It’s November, and now that Halloween is over, get ready to brace yourself for the full onslaught of the commercial holiday season.  Christmas items are already filling the shelves and Santa Claus is showing up on the television.  I really have to try not to get too carried away or fall and all its smells, [...]

Being of the Southern persuasion, I grew up eating cornbread as a side for all types of Southern food.  And also because of said Southern persuasion, I grew up eating cornbread made without sugar.  But I did grow up in the generation of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix (notice they call it corn ‘muffin’, not corn [...]

Okay, so after browsing through my food photos I realized that I had a serious back-log of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice recipe pictures.  And since the back-to-school chaos has slowed my blogging pace down to a SLOW CRAWL leaving me like six months behind the other “Slow-and-Steady” bakers who post every two weeks, I decided [...]

What do I think is the best part of a grilled cheese sandwich, a cheese quesadilla, or a pizza?  It’s the cheese that has escaped from the edges and browned into crispy cooked bits.  One day I’m going to just bake some cheese to a crisp so I can have all the crispy bits I [...]

There’s something very addictive about bread baking.  When the bread starts rising and getting all yeasty smelling it’s like magic.  And the flavor…well nothing compares to the flavor of just baked bread.  After succeeding in baking a loaf or two, you just can’t stop. And the more bread you bake, the better you get at [...]

Peter Reinhart’s book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice has been around for a while and has certainly made the rounds in the food blogging world.  After seeing a few of the recipes on various blogs my interest was piqued, but being a little bit of a skeptic, I told myself this book couldn’t be all that.  [...]