Lilith Saintcrow

I’ll keep food out of politics when politics stay out of my food. (nonhipster mom)

I came across this NYT food blog (hat tip to Kitchenbeard for the link.) The comments are the most instructive part of the piece, don’t skip them.

As someone who delights in (you might almost say, is obsessed with) food, I think about this issue a lot. Food accounts for a huge bit of my budget, and I’m supporting three other people. Right now things are pretty easy, because there’s a supermarket within walking distance, a Trader Joe’s ten minutes down the road, and a working car at my disposal. Not to mention a few bucks from the writing to keep us fed and warm.

Things were not always so good. I remember being poor and I suspect, the vagaries of the writing career being what it is, that I will again confront the problems of the hidden costs of food at some time. Those costs include time, transportation, storage. I’ve invested in a secondhand freezer (dude, twenty bucks for a working freezer? Plus delivery to my house? You bet your sweet bippy, neighbor!) and I have high-quality cookware that is going to last a while. Still, the two huge things necessary for “cheap” home cooking are transportation (got to get the food home) and time. The investment of energy is also a function of time. If you’ve worked for fifteen hours and spent two hours on a bus getting home, you’re not interested in cuisine. You’re interested in cramming something in your mouth and getting to sleep. There’s also the problem of keeping the electricity/gas on.

On the NYT piece above, the commenters seemed largely split between: Those who thought being poor automatically means you’re lazy and obese and so, your food problems are your own concern, quit whining; those who thought a year at college eating Ramen meant they were qualified to talk about what being poor really means; and those well-meaning souls who wanted to help the poor by suggesting they find the time to make beans and rice.

In the course of this I came across the Nonhipster Mom’s analysis of the whole thing.

I think we should have a real discussion about the politics of food in America’s poorest communities, but I think that when the focus of this discussion is about why America’s poorest communities aren’t growing their own microgreens or baking their own bread, we are missing the point so massively that it makes me sick. I want to talk about why there aren’t incentives for major grocery stores to move into neighborhoods where accessability to fresh, affordable food is a major roadblock. I want to talk about the correlation between food and education, especially early childhood education. I want to talk about why people whose food budget exceeds $1200 a month think it’s okay to tell someone who doesn’t own a car that they shouldn’t eat junk food and only does so because that person is stupid.

I want people to understand something about modern poverty: the solutions to this problem aren’t fixed by organics. They’re fixed by understanding what the problem really is.

The problem is the deck is stacked. The deck has ALWAYS been stacked in favor of the rich, and even in countries with social safety nets the game is still rigged. (Incidentally, we like to pretend America has a HUGE social safety net. Thanks to well-fed conservatives dismantling a ton of programs from Reagan’s time to today, we really don’t.) The rigging of the game happens in various ways–John Scalzi wrote about what it’s like to be wrenchingly poor, and Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about the hidden costs of being poor. There are hidden costs everywhere when you’re trying to live on $8-$10 an hour.

The problem is manifold, and it includes (but is not limited to):

* The idea we have that in America, if you’re poor it’s your own fault. Against-all-odds success stories do not prove this any more than spending a dollar guarantees you a lottery jackpot. We have (from most conservatives) the idea that the poor are all lazy, shiftless assholes and (from some liberals) a woolly-headed “Noble Poor” thing, not to mention (from other liberals) the idea that organic or microgardening is the solution. Sound bites like this don’t help, and our social habit of sound bites over reasoned, nuanced analysis doesn’t help either.

* A prohibition against safe, cheap, effective birth control for all women. Don’t even get me started on this. Plenty of people who go on and on railing against abortion and birth control don’t give a damn once the baby’s actually born and needs to be fed and raised. And then there’s the Mommy Tax.

* Decades of corporations and the top 1% of the wealthy systematically throwing money at their interests in our government, and getting concessions to make them richer and the rest of us poorer. Money well spent for them, reasonable to expect them to spend it, not so reasonable for the rest of us to roll over and let them buy the advantage.

* The idea that it’s filthy to organize for better working conditions, and that it’s just “natural free trade” when corporations outsource to countries where worker protection is even more dismal, because it improves their bottom line in the short term. Don’t even get me started about this, either.

* Complete and utter separation from, and ignorance about, how most of our food is produced.

* A collection of junk-food and huge agribusiness lobbies that throw a bunch of money at Congress to make things more comfortable for themselves, and consumers who, due to the above separation and ignorance, don’t see how they can begin to protest.

That’s a very short list. I could go on and on. I have ranted about this many a time in the privacy of my home. I’ve struggled with my weight and with the cheap junk that was sometimes all I had energy for, sometimes all I could “afford” because I didn’t have the time to cook cheaply. I’ve also been poor enough to have a bag of flour and that’s IT, to somehow feed myself and another person on. Right now I’m staying up late at night, going over and over the fact that I have the money now, but if I get sick and can’t work…or if someone in the house gets sick and we get medical bills…or, or, or. Right now this is only a passing fear, one I save against.

I’m goddamn lucky it’s not a reality. I know what it’s like to feel that fear every day, to have it gnaw at your vitals. I understand both that I am in a position of privilege now, and that I may not always be. I’m lucky to have decent cookware, access to the raw materials for cheap cooking, and a freezer. I’m lucky that I don’t have to make those choices. But that does not mean I think those who don’t have all those things are lazy, or stupid. I think the majority of people are doing the best they can and looking out for their own interests. The rich just have more money to throw at their interests, and in our world that speaks louder than altruism or justice most of the time.

But it doesn’t have to, and the solution starts with you and me.

Like I said, I could go on and on. But I’ll content myself with offering a couple of links about cooking on a budget, even though it largely doesn’t approach the problems I’ve been ranting about here. And a couple links about hidden costs:

* CookForGood. If you’ve got access to the raw materials, this is a good site about cooking cheaply.
* The BrokeAss Gourmet: Advice on how to stock a “pantry” and then make meals for under $20. The pantry-stocking section is great.
* The hidden cost of cheap food.
* Nickel and Dimed. Really, if you haven’t read this and you think poor people are “just lazy”…please, please consider reading.

Now I’m going to go hug my kids. Over and out.

Cross-posted from Deadline Dames, where you can find other writing advice, contests, giveaways, and unicorns! Okay. I’m lying again, about the unicorns. But go check it out!

A happy Beltane, and a happy Friday to you, dear Reader. If you are here for writing advice, well…I have just one piece of it this Friday.

Sometimes it’s good to take a little break. Of course the work goes on inside my head whenever I step away from the keyboard–I’m always juggling plot or mulling over a nasty word-choice problem. But some days, you know, it’s good to toss the whole effing thing in a mental trashcan and…

…bake cookies.

This is the best oatmeal cookie recipe I’ve ever found. It’s adapted from a recipe off a package of Snoqualmie Falls Lodge Oatmeal, which happens to make very good cookies. I can’t tell you what it’s like for oatmeal, since I almost never eat the stuff unless it’s in cookie form.

Luscious Oatmeal Cookies

You will need:

1c (2 sticks) of the best unsalted butter one can afford
1c plus 3Tb packed dark brown sugar
3/4c Turbinado or cane sugar (or both, or just plain sugar if you don’t have either)
2 eggs
1 1/2t vanilla extract
2c all-purpose flour
1t to 1Tb cinnamon, depending on taste
1t baking soda
1/2t baking powder
1t kosher salt (1/2t if all you have is table salt.)
3c oatmeal (NOT instant!)
1 pkg. 60% bittersweet baking chips (I prefer Ghirardelli)

Notes: Do not skimp on butter or on the choco chips. Everything else in this recipe you can get cheap, including oatmeal–but not instant oatmeal, and for the love of God get the best butter and bittersweet chocolate chips you can afford. You can also add up to 1c cake flour in place of all-purpose flour, depending on if you like your cookies soft-the cake flour’s lower protein content will soften them up. Start with 1/4c cake flour for 1/4c all-purpose and work up from there.

Put oven rack in the middle and preheat oven to 350F. Get out a nice heavy saucepan (my saucier works wonders both for this and teriyaki sauce) and melt the butter over medium to medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Don’t do this in the microwave–it gives the butter a metallic taste I don’t care for, and it can superheat butter in the wrong way. Stovetop is best.

While butter is melting, measure out sugars and vanilla in heatproof bowl (the metal mixing bowl on my smaller KitchenAid works well.) When butter is melted (you can keep the butter going until it foams or browns, for different tastes), pour it into heatsafe bowl with sugars and vanilla, mix thoroughly with heat-safe silicon spatula or sturdy wire whisk.

Now, set that bowl aside and set a timer for ten minutes. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. I also add a few shakes of white pepper. (Pepper is a secret ingredient in cookies with choco chips.) Then, goof off until the timer rings. (I recommend dancing around the kitchen to flamenco music. No, seriously. I DO.)

The butter-and-sugar mixture should be cool and glossy now. Dump it in your electric mixer’s bowl (if it’s not in there already) and use the paddle attachment (if you have one) on low. Crack the eggs into the bowl and turn it up to medium to whip it good.

Turn mixer back down to low and slowly add flour mixture. When incorporated, stop mixer and scrape down sides of bowl, then add the oatmeal slowly with mixer on low. Add chocolate chips after oatmeal is all gooshed in, and pray to God your mixer doesn’t overheat. (Mine never has yet, but I worry.) Then, let the dough rest for five minutes.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. Look, it’s a couple of bucks and it’s a baker’s Sekrit Weapon. You don’t have to change the paper between batches or anything, and it makes cleanup a snap.

Now, here’s something a lot of oatmeal cookie recipes won’t tell you. Get your spoon out and take a spoonful of the dough. Slap it in your palm and roll it into a nice little ball. Then drop it on your lined baking sheet. This not only shapes your cookies, but it also means you don’t get a panful of some undercooked and some overcooked. You’ll get a buttery sludge on your palms, but it won’t hurt you, butter is a great moisturizer and sugar is an awesome exfoliant.

If you like bigger, softer cookies use a bigger spoon to measure out the dough. Plop them on the cookie sheet with at least 2in between them. Slide them in the oven.

Here is the tricky part to cookie baking. These suckers will take anywhere from 8 to 14 minutes to cook, depending on humidity, the quirks of your oven, cookie size…you get the idea. Start at 8 minutes and check them every two minutes thereafter until they are nicely browned around the edges and not shiny in the middle, and the first and second batches will tell you how long to cook the rest. (After a few batches you’ll be able to smell when they’re done, too.) Take ‘em out and cool the pan for a couple minutes (usually while throwing the next batch in the oven) on a wire rack. (This is when cookies are most delicate.)

Some people like to slid cookies off the pan with a wide spatula and let them land on the wire rack. I scoop them off and slide them onto the rack with the spatula, since I think it tears the delicate structures inside the “setting” cookie less. Your mileage may vary. Let cookies cool until they will no longer scorch your throat, then dunk in cold milk and bask in the appreciation of your children as they proclaim you the Best. Cookie-Cooker. Evar.

Okay, maybe that last one is just me.

These cookies keep for a nice while if you cool completely and stow in airtight Ziplocs or flat Tupperware (with parchment paper between layers and a paper towel under the bottom parchment, trust me.) But they hardly every stay around long enough to get stale.

Sometimes it is good to take a little time off from the writing. Most often, I end up cooking something during that time, and when I get back to the work it is fresher and more delicious. (Or maybe that’s just the magic of foodening.) Plus, it’s spring. The world is waking up and the trees are dressing themselves again, and baking cookies on a warm spring evening was just the thing I needed after a stressful week.

Mrppphlgrb! (That’s a “Over and out” with a mouth full of chewy, yummy oatmeal cookie.) Enjoy!

First, check out Nathan Bransford’s excellent post on tropes and originality. This is why I tell new writers “be honest and the originality will follow”. The ring of absolute honesty will shine through a tired old story and make it new again; when it comes through your uniqueness as a filter it will be unique.

If you’re bored with posts about weight, body image, and food, you might want to skip this one. Just warning you.

Last Labor Day I started an exercise regimen. Slowly and carefully, I’ve dropped almost five sizes. I’m shooting distance from a size 16; 14 is my eventual healthy goal. It’s taken me months, mostly because I don’t want to yo-yo. I want to steadily get into the habit of being healthier and more fit. And because, well, I love food and see no reason to set up the nasty boomerang of denial and binge. I have enough to feel bad and guilty over, I don’t need binge to add to it.

I suppose that I could cook low-fat. I really could. But why? Real butter, real vegetables, real cream, all these things satisfy in a way ersatz doesn’t. A very small bit of the “real” will satisfy more than a ton of the ersatz. For example, a small square of high-quality, very dark chocolate will satisfy me more than three or four Snickers bars. A small serving of pasta with this roasted red pepper sauce made with heavy cream (Oh. My. God. Worth the work, I SWEAR) will satisfy me more than a pound or two of fettuccine alfredo from that chain Italian place down the street. The real may be chock-full of Bad For You fat, but I end up eating less–and less chemical preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, etc. etc.

But this is only working, I suspect, because of the other half of the equation. It’s hard hauling my ass up on that treadmill every weekday. The weeks that I get in five whole weekdays of workout are few and far between. I get three or four days in every week, and my energy level has risen to the point where I’m also getting in a lot more playing with the kids and going for longer evening walks. Five days a week of treadmill and shovelgloving is the goal–but like the Pirate’s Code it’s more of a guideline.

Some days I hurt. Some days I’m sick or there’s an Event or some kid is throwing up or having a Bad Day. Some days it’s the story burning up inside my head. Some days I just plain don’t wanna.

But most days, I do. When I’m ill and I can’t get the exercise in, I feel it. I suppose I’ve reached the point of being addicted to running. And addicted to swinging a sledgehammer around for fifteen minutes or so.

Now, I am never going to be a supermodel. I love food far, far too much and I have a sedentary job. Besides, have you seen supermodels these days? They look like shit.

I’m sorry. I really am. But “starvation” is not something I find attractive. I like a girl with a little flesh on her, just like I like easygoing men with a little flesh on them. And I have all sorts of problems with the persistent message from mass media that women need to starve themselves to paper-thinness. Our place in the world is already small enough, for Christ’s sake.

The more I don’t watch television, the less I find I have in common with a lot of advertising. I never realized how pervasive this crap was until I took a year and a half off the telly (way back when I was first dating the Muffin, lo those many years ago) and found I didn’t miss it. Not only did I not miss it, but my sense of proportion (ha ha) came back in a big way.

Another thing that’s dropped by the wayside: fast food. Cheap fast food…isn’t. In terms of community cost, health cost, and my pocketbook, cheap fast food isn’t. Once in a great while I’ll take the kids to a local burger chain, and the little dears are always very excited. But burger-and-fries doesn’t taste as good, and even the fries–I have such a weakness for fries, you would not believe–don’t move me the way they used to. It’s like soda–once I was off it for a long while, all I could taste were the chemicals when I tried it again.

This is turning into a foodie post instead of a weight post. Which probably means I’m avoiding the subject.

So, I’m spitting distance from a size 16. Dropping steadily through clothes sizes has meant getting new clothes, which I absolutely hate. If there’s anything I hate with a flaming fiery passion it’s clothes-shopping. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. I will buy six of something at a time just so I have a “uniform” and I don’t have to pick clothes every day OR shop for them again. I mean, why spend time on that when I could be reading? Or cooking? Or playing with my kidlings?

Along with the steady weight loss has come an unpacking of hurtful assumptions and trauma from growing up. Food has been an anodyne most of my life, and grazing on trash-cooking full of preservatives and corn syrup was the only thing keeping me reasonably sane during a large proportion of my young years. Food didn’t mock and it didn’t judge, and when I felt empty inside it provided a type of fullness. Like any substitution, though, it had to be paid for. And I did. Over and over again.

I’m also beginning to unpack the sense of security having a fat layer gave me. You can hide inside a mass of yourself, you know. For a girl who equated fisticuffs with attention and any attention, good or bad, with the only approval I could get, the extra poundage was a blessing. It absorbed much more than punches.

Which means that, as I’m slimming down, I’m having to face parts of myself and my life I frenetically ate to avoid. It’s probably no accident that I’m writing YA through all this and really remembering what it was like to be young. On the one hand, I wouldn’t be between twelve and twenty-five again if you PAID me. There isn’t enough money in the world to put myself through that again. But on the other, I can’t hope to achieve any sort of peace within myself without looking hard and long at these things and Dealing With Them. Dealing is better than Drugging Yourself With Food or Frantically Avoiding Dealing With Things By Chopping Off Bits Of Self Or Engaging In Crazymaking Behavior.

I console myself with the thought that the most awesome and stunning people I know had Bad Young Years and didn’t Find Themselves until their late twenties. Being forced to find resources within yourself pays off, if you survive long enough and intact enough. The layers of fat were a survival mechanism, one I am trying to teach myself not to need. It was good while I needed it, but now I don’t–and the price of poor health, acceptable while I needed the fat to preserve some kind of psychic integrity, is no longer one I can continue paying.

It was a good cocoon. It kept me safe and it kept me sane, and I’m grateful. But now I’m almost out of it, and spreading those papery, wet wings. Sooner or later this girl is going to fly.

That, dear Reader? Is the very best revenge at all. I wish I was a bigger person and didn’t need that for motivation. But I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t. And I’m taking what I can get. There’s a certain amount of freedom in recognizing that you may not be a bigger person, but you’re going to do what you can with what you have.

Over and out.

A short run today–I’ve worked up to running five days a week, but two of those days are going to be short 20-min sessions (not counting warmup and cooldown). I was considering leaving the house today, but after yesterday’s cook-a-thon (we had MakeMe and her boyfriend over for dinner) I’m kind of nixing the notion. Besides, I need to get revisions out of the way so I can write, both on contracted stuff and on the New Shiny Project. After a long bout with revisions, all I can think of is creating anew.

I am waiting with bated breath for my next issue of Cook’s Illustrated. The kids love Scientific American and I like it too, but there’s just something about CI that makes me so so happy. I hear the next issue has a chocolate-chip cookie recipe. You can guess what I’ll be baking soon.

Someone asked me about cookbooks yesterday, so here we go. The first one–the one that started this whole thing–was Baking with Julia. After I actually started producing good bread, I got a couple other bread cookbooks too, the best of which is this one. Then I got Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, which actually goes into the chemistry of foods and why they behave the way they do. Just like CookWise and BakeWise, which I consider essential.

This was a revelation to me. I had viewed cooking as some weird alchemical art whose secrets were only given to the few with the proper handshake, kind of like some people view getting published. And after being told over and over again that I was no good at it, the way I was no good at anything practical because “your head is always in the clouds”, I’d given up.

But “cookbooks” that tell me WHY food behaves the way it does, and how to tweak recipes? ZOMG. The idea that I could learn how food reacted so I could put recipes together and get consistent results was a complete and very gratifying shock.

If I had to tell someone one cookbook to get, I’d recommend the McGee even though it isn’t technically a cookbook, because understanding how and why food behaves the way it does is way more useful than a list of ingredients. Then I’d recommend CookWise and BakeWise; then this vegetarian cookbook (since the UnSullen tends toward vegetarianism). With those you’re pretty much covered.

I do also occasionally rely on my faithful old red-plaid Better Homes and Gardens, and my old Joy of Cooking when I’m looking for something kind of fancy-dancy. And now I’ve started branching out–I did a cheesy-chicken-rice thing from leftovers the other day that vanished in a heartbeat. If I’d had sour cream it would’ve gone even more quickly.

So there you have it, my list of “essential” cookbooks. Still, all the cookbooks in the world won’t help without the willingness to get in there and make mistakes, experiment, and have some fun. (Just like writing. Okay, I’ll stop flogging that point…for now.) The kids love watching and learning and helping to cook, a valuable life skill that will contribute oodles to their adulthood. And I don’t eat out as much as I did now that I’m enamored of the process of cooking itself. Quelle disastre, right?

Right. All that money I’m saving is probably going to go toward some Le Creuset. I keep telling myself it’s quality cookware that the Princess can have after I’m gone, therefore it’s an investment…

ETA: Thanks for telling me about the broken code. HTML, she is trying to keel me…

See? I’m hopeless. Completely hopeless.

I spent some time this weekend working on the wiki. I got the glossary from the Danny Valentine series input and will start working on the Kismet glossary next. I really want to have the terms from Steelflower put in so I can refer to them while writing the second one, but such is life. Got to work with what I have in front of me and prioritize and all that jazz.

So a lot of you ask me for recipes. Lots of the recipes I use (for I am a junior cook) come from books I feel a little uncomfortable quoting from, even with attribution. I will get over this as I get more comfortable with cooking. Since you guys have been asking I will try to get over that discomfort sooner rather than later. It shouldn’t be a problem with proper attribution, right?

Anyway, I did three spectacular French bread mini-baguettes this last week and thought I would share that recipe with you, since it’s simple and easy, if time-intensive.

INGREDIENTS

2c. tepid water
1 Tb yeast (or slightly less, I fudge sometimes on the yeast)
6c. flour
1 Tb kosher salt

Please, for the love of God, use King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill or quality bread flour. Do not use Gold Medal. Please. Gold Medal and other cheap flours do not have the protein content necessary to make good bread. You can fudge by adding gluten, about 1 Tb. per 2c of crappy flour, but seriously, the investment in good bread flour is well worth it and I think it ends up being cheaper in the long run.

WHAT YOU DO

Okay. French bread is super-simple but it’s time-intensive. Dump the water and the yeast into the mixer bowl and let them stand for ten minutes. (If you don’t have a mixer that can handle bread dough, get ready to knead.[1]) After about ten minutes the yeast should be dissolved and “creamy”. Turn your mixer on low (with the dough hook in) and add the 6c of flour (see below), a cup at a time, just until the dough comes together in a shaggy mass. Then turn the mixer off and let the mess sit for 15 minutes.

This is important. It’s called the autolyse and it allows for development of gluten as well as making it easier to knead by hand (should you wish to do so). It makes a lighter bread with a better crumb, and it’s well worth the fifteen minutes. This is another reason why kitchen timers are my best friend.

After the autolyse, come back to the dough and turn your mixer on low. Let it mix for a couple minutes. This is when you add the salt. Two things here: I use kosher salt for baking; it really does make a difference and it’s cheap, too. Also, you do not add the salt until this stage because it makes the gluten fibers shorten and contract.

Here’s where a certain amount of trial and error comes in. I like my French bread dough to be just this side of tough. It’s a very dry dough that cleans the sides and bottom of the mixer bowl and, if you turn the mixer up, wraps around and slaps the side of the bowl. It’s a distinctive sound, that slapping, and one every baker lives for.

About five minutes of my KitchenAid mixing does the trick. Your mixer may vary, and if you’re kneading by hand you’re looking for a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands and cleans off your work surface. Two cups of water to six cups of flour is a good rule of thumb for me, mostly because I (big baking secret here) spoon the flour into a measuring cup and then level it off with a knife. This is something you should do every time you measure out flour, because of the tendency of flour to compact and give you much more than you bargained for.)

Now that you’ve got your nice smooth dough (it feels a little bit like Play-Doh but without the graininess) comes the most difficult part of French bread–letting it rise enough.

You probably can’t just let it rise for an hour, punch down, let it rise for 45 minutes and stick it in the oven. The flavor of French bread depends largely on the rising, which gives the flour time to break down completely and make that good, good gluten. This is also part of the reason why I plead with you not to use cheap flour. Also, there is no sugar to give the yeast a swift kick–it has to break down the flour, which as a process takes longer than the sugar rush.

I usually have to let my French bread initially rise for two hours. I put it in a greased (olive-oil cooking spray) medium-sized mixing bowl and put that in a 2.5 gallon Ziploc, which not only seals out perniciousness but gives the dough plenty of room. My kitchen is usually pretty warm, so I’ll pick an out-of-the-way spot, set my trusty kitchen timer, and bebop away. Check on it an hour later, marvel at how it hasn’t risen, kick myself for being a bad baker, set timer again and bebop away. Come back an hour later and congratulate myself for not being such a bad baker after all.

Cheap thrills, I know.

You want the dough to double at least, and it probably won’t do that in just an hour. Give it plenty of time and don’t rush this part of the process.

Now comes the shaping!

Chop the dough with your trusty dough scraper[2] into three pretty-equal portions. Take one portion and smush it out into a rough rectangle–but gently, because you want to keep some of the air bubbles in it intact. Now, roll it up the long way–that is, start at a long edge of the rectangle and roll it up like a cinnamon roll. Pinch it closed and tuck the ends under, and you’ve got a tolerable baguette-shape.

I like to bake my baguettes in this trusty little pan I picked up at Bob’s Red Mill out in McMinnville (damn but that store is dangerous to my bank account). Please, for the love of God, REMEMBER TO HOLD IT OVER YOUR SINK AND SPRAY IT WITH COOKING SPRAY/OLIVE OIL SPRAY. I prefer the olive oil spray, but either will do. You want to make sure you can get the baguettes OUT of the pan after baking (trust me on this) and spraying it over linoleum flooring is a Bad Idea. (Don’t ask. Just…don’t ask.) You could also hold them during the second rise with a heavy floured cloth, but if you’re advanced enough to do that I don’t need to tell you, right?

Shape and plop in the other baguettes. You can stretch them out a little if you want, and they do not have to be perfect. This is home baking, after all.

Now they rise again. I like to put them in that old trusty 2.5 gallon Ziploc and cover the open end with a kitchen towel. This rise can be as short as 45 minutes or as long as an hour, because the yeast has a fresh crop of food and is working overtime. When the baguettes have doubled in size, that’s about when you should bake them.

Twenty minutes before you’re going to bake them, turn your oven on 450. Put a cast-iron skillet on the bottom rack, you’re going to be baking on the middle rack. If you have a baking stone, it can stay on the bottom rack. I suppose you could take the baguettes out of the pan and cook them on a stone, but I don’t. I cook ‘em in the pan, because I like the convenience and the little bubble-shapes on the bottom of the loaf. You can also shape them and let them rise on a big ol’ (greased or parchement-lined) baking sheet if you want. Remember, reasonable convenience is the name of this game.

When your baguettes are finished rising and your oven is preheated, get a small coffee mug[3] and put three or four ice cubes in it. Splash a little water in there too. Then, slash the tops of your baguettes (I do three slashes with a sharp knife, but a serrated knife or a baking razor will do the trick too.) and slide the pan into the oven.

Now, very quickly, toss the ice cubes and water in the skillet on the bottom rack and close the oven, and turn it down to 400. The burst of steam will give you a nice crust, and the overheating to begin with means your oven is at a good steady temperature all the way through the baking cycle. You can also spray the oven walls with water before you close the door, but I don’t like that–too much chance of spraying the bread, which will give your crust spots, and it doesn’t provide steady enough steam. The skillet method works wonders, is relatively cheap (because you can use a cast-iron skillet for ALL SORTS OF THINGS, from bonking home invaders on the head to cooking flapjacks) and is easy-peasy, all things I applaud.

Each oven is different, so here is another place where trial and error comes in. I bake my baguettes for 22 to 24 minutes. I know they’re done when they:

* smell right, something that is difficult to explain
* make a hollow sound when I tap their tops
* look right, another hard-to-explain thing.

Your oven may take 20-28 minutes to bake, depending. YMMV. The best indicator is that lovely hollow sound when you thump the middle of the loaf.

Now, once the timer rings and your loaves are golden-brown and hollow when you thump ‘em, turn off your oven and prop the door open just a little, and leave the baguettes in there for 2-4 minutes. This last step makes sure they bake for the maximum amount of time without burning, which gives you lovely caramelized crusts and long shiny strands of gluten. Take ‘em out and immediately pop them on a wire rack to cool.

I like to use these with soup, and when they are two-three days old (which rarely happens) I slice them up and drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic, and broil them for crostinis. Mmmmmmhhhhh.

French bread is simple because it’s just flour, salt, yeast, and water. It looks hard only because it’s time-intensive–that simplicity means you have to allow the yeast enough time to do its thing. The variables–quality of flour, time spent rising, the temperature of the oven, etc., etc., are all easy to control with a little thought on the part of the home baker.

So, enjoy! I’ve got a couple of short stories to polish today, so I bid you a civil adieu and much luck with the baking.

[1] The best thing for my baking has been my handy-dandy KitchenAid Professional 600. And when I get the pasta attachment…look out, world!
[2] I know cash is tight these days. I do advocate the proper tools because I’m a baking fiend, but there is almost always a way around the tool if you really can’t afford it. That is the spirit of home baking, I think, because this should be fun. There’s precious little reason to do it otherwise. I’ve had enough of cooking being a chore and an almighty-nasty-time. I want it to be fun.
[3] I don’t like doing this with a glass because they can slip and then there’s all sorts of nastiness ensuing. Coffee mugs are tough, they hold enough, and they have the nice handle so you don’t lose your grip and toss them into the oven. Again, just…don’t ask. Trust me.