Last year, I declared with ferocity that Tartine Bread, often described as the bread bible of cookbooks, was just too much fucking effort for a home cook and you probably shouldn’t buy it if you have minimal interest in bread baking. There are much easier, realistic methods out there for people like you and I. That much remains true. Tartine Bread is a lot of effort. There ARE easier, more realistic methods out there for people with limited time in the day. What has changed is that I haven’t been working for two months, and I actually managed to get my sourdough starter to survive longer than a week. I finally had the tools available to me to tackle the contents of the cookbook appropriately: time and starter. Quaran-Tina thrived over the two months I spent nurturing her before I felt comfortable coming back to Tartine Bread in any way. Even so, I remained afraid.
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Or, Apologies to Samin Nosrat for Never Finishing Your Book December, 2018. I tried to do Samin Nosrat’s iconic cookbook, Salt Fat Acid Heat, as a cookbook of the month. I bought it on my Kindlle, and lord, did I try. I really did. I read through at least the Salt section of the monstrous 200+ pages of cooking instruction and introduction before you even get to the big recipes. I wrote it’s introduction for the month, which you can find at this link if you’re feeling froggy. I never, ever, wrote a final report. I didn’t so much as make excuses. I pretended it didn’t happen.. But it did, and I remember it. |