The Sound of Silence

Ciabatta!













Eight Grain Boules

Good bread crust crackles. Now, finally, mine does too.

Pizza is fun and all, but baking hearty whole grains loaves, baguettes, pitas, even some muffins and cookies in the wood fired brick oven is a pleasure. It is a beautiful thing to see a warm glowing fire radiating it's heat, energy and positive vibrations out into our little world at Flying Squirrel. Even more so though, the hands-on process in its entirety seems drawn out in a good way - many steps, yet simple and somehow very old. Who knows if my Eastern European ancestors ever baked their bread this way, but it all seems familiar and already almost part of the normal routine...

Firewood is split, stacked and dried.
A big raging fire licks red flames over the oven dome eating up the wood - a bit scary how fast.
The coals are spread like a blanket of heat.
The insulated oven door is placed.
A night's rest.
The door is removed, ashes raked out, hearth mopped revealing the hot ready firebricks.
Proofed breads are slid onto the hearth from a wooden peel into the dark.
The sound of silence is the moment - no convection oven fan blowing, just quiet oven spring, brown crust forming, just the right mix of smells.
I check the breads, rotate them, tap the crust, wait.
Breads come out onto wooden racks.
The first slice takes a little effort, and though the outer shell is hard, it is crisp, slightly caramelized and not nearly as thick and tough as the electric convection oven results.
There is still a great deal to learn about the process, the innuendos of fire, brick, yeast, water and air.
But I must say...
I'm having fun!

Thanks to Hannah Silverstein who first introduced me to Alan Scott's book The Bread Builders when it was first published in 1999. It took 10 years of dreaming, but now I am finally living the whole dream.













Pita magic is now even more magical!

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What I Did on My Winter Vacation

Work, of course...

More work.





















And more work...mixed with a little fun.















OK. We didn't ONLY do work over the last two weeks....

First, there was a grand party giving thanks to my awesome employees and supportive family during which we all thoroughly enjoyed delicious hand-made wood-fired pizza!

Then, there was a lot of ogling at the incredible full, blue moon.
This was the moon-set on New Year's Day.



































And, we even did a three day escape to Anchorage with movies, ice skating, swimming, and...well, shopping (which for me is work). Sorry, no photos from that adventure.

Now, it's back to work. Not surprisingly, I was tired by the end of the break and wouldn't mind another break from the break! But so it goes. There is bread to be baked, new desserts to test (I got three new baking cook books while in town), an oven to finish and spring to look forward to. Happy 2010!

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Let There Be Light!

'Tis the season of chain store advertising inserts that outweigh the actual newspaper, drunken Christmas soirees, cookie-baking hell (ten varieties are currently available here at Flying Squirrel), holly-berries-on-the-corners-of-everything and famous rock musicians on the radio singing covers of old sappy music. I am a self-admitted bah-humbug who can't wait for the craziness that is December to be overwith for a whole new year ahead.

Sometimes I even get depressed about feeling like, for the most part, I am a sugar pusher. I do love to see the joy on little kids faces when they press their noses against the front of the display case pointing to the gingerbread snowman whose head they are about to bite off. And the intense pleasure the kids in the cooking class got from covering gingerbread houses with sickeningly sweet royal icing and artificially-colored-and-flavored gum drops.

In my soul, I would rather just bake hearty, crusty whole grain bread and develop recipes for honey-sweetened bran muffins and gluten-dairy-corn-and-soy-free everything. What's a bakery to do? This time of year, if you're a bakery, you'd better make things rich and sweet, colorful and cheery or you might lose some of your best customers. Yet half of those best customers drop hints of feeling fat from too many holiday temptations or wish their kids could get a handle on the sugar thing while at the same time they choose the Christmas stollen over the whole wheat baguette or the chocolate-peanut butter bar over the kale and scallion cream cheese fresh veggie wrap.

This happens to me every year. The Alaskan winter is long, cold and dark. I don't get outside enough (note to self: add Vitamin D supplements to town list). And now, despite no television, very few visits to the corporate wedlock between Disney and Walmart that is Wasilla, and two rather agnostic parents, my 3 1/2 year old son is still becoming pretty interested in decorating a Christmas tree, not to mention "that guy in the red suit with a big beard." Even if I had the money to be a "snow bird" and fly away from Alaska for a spell, there would be no escaping the holiday overload (another note to self: research future vacation in a warm climate that doesn't celebrate Christmas, any suggestions?).

OK. I'll try to stop.

The good news is that Soltice is upon us. For Alaskans, this is a big deal. In a couple of days we will be headed the other direction - toward warmer temperatures, toward green growing things, toward gardens and local produce, toward summer, toward midnight sun. So, in honor of Solstice and a new year soon to come, here are a few things that do make me happy...

A little light in the darkness.














The light at the end of the tunnel.
















Always look on the bright side of life.





















Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.















Come on baby light my fire!
















I am very excited to sleep for a few days and then, hopefully have some fun away from the bakery. My goals for the time off include snowshoeing, skiing, ice skating, swimming, movies (haven't been to the movies for almost 4 years!), a thrift store or two, some house cleaning, a year's worth of filing, and much needed family time with Brian and Oliver. After all of that, it will be back to normal, PLUS some of this...















MAY YOUR DAYS BE MERRY AND BRIGHT! Happy holidays and happy New Year to all.

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Kids in the Kitchen OR Ode to Teachers

Every Wednesday is a challenge for me here at the bakery. It's my "Monday" since we're closed on Mondays and Tuesdays right now and there is always a lot to do to fill up the display cases and get fresh pastries, breads and savory lunch items out by noon or so. After two days of sleeping in I'm particularly foggy from waking up at 5am. It's also ordering day so I try to look at lists and what's on the shelves to figure out what we need for the next week or so by the 3pm deadline. But the fun doesn't stop there.

The last few Wednesdays have been complete mayhem. Why? Because somehow I got this idea to invite kids into the kitchen! We've already had four weeks of well attended classes and there will be three more after Thanksgiving. The younger ones, ages 5-8 come from 2-3:30 and the older ones, ages 8-12 from 3:30-5. So far we have made creepy Halloween treats, deviled eggs, homemade granola, sourdough corn cakes, and homemade butter. We have also learned about the basics of kitchen safety, nutrition and pioneer cooking.

On Wednesday at 7pm when we close and there is still the floor to mop, there is a small part of me that says NEVER AGAIN! There is also a big part of me that says THANK YOU to all teachers out there because I could never do this every day and I so appreciate those that have the ongoing energy, persistence and enthusiasm it takes to keep kids interested and engaged and somewhat under control.

Of course, there must be some part of me that enjoys it because I already have about 5 more kids classes I have thought about teaching starting in January, plus endless ideas for cooking classes for adults. In fact, despite the hours of preparation, the pushing and shoving, the "it's MY turn to mix" demands, the spills, the noise, the blank stares, and the "eeeeeew, that's yucky" reactions...teaching is really very rewarding.

All of the kids in my cooking classes are coming because they chose to. So, for the most part, they like to cook. They like to learn. They like to participate. Their enthusiasm for certain things is almost contagious. For example, this week in the Pioneer Cooking class, the work of grinding wheat by hand was a challenge to them and each HAD to have a second try at it to see how much flour they could grind (or to see who was the strongest). I have been pleasantly surprised that some are even excited to help clean up!

Inevitably I am left completely exhausted by the end of the day on Wednesday. My feet hurt. My mouth is dry from so much talking. I wonder if the class was clear, helpful, interesting, fun, memorable or just something else to do after school. I start thinking about the next class (Pizza Day) and what I should prepare for hand-outs, how I should divide up the groups, what might be dangerous and what I should make sure each child gets a chance to try. I ask parents for feedback. I thank my staff for putting up with the mayhem. I thank my family for trying to let me go to sleep early.

And, in some delusional state, somewhat secretly, I glance at the calendar and jot down a few ideas: a pie-crust class (watch for this one around Christmas - for adults), a bread sculpture class, a whole grain cooking class, a wood fired oven class, cooking around the world classes...

Sounds like fun, right? Or, is this some kind of masochistic disease? I am incredibly thankful not to have to teach every day - I have never been able to imagine myself homeschooling Oliver or substitute teaching at the local schools. But in a very small way, I can appreciate the addictive qualities teaching has: sharing ideas, getting people excited to try something new, focusing on one concept and learning about it myself in order to teach it, showing someone who wants to learn how to do something they didn't know how to do before.

Somehow, I don't have a graceful way to end this post. Perhaps because by default, teaching and learning have no end. There is and always will be something to new to learn. I must say, it makes these dark, cold winter days seem a little bit brighter.

For more pictures of the kids cooking classes, go here.

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