The Quack, issue 347
The rise-until-doubled edition
Good morning! It’s nice to see you. I hope you had a nice week.
A fellow who happens to be an early riser cannot help but notice he’s waking up in the dark these days. Sunrise in Charlottetown is now after 6 a.m., which, to be sure, isn’t anywhere near the ungodly 7:40 of the winter solstice, but it’s still a fair amount later than the 5:22 of the summer one.
It’s one of those funny things about the latency of weather. Our longest days with the sun are in the third week of June, but we don’t really hit our hottest days until the end of July/early August, when we have more than an hour less sunlight every day.
Where am I going with this? I know we’re walking into into our hottest week of the summer, but embedded in our days are signs we’re heading into colder weather. Next week is Old Home Week in Charlottetown, the big agricultural exhibition for the Island. On PEI, they say Old Home Week marks the end of summer, which sounds ridiculous when you see the oncoming heat wave in the forecast. But I just know one day later this week, I’ll be on the beach with the sun beating down on me, and for just a moment, a slight breeze will touch my skin. And it won’t be cold, really, but it will carry a hint of chill. And it will whisper in my ear that fall is coming.
I know I sound like a terrible party pooper about all this, but please believe me: I am a huge fan of the passage of time. I think the fact that today leads into tomorrow is the greatest cosmic joke in the universe. Nothing ever stays the same. Every second lasts just one second. I find that very freeing.
Just knowing time is going to pass at the rate of one day per day reminds me I’d better be present in this one. I better really look around and take in what this day looks and feels like, because tomorrow will look and feel different. And when I think that today will go away, and tomorrow will come, I give a little smirk. Because what an incredible joke.
Three ladies
Our daughter Jane works at a retail shop in Charlottetown. Suffice to say, if you’ve ever spent a day wandering and exploring my city, you’ve been there. It’s a well-established PEI spot.
Jane was working yesterday with two other women. At the moment of this story, the store was remarkably empty. Jane was at the till. One of her coworkers was on break. The other had left briefly to visit the bathroom.
The bell at the front door jingled. An older man walked in. Jane greeted him warmly.
“Are there three ladies here?” he asked.
Jane felt a little funny. What a weird question. Yes, there were three women working here. How would he know that?
“Yes…” she said timidly.
He looked around.
“Where are they?”
Jane paused. How much information did she need to give this man?
“Well,” she started. “I’m here. My one coworker is eating her lunch in the back room. And my other coworker just stepped out for a moment.”
The man looked confused.
“No, I mean I’m meeting my family here,” he said. “My wife told me to meet them here. Have they shown up?”
Jane thought this mix-up was terribly funny. The man did not. He decided to wait for them outside.
Beans!
I walked through the grocery store yesterday and saw heaped bags of PEI-grown yellow wax beans. Without a second of hesitation, I threw a bag into the cart, knowing it was time to start fermenting.
I came home and mixed up a quick brine solution. I cleaned and trimmed the beans before packing them as tightly as I could into jars. In the little space that was left, I crammed cloves of garlic and heads of dill.
They’ll be fermented bean pickles in a week. They’ll be delicious fermented bean pickles in three weeks.
Bread, reinvented
Readers of the Quack have been following my journey with sourdough since the winter.
(Briefly, I have not been able to eat gluten since 2016, as it was giving me severe abdominal cramps, which turned out to be IBS. I’ve been eating all sorts of other delicious things since then, but not wheat. A chance viewing of a Michael Pollan documentary series this winter told me some people with an intolerance to wheat can still eat it if it’s been slow-fermented into sourdough. And, that turns out to be the case with me as well.)
I’ve been using a sourdough starter I made myself this winter, and for the most part, I’ve been happy with the results. The bread has been delicious. Everyone in my family loves it. I’ve shared it with friends, who also seem to appreciate it.
The one part of sourdough that I had come to just accept was its disappointing rise. Recipes would tell me to bulk ferment my dough until it had doubled in volume. I had just come to think they were exaggerating, as I’d never ever experienced anything even close to doubling. A 50 percent rise? Sure, that was pretty reliable. 70%? Maybe If I’m lucky, but don’t expect it to actually happen.
Alice came home earlier this week with a jar of starter from our friend Shannon. Shannon got it from her mum, who got it from a woman who swears its pedigree traces back hundreds of years to Egypt.
It was a busy week, so I put the jar in the fridge to bake with in a few days. Thursday night, I took it out and fed it fresh water and flour. I put it on top of my fridge and went to bed.
The starter was busy overnight.
I have NEVER seen anything like this. When I left that jar the evening before, it was less than half full. Overnight, it effervesced like someone shook up a can of Sprite.
We were obviously in new territory. I was low on some of my usual flour stores, so I mixed up a simple batch of wheat bread, which I would divide into four small loaves.
I used the exact recipe and process I always used, and yet, every step of the way was different. The texture. The smell. The rise.
After two sets of fermenting, I shaped the loaves and tossed them in the oven.
There are only three loaves in this photo, because Alice and I devoured the first one fresh from the oven.
I baked these with a bit of steam in the oven, so they came out with a crispy, chewy crust. The taste and chew were almost baguette. I thrust a buttered slice at every successive family member who came down the stairs, each of whom raved.
I restocked my pantry that morning and mixed up my usual caraway rye. The dough doubled in size within six hours. I shaped the loaf and placed it in the fridge overnight for the second ferment. As I’ve been typing this morning, it’s been baking. I’ve been hoping it would be finished by the time I finished writing, this morning’s newsletter and I am happy to report:
I cannot believe this is the same recipe I’ve been using for the last several months. It grew so much, it lifted the lid off the dutch oven it was baking in.
I’ll have to tinker with my bake time and temperatures, because this is a much different bread than I’m used to. But wow wow wow wow wow.
Wow.
Pick up every spike
This is a movement that never sleeps.
Thanks for hanging out with me for another Sunday and listening to my nonsense. I think you’re pretty neat.
Have a great week.