My sugar, my spice

After more than a week of snow delay, Fed-Ex finally delivers a very special Christmas present:

	Though I wasn't sure for a while I could get the package open. Multiple layers of cardboard had been glued together, and then wrapped in countless layers of (free) postal tape, then more cardboard, then good tape. Oh, and of course, styrofoam peanuts inside, garbage bags and more tape. It took me a long time, working carefully with a box-cutter. What emerged was something I've been so looking forward to!
	Isn't it perfect? I'm so excited and pleased to finally have a place to put my spices that is not all crowded and jumbled and cuss-worthy. And it was made by my most talented and thoughtful sweetheart.

More crazy dog!

Sophie loves snow days and going for long walks. Like most poodles, she loves to jump and will do so whenever I ask. She learned early on that jumping on people is verboten, so she expresses her exuberance by jumping straight up. She will jump on command if I raise my arm and say "Allez Oop!"

Mmm ... molecules

Yep. Snowing again. But there are molecules of meaty goodness that must at all costs be extracted from yesterday's bone.

Or, as my friend "Jack London" writes: "…Sophie, heeding the inner urges howling to her across the blood-red gulf of aeons of pack-hunting canine lusts, gnawed with great purpose upon the fragment of bone, endeavouring to extract each remaining particle of life-sustaining marrow that her struggle for survival might continue for another transit of the fiery orb 'cross the sky!"

Dogs love the dog park

I just love the crazy jumping Sophie photo, with her manic look and muppet feet. I'm going to use it for my profile for a while.

Visiting poodle

Lannie likes to eat Roman style. Mmm . . . kibble.

What I'm reading:"Conduct Under Fire" by John Glusman

I'm just getting into this weighty tome, which is the story of the author's father and three other doctors who were taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. It's well-written and exhaustively researched – I think it helps that the author is also an editor. He was careful to start the story with one of the friends rather than his dad, I was glad to see.

My grandfather was a doctor and among the first to help liberate the Santo Tomás POW camp of civilians in Manilla, so this kind of story has extra appeal for me.

I've been in a reading drought lately, so I hope I can stick with this.

Slug bug

Less reliable forms of transport have had to sit this storm season out.

Happy New Year!

Some not-so-great photos of the fireworks in Denver:It was really cold out, and the streets were icy, so I didn't wander far to get these shots. Kind of cool to see the rockets reflected in the the building windows. In the distance you can see another set: they do three locations of identical, simultaneous fireworks along the 16th Street Mall.

No-knead bread, step by step

Continuing the saga of the No-Knead Bread, which I first read about in the New York Times a couple of months ago, and which subsequently has been the obsession of bloggers worldwide, I present my most recent loaf:

(Edit: I have since started mixing the dough with a silicone spatula and found that works just as well. Hand-mixing is fun, but this is less messy! I've also found that a round, 2-quart pot with a domed lid makes the nicest loaf, but anything larger will work just fine. For pictures of pots and other loaves, click here. )

3 cups white bread flour, a scant 2 teaspoons salt, a heaping 1/4 teaspoon yeast	Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the yeast in first, then the salt, to avoid accidentally killing the yeast.
Remember to take your rings off, if you haven't done so already.	Add 1 1/2 cups water.
Mix again.	This is why you want to take your rings off. The dough will be shaggy-looking and fairly sticky but cohesive.
Cover the bowl with cling wrap. Go ahead and buy the good kind. This generic stuff ain't worth spit. I ended up having to find something elastic to go round it. The little thermometer from REI is handy for gauging oven temp. When the oven's off, that is.	The dough rises for 15 to 20 hours, or more. The recipe says 70 degrees, so I stick the bowl in my gas oven with the door cracked. My house is usually cold. I think it would probably work OK at 60 for the rise, too.
After about 20 hours, the dough will have risen significantly in the bowl and have small bubbles in it.	If you tip the bowl, the glutinous nature of the dough becomes more apparent. Long strands of gluten with lots of air in between.
Pull the dough onto a lightly floured surface – I use parchment paper – and with a dusting of flour on your hands just pat it into a round.	In the past I've done the second rise on the parchment paper, flat, with a bowl over it, but this time I'm going to proof it in the bowl again, to see how that affects the height of the loaf. Back into the oven it goes, at a slightly warmer temp, around 80, achieved by not cracking the door. It stays there for an hour and a half, until it's time to heat the oven and pot to 450 degrees F.
I have a variety of vessels I can cook this bread in. Of course none is exactly what I want. The 5.5-quart dutch oven is too big, the terrine too small, and I'm not really sure I should be putting the copper pot in the oven, nor is the cast-iron fry-pan lid very elegant. Nonetheless, the latter is the closest to the optimum size, until I can find something better. In the oven it goes.	After another half-hour (for a total second rise of two hours) you can see the dough has expanded a fair amount. Big air bubbles are evident beneath the skin if you look closely. (Though it may not be evident in the photo.)
I like to top my basic loaf with wheat bran (bought in bulk from Wild Oats Market), a generous sprinkle of spicy sesame topping, and just a little coarse sea salt. Don't use too much salt; it's fairly potent.	Fold the dough in thirds, like a letter, first vertically, then horizontally. The dough is sticky but a very light dusting of flour makes it workable.
I put down the layer of toppings next to the loaf, then roll it over onto them and shift it around a little so much of it sticks.	Like this.
Meanwhile that pot has been preheating in the oven, along with the lid, which I wrapped in tin foil to ensure a tight seal. I pick up the dough and quickly flip it into the pot so the toppings are where they should be – on top. You can give the pot a good shake to settle the dough into shape if it's lopsided.	The bread cooks in the pot with the lid on for half an hour. Then with the lid off another 15 minutes or so, or until the crust is a lovely golden color. If bottom-burning is a problem for you, you can put a cookie sheet underneath for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
	This loaf turned out not quite as golden as I wanted ... I pushed the cooking time because I had to head to work. It could have used another 5-10 minutes to get a little deeper color and crustier crust. But it's still lovely!

Thanks for hints gleaned from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen and the posts and comments on Holy Bread and No-Knead Loaf No. 10 at Rose Levy Beranbaum's site.

Holiday treat

If this item in the Williams-Sonoma catalog has tempted you, but you wondered whether the execution is as good as the theory, I can testify that yes, it is.