First, let me apologize for my absence. During school, I had no time, then too much time, now I'm pressed but not strapped. Add your sifted dry and liquid, here we go:
I finished school. It was a roller coaster of fun and stress, but for better or worse, it's over now. I don't officially graduate until the end of May, but I have the grades to prove that I am done. While I'll miss the freedom of learning pretty much whatever I wanted, I'm looking forward to at least getting paid for my hard work.
Which leads me to my current endeavor. Two weeks out of school I landed a job at an industrial-sized bakery in North Portland that produces frozen dough that is exported to Japan for retail sale as well as US Whole Foods and Super Targets to be baked off in their bakeries. I, however, work in the test kitchen, refining and developing the recipes for production. It's pretty fun and definitely promises to expand my knowledge. I'm also given some artistic freedom to come up with my own recipes when I have any down time. We do tons of bagels, so I'm constantly thinking of possible new recipes. I think tomorrow I'm going to come up with some apple walnut bagels.
It's not the final step in my baking career, but it is certainly no small one. My first real baking job, and probably the biggest consumer base that I will ever encounter. I come up with bagels and Japan eats them. Pretty cool for a guy that was just trying to make the grade a month ago.
And to those that may worry: don't. I still dream everyday about opening my own place. This new job helps me focus on that, believe it or not. Throughout the course of my day, I think "In MY bakery, I'll do it this way," while also picking up skills for large-scale production. I'm a lucky guy.
The last thing I wanted to mention was this No Knead Bread phenom that seems to be sweeping home bakers everywhere. I might be arriving on the scene just to see the fad pass, I hope, but a blog is for two cents, so here are mine:
STOP. Good bread takes time, and not even that much labor, just, well...time! There is very minimal kneading to be done in the first place! This no-knead crap isn't really saving you any time: you still have to allow the bread to rise just as if it was being kneaded anyways! Do yourself a favor: if you're going to make bread, make it YOUR bread. Knead it, squeeze it, punch it...form your loaf of bread and make it your own. I promise it will make you happy.
As I leave, I promise to take better care of this thing. Oddly enough, I work better when I have more on my plate and right now I've got crumbs and garnish spilling off of my proverbial plate, so stay tuned.
