Baking bread

I remember one winter when I lived in a cold but very pretty appartment. I’d just moved back to the Blue Mountains and was re-discovering my home town. There was a co-op there from which I could buy five kilo bags of oganic, stone milled, pure and hearty flour from which I baked bread in the hope of keeping my appartment warm and making something tasty. I’m sure many of you have done this, explored messing around with flour and yeast and sometimes potentially dangerous home made sour dough starters. Is there anything as good as the smell of bread baking just before dinner time? Inside my little kitchen a pot of soup bubbles away on the stove and my newly arrived dinner companions have just removed their wet coats and shoes, a bottle of something warming has just been opened and poured. We catch up on each other’s lives while setting the table, and we talk about the memories the smell of baking bread creates. Of all the types of food which brings people together bread has got to be the number one item, definitely if you are from a European or western culture.
Today during lunch my colleagues, Amy and Yuli were talking about bread. Bread for Italians seems to be essential. To not have bread at the table is like not having plates, or cutlery, even if the only piece you eat for the entire meal is a little scarpetta to clean the few last traces of pasta sauce from your plate. I know that if I have lunch with my aunt the entire meal grinds to a halt if the bread is missing and then resumes once the place of honour has been filled. It is similar in Serbia, the country where my husband is from. Generally some of the first words we would say to each other in the morning incuded the phrase ‘do we need bread?’ This can be a crucial question when it is snowing and minus something degrees outside, cosy warm inside and bread runs out at 9am, and of course we could never share the same piece of bread because it would lead to an argument.
So today we celebrate the arrival of the bread machine to the Beehive Cafe. Already there are quite a few sparks of inspiration going off in my mind and I imagine when Laura sees it she will go crazily into tangential possibilities with super rare ingredients only available on blue moons from her beloved Bracciano. Steve keeps peeking in the little window to see if anything (the magical bread moment of creation?) is happening and I am nervous because I half made the recipe up and maybe it will not work… And Gianluca? What will his reaction be to our new piece of equipment?
Anyway, you are welcome to come and break bread with us and taste our creations and experiments and share some of your stories and theories on bread, food, life, Rome etc
Ciao for now

http://www.bluemtnsfood.asn.au/home.htm http://www.breadinfo.com/index.shtml

Will our garden ever be free of scaffolding?

Our building decided to repaint the ‘facciata’ this year. It was supposed to start in March and last three months, giving us a summer free of workers, noise, and plaster, enjoyed over a glass of wine in our garden under the grape vine.

However, March turned into May, and then a break for August, and, well, it’s now almost October and they’re still there. The good news is that once they finish the inside of the garden will be freshly painted and perhaps we’ll take advantage and improve the situation with a good lighting and music plan.

Long Live the Princess!

Ordered just yesterday, and already here in our kitchen, is the new Princess bread machine that we’re hoping will change our lives. Besides the enticing smell of freshly baked bread first thing in the morning, we’re hoping to improve on the variety that is so lacking in Rome. The possibilities for organic bread are pretty slim, and until now we’ve had to order quite a lot, freeze it and then wear out our jaws trying to eat through it once it’s been defrosted and toasted.