Let's Begin...

I’m normally not one to make New Year's Resolutions, but this year, I’ve decided to make one. I haven’t been able to do as much history related things as I would like, so I’m resolving to make time to do that. After much discussion with my husband and spontaneous inspiration from Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat Acid, Heat on Netflix, I have decided that this year’s resolution will be to travel back in time through the lens of bread! 

I know I’m a little late to the bread train, since lots of people took up baking during quarantine. However, like many people, bread is my favorite food and I find the whole process of making bread fascinating. So, that’s what we’re going with. 

When brainstorming about this project, I had two choices, either work from modern to ancient, or ancient to modern. The most modern bread is Ciabatta which was developed in the 1980s in response to imports of bread from France into Italy. And while I do love Ciabatta bread, I’m sure I do not have the baker’s skills to create a good loaf without several failures. So, in the interest of positive energy, we will be going from the first bread to the latest bread. 

The goal is to do a lighter “Julie and Julia” where instead of working through a whole cookbook in a year, I will be making one bread per month, in chronological order from oldest to youngest. With any luck I will be baking 12 breads this year! Which is a heck of a lot more than I have made in the last few years combined! 

So here’s to obtainable goals and making my house small like bread. Let’s laugh, get covered in flour and bake some halfway decent bread!