I'm a Breadhead

My name is Katherine and I'm a breadhead. Some people might argue I'm also a bed head, but we can talk about that another time. I wouldn't really consider myself a "foodie" because I like sophisticated and unsophisticated, pretty and not so pretty, refined and unrefined food as long as it tastes good, and I frequently eat in places that most self proclaimed foodies probably would not. I have never been to culinary school, although it would be fun, and I've pretty much learned to cook and bake with my mother and use a collection of family recipes. I do however know that bread makes my taste buds go zing, my heart sing, my stomach go nom nom nom and I will without a doubt eat it to my hearts content if I have the chance. For all of you no-carb activists out there I say you're missing out on one of the best parts of life! Carbs, smarbs. That's my motto.

For a little background info: My husband Paul, and I have lived in Malaysia for almost a full year now, but we are as Texan as they come. In Malaysia frying is a huge part of cooking, and sadly, baking is not. I've scoured the city for bread bakeries and the closest thing I've gotten is sour dough from Singapore which really isn't that sour or that tasty. I miss it all. Sourdough, olive bread, french bread, ciabatta, marble rye, panettone, you name it. Even the sandwich bread here leaves something to be desired. Instead of a regular whole wheat nice dark bread, they call the closest they've got to that "wholemeal" that is mostly white with a few flakes of brown in it. I've basically decided that if I want to find bread done right, I'm just going to have to buckle up and make it myself. The only big problem is I have never made bread. Another minor setback is I'm working with an oven the size of a microwave, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things right?

After coming to this conclusion yesterday after a mediocre loaf of sourdough, Paul asked what I'm going to blog about since I haven't written in my travel blog www.kpinkl.blogspot.com in several months. Things have been stagnant here to say the least and I've been looking for something to fill my time and keep my brain from turning to mush, so I figured, why not blog about bread? If Julie and Julia can make it through 365 recipes I think there is a small possibility of me coming out alive after 50+ bread recipes. I hope. Paul was probably relieved that I've come up with such a ridiculous new hobby so that I have no excuse for being bored anymore. We went up to the bookstore Kinokuniya and found the book bakers are raving about online called "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread" by Peter Reinhart" and bought it for twice the price as the US, but in my mind it's well worth it if I can even successfully complete one recipe. I just hope I don't have to downgrade to "Bread Baking for Dummies". div>

So I have some 105 pages to read in this textbook like bread bible before the recipes even start. A few recipes Mr. Reinhart and I will be covering, to give you a little preview, are breads from bagels to ciabatta to panettone to french, and everything in between. I have a feeling an additional setback will be finding the ingredients for some of the recipes, but I'll do my best. Each recipe takes at least two days because you use a starter and let it ferment and whatever else, but from the looks of things if I'm not just a complete dummy in the kitchen I will be carbo loading in no time! Now I've got to start reading, and I'll get back to you hopefully prepared to conquer the loaf.