June gloom disappeared yesterday and left San Diego with bright sunny skies and warm weather. For those who don’t know, June Gloom is the period (along with May Gray) when morning fog often lingers until afternoon or sometimes all day. This means the very early spring months in Southern California are often warmer than May and June. But right on schedule, summer arrived yesterday, and we went to the beach to celebrate.
Baby Harbat regards the ocean, checks it again, and retreats.
Father’s Day was great, a perfect mix of lazing around the house, lazing around the beach, and building Ikea furniture with BH. She helped by appropriating screws and running away laughing, and also by climbing among the chair legs as they were being assembled.
In the world of bread, last night I decided to make the soaker for what will be our weekly whole wheat multigrain. I boiled up a pot of water and took over my plastic bag of wheat berried to scoop some in. Somehow I swung the bag near the flame, which instantly melted a fist-sized hole that poured wheat berries over the burner, the floor, and stovetop like a gutshot victim. It had been such a perfect day that even a guest appearance by Uncle F&$#-Up wouldn’t ruin things. Tomorrow the results of the multigrain mash.
Also, I made the Team USA ciabatta again last Friday and came to the conclusion, along with my wife, that this it is the best-tasting bread. I think it’s the 3-day method, where the poolish gets one day to ferment, then the full dough overnights in the fridge. I’m going to try this method with my rustic bread to see if I can get more flavor from the wheat. Which leads me to wonder why I need to bother with the poolish, if I can just mix up the dough all at once and let it ferment overnight. Looks like we’ll have a lot of rustic dough in the Soutowood house while I experiment. Yum.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
I WANT BREAD!!!