The Wood-Fired Blog
Peppers Roasted Over Wood
May 30, 2012Mark Bitman of the NY Times is one of my favorite writers on any topic, and I have enjoyed seeing his transition from being a pure food columnist as “The Minimalist”, to being a columnist in the editorial department writing about our food supply and food policy. At the same time, he is still doing great stuff with recipes. Here is a link to today’s How to To Everything column: Great... Read More
Water and Dough Structure
May 29, 2012I have been experimenting with baguettes recently, including different approaches to fermentation time, better folding techniques, improved methods for loaf shaping, scoring, placement in the oven and steam. Now I am going to start trying to hone in on the optimal hydration for my flour of choice and my oven—Trader Joe’s All Purpose Wheat flour and a Presto pizza oven. As a general rule, wetter (higher hydration) doughs produce bread... Read More
Paella is Becoming Popular This Spring
May 28, 2012A second article on Paella in the NY Times in one week. It makes me happy. Paella is really picnic food, ideal for a casual gathering. The idea is to hang out, slowly preparing the ingredients and then lazily sipping a drink or two while the rice cooks. And if there are friends who want to help, all the better. Especially when it comes to fava beans. They require a... Read More
Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread
May 28, 2012600 grams whole wheat 200 white whole wheat 200 AP flour 600 grams (60)% water 10 grams (1%) yeast 20 grams (2%) salt 40 grams olive oil 30 grams honey 2 cup old fashion oats (3-5 minute cooking) 2 cup boiling water Pinch of salt Please forgive my slightly funky recipe format, where I mix baker’s percentages and grams with cups—but the bread came out really well, so I will... Read More
Proper Scoring of a Baguette
May 28, 2012From Ciril Hitz, via YouTube. I learned a lot from this excellent video — including the scoring angle (within a railroad track down the center of the baguette) and that the scoring cuts should overlap by 1/3, or the baguette will bulge out where it is scored, and stay narrow where it is not scored. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdzHuhJ-ls Read More
Craigslist, Profit Compression and Pizza Ovens
May 27, 2012I’ve been thinking about the NY Times Douthat column on Facebook and commerce, and there is one thing I want to add to my posting (Physical Goods in a Virtual Era). In his column, Douthat notes that Facebook is no General Motors, and that despite their $100B market capitalization, they don’t actually employ very many people 9 (a tiny fraction of GM’s payroll in it’s heyday). In fact, even Apple,... Read More
Salt, Pane Toscano and Pisa
May 27, 2012I think we all know that salt is an important component of hearth bread, but if you are like me, you have never really known exactly why. On a personal level, I have eaten a great deal of Pane Toscano, the regional bread of Tuscany that is famous, for among other things, for not using salt. The bread is dense and dry, and it does not have a developed crumb—haha,... Read More
Physical Goods in a Virtual Era
May 27, 2012From the NY Times, Douthat: The Facebook Illusion As a follow on to my posting on Facebook, Free and Forno Bravo, here is a NY Times column on the Facebook IPO. I agree with Douthat that “the “new economy,” in this sense, isn’t always even a commercial economy at all. Instead, as Slate’s Matthew Yglesias has suggested, it’s a kind of hobbyist’s paradise, one that’s subsidized by surpluses from the old... Read More
Salesman Can't Just Give You Price List Because Here's The Thing With That
May 26, 2012From The Onion. Ever brilliant. Which is why we publish our price list on www.fornobravo.com. So you don’t have to ask. 🙂 Just click here. Or on the link at the top of every one of our web pages. Read More
