Bread and Sweet Music

Luckily for all who know him, Jeff slowly, over the course of his life, developed a healthy obsession with all things bread.  In a way that must be somewhat unusual, he studied all the bread making books, made his own sourdough starter, and before you could say "sour raisin rye" he was making things that look like this!  Often this is shocking to people because producing true artisan style bread in the home kitchen seems to be a difficult task indeed.  This is why obsession can be a good thing......just look at those results.

We both worked in a bread bakery in Vermont, which really helped us nail down the tricky "shaping" aspect of making beautiful bread.  It was a pretty awesome experience, with lovely almost ritualistic rhythms in the day.  Mixing the dough, shaping the loaves, firing the wood ovens, and the most exciting....loading and unloading the cavernous brick hearth.  The final step?  Standing over the bread, fully baked and piping hot, and listening to them crackle.  Seriously, they snap and crackle as the interior air bubbles cool and contract pulling the harder crunchy crust inwardly enough to actually fissure.  Sweet, sweet music.