, I felt a little silly paying a slight premium for this butter, but it's totally worth it. Is there anything better than freshly baked bread and cultured butter?



I'll post the recipe soon, when I have more time (this is beginning to be a trend, aaahh!).