Unless it's a specialty bread,
"real" bread only has three ingredients: flour, water, and salt.
The sourdough starter consists of flour and water. Olive oil might be listed not because it was
included in the recipe but because the fermentation container may have been
lightly lined with olive oil. Only a few
ingredients are required to produce bread and beer. Time is an important factor. No shortcuts.
One of the most famous bread
bakeries in the world, among bread nerds, is Poilane in Paris. That bakery only makes four types of
breads. And they don't make the baguette
because the founder didn't consider the baguette a real French bread. Poilane's signature big wheel of bread is
delicious. If you are interested in
increasing your breaducation, I recommend the following books: The Bread
Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry
Ovens by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott, The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
by Peter Reinhart, Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart and Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson. A useful website:
http://breadtopia.com. http://sawv.org/2017/01/20/bread-thoughts-january-2017.html
America’s Epidemic of Empty
Churches: Religious
communities often face a choice: Sell
off the buildings they can no longer afford, or find a way to fill them with
new uses by Jonathan Merritt Three blocks from my Brooklyn apartment, a
large brick structure stretches toward heaven. Tourists recognize it as a church—the
building’s bell tower and stained-glass windows give it away—but worshippers
haven’t gathered here in years. The
19th-century building was once known as St. Vincent De Paul Church and housed a
vibrant congregation for more than a century. But attendance dwindled and coffers ran dry by
the early 2000s. Rain leaked through
holes left by missing shingles, a tree sprouted in the bell tower, and the
Brooklyn diocese decided to sell the building to developers. Today, the Spire Lofts boasts 40 luxury
apartments, with one-bedroom units renting for as much as $4,812 per month.
Many of our nation’s churches can no
longer afford to maintain their structures—6,000 to
10,000 churches die each year in America—and that number will
likely grow. Closure and adaptive reuse often seems like the simplest and
most responsible path. Many houses of
worship sit on prime real estate, often in the center of towns or cities, where
inventory is low. Selling the property
to the highest bidder is a quick and effective way to cut losses and settle
debts. But repurposing a sacred space
for secular use has a number of drawbacks. There are zoning issues, price negotiations,
and sometimes fierce pushback from the surrounding community and the parish’s
former members. Read stories of adaptive
reuse at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/what-should-america-do-its-empty-church-buildings/576592/ The Muser has been to two restaurants in
former churches. One, in Atlanta, had
the waiters dressed in monk outfits.
two-frame comic strip: first frame
shows couple ready to view TV news and the woman says she needs her
glasses. Second frame shows her holding
two glasses full of red wine. Thank you,
Muse reader!
It has long been known that leaving wine in a barrel
alters its characteristics. Wine that was transported long distances in
barrels and exposed to the weather became darker in colour and
fuller-flavoured. It was to mimic this
natural process that Joseph Noilly, in 1813, designed a process that made
France's first vermouth. In 1855, his
son Louis Noilly and son-in-law Claudius Prat set up the company that became
Noilly Prat, moving the business to Marseillan where it remains to this day. The brand was acquired by its Italian
competitor Martini & Rossi in 1971, which was
merged into the Bacardi-Martini family of brands in 1992. The process used today is virtually unchanged
since the 1850s. Noilly Prat is made
exclusively from white grape varieties grown in the Marseillan area,
principally Picpoul de Pinet and Clairette. These produce light, fruity wines which are
matured in massive Canadian oak casks inside the original storerooms. The wine stays in these casks for 8 months,
maturing and absorbing the flavour of the wood, before being transferred to
smaller oak barrels which are taken outside and left for a year. Here they are exposed to the sun, wind, and
low winter temperatures, while the wine is slowly changing. The result is a wine that is dry, full-bodied
and amber coloured, similar to Madeira or Sherry. During the year outside, 6 to 8% of the
volume is lost to evaporation, the "angels'
share". Brought back inside and
left to rest for a few months, the wines are then blended together into oak
casks. A small quantity of Mistelle (grape
juice and alcohol) is added to the wines in order to soften them, along with a
dash of fruit essence to accentuate their flavour. In the oak casks, a process of maceration,
supposedly unique to Noilly Prat, takes place over a period of three
weeks. A blend of some twenty herbs and
spices is added by hand every day. The
exact mix of herbs and spices that goes into Noilly Prat is a closely guarded
secret, but includes camomile, bitter orange peel, nutmeg, centaury (Yellow
Gentian), coriander, and cloves. After a further six weeks, the finished
product is ready for bottling and is shipped in tankers to Beaucaire,
Gard, where it is bottled by Martini
& Rossi. Noilly Prat is often
used in cocktails, the most common and well-known of which is probably
the Martini, consisting of one part Noilly Prat to
one or more parts gin or vodka, with a dash
of orange bitters, twist of lemon, or olive
garnish. Over the years, the American
preference for "extra dry" martinis led to the switch from gin to
vodka, and to drastically reducing the flavour and quantity of the vermouth
employed. Noilly Prat is widely used in
cooking, and extensively used for sauces, especially to accompany fish. In his BBC TV series French Odyssey, Rick Stein described
Noilly Prat as a "true flavour from the Languedoc"
and said, "I've done lots of experiments with white wines for fish sauces
and I've come to the conclusion that Noilly Prat is the best. The Provençal
herbs and spices used to flavour Noilly Prat seem to add flavour to
the reduction." Noilly Prat was the name given
by T.
S. Eliot to his cat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noilly_Prat
Toledo GROWs 15th Annual Seed
Swap February 23, 2019 at Scott High School 2400 Collingwood, Toledo, Ohio noon-3 p.m.
free admission Please note
there is additional parking in the UAW parking lot. 5 FREE
packets of seeds to each attendee! Bring
additional seed packets to swap for more:
Must be dated 2017 or later, labeled
in individual envelopes. No bulk seeds
accepted. No seeds to swap? Extra packets available for 50¢ donation. 1:00 pm Workshop: Growing and Preserving Berries Grower Sr.
Rita, from Toledo GROWs, and local canning expert Deb Slater share tips on
growing berries and demonstrate how to can delicious jams. Other fun activities include: great food,
raffles, children's activities, and gardening displays. Ride the OSU Blender Bike. Special treats to celebrate our 15th Seed
Swap http://www.toledogrows.org/events/event-seed-swap/
Ruskin To-Day is an informal network devoted to promoting wider knowledge and
understanding of the ideas of the great Victorian writer, reformer and artist,
John Ruskin (1819–1900). 2019 sees the
bicentenary of Ruskin’s birth on 8th February, 1819. There is a calendar of events that will
be updated regularly, and a
map that will help you find events near you. There are also links to the many organisations that
make up the Ruskin community. There is
another website dedicated to the Bicentennial www.ruskin200.com Link to a calendar of John Ruskin events in
2019 at http://ruskinto-day.org/
British pharmacist Stewart Adams died January 30, 2019 at the age of 95. Adams co-patented a drug called Brufen, a pain-reliever he had created for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. The drug became known as the painkiller ibuprofen, later branded as Nurofen, Advil and Motrin, and now one of the world’s most popular painkillers with billions of dollars in annual sales. Dr. Adams, who developed the drug for Boots the Chemists, Britain’s biggest chain of pharmacists, and worked for them his entire 54-year career, never made a penny from the drug he developed and co-patented with organic chemist John Nicholson in 1962. In fact, he used to joke that, apart from ibuprofen users, he was probably the only person to have lost money from the drug because Boots never paid him the promised 1-pound patent fee. Phil Davison
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2037
February 6, 2019
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