Recent Obsessions: No-knead bread and finding a new camera
You know you're obsessed with baking/food when you wake up in the morning and spend a couple hours looking at blogs and other topics online before going to work...and then go into work and blab about such topics to everyone you think may be interested...and then come home and wake up at 7:30 AM on a Saturday to start blogging about such topics...
So now it's your turn to be blabbed to: THESE ARE THE MOST AWESOME THINGS EVER! (for now)
On No-Knead Bread
Mix up a really sticky wet bread dough in 5 minutes, let sit on the countertop overnight (12-18 hours) or at least 1-4 days in the fridge to let the yeast rise slowly and the gluten soak up all that extra water, and when you're ready to bake, flip the dough around a bit into a ball, let it proof for half an hour, and then bake! And you're supposed to get this wonderful crisp/chewy-crusted, soft, Euro-bakery style artisan bread (if you bake it in a loaf in a heavy pan like a dutch oven). But you can adapt it to any type of bread product--cinnamon buns, challah, etc. and it's all supposed to be A-MA-ZING. And the fridge version keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, so you can pull out a hunk any time you feel like making something along the way!
I myself haven't tried it yet, but if the number of people I've seen blog about something from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book (linked blow) is any indication as to the results, then I feel fairly comfortable making this shameless plug with no personal experience. C'mon, the simplicity itself is worth a shot, wouldn't you agree??
Here's the original feature article about the countertop method in the NY Times.
(The recipe is available as a link on the left hand bar of the article)
Here's a food blogger that goes through a recipe for the refrigerator version, for Sticky Pecan Rolls!!! (This is where I originally found a detailed recipe and realized why everyone in the food blogging world thinks this method is so darn cool)
The cool bakers at King Arthur Flour discuss the method and share a recipe for No-Knead Harvest Bread in their blog.
A couple of the books on the subject:
My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. (by the bakery owner who was featured in the NY Times Article; overnight at room temp method)
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. (the fridge method)
On Cameras and Food Photography
So Michael and I are in the midst of a camera upgrade decision. My old Sony Cyber-Shot, randomly bought and handed off to me by my dad circa 2004, works fine; however, with the dents inflicted upon it over the years (*cough*little sister*cough*), the increasingly pathological speed of battery power drainage, and its seizure-like propensity to turn off randomly (e.g. just when I want to take a nice pic of my momentarily posing cats), dealing with it has just gotten less and less appealing over time.
I wanted to have some nicer camera to take my baking pics with, and also we figured we might as well get a mid-range camera so we can use it for high-quality images from normal traveling and life-archival purposes as well. The point is that I could have gotten a fancy DSLR like everyone else in the food blogging world does (no offense, everyone else), but for normal use, it's a little bit overkill and the idea of being tourists with a honking big expensive camera just shouts mugging-waiting-to-happen to us. If I develop into a budding photographer that just oozes f-stops and ISOs, then maybe I'll invest in a DSLR someday. But even then, it's staying at home, in a drawer with a comfortable padded bed. Which means I still need something for traveling and everything else in life.
So we're looking at a couple ultrazoom models, which are still considered compact cameras but are DSLR wannabes in their capabilities, namely the Canon PowerShot SX20 IS and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35. They're basically just a step down from DSLRs, have a lot of the same manual functions, decent lenses, but importantly are at least a few to several hundred dollars cheaper and are more modest in size and weight. Basically they cost about how much all digital cameras cost about 5 years ago, which is pretty nice for the functions you get out of this price range today. Hey, 20X optical zoom is pretty darn cool.
There are nitpicky pros and cons to each of the cameras, but nothing that breaks the deal, and so since they're so similar, we're having a hard time deciding...the Panasonic is lighter, has a long-lasting lithium-ion battery, has some nice anti-distortion software capabilities, has the option to take pictures in RAW format, and is a bit cheaper. The Canon has somewhat superior long distance performance (20X zoom compared to 18X in the Panasonic), is supposed to be designed more ergonomically, the little LCD viewing screen can be pulled out and put at different angles (so you can do weird angles or hold it above your head and still be able to see via the screen what you're shooting at), has the little port for a potential mega-flash attachment, uses more-convenient AA batteries, and Michael likes the position of the microphones on the camera.
Anyone have any experience with either of these and have any suggestions? We're going to try to find at least one of them in person today while out shopping just to see how the controls look and how the camera feels in the hand.
As far as staging for my food photography, I was originally contemplating the idea of shelling out 50-100 bucks to get some "professional" lights and/or small staging platforms. Until I found this:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-photography-made-easy-lunch-box.html
This guy is a professional photographer, and adding to his street cred is that he has fashioned this ghetto cardboard box stage in which you cut out the sides and install tissue paper over the holes, and with any old bright light that you can position behind the screens, ta-da, you have instant diffused light for your photography! I love the Alton-Brownesque DIY-ness of this method. That and I have a lot of cardboard boxes.
And added with that my new camera will have probably some setting to adjust for fluorescent light sources, the days of over-exposed flash pictures of baked goods at 11pm will be history! Badass blogging, here I come!!
So now it's your turn to be blabbed to: THESE ARE THE MOST AWESOME THINGS EVER! (for now)
On No-Knead Bread
Mix up a really sticky wet bread dough in 5 minutes, let sit on the countertop overnight (12-18 hours) or at least 1-4 days in the fridge to let the yeast rise slowly and the gluten soak up all that extra water, and when you're ready to bake, flip the dough around a bit into a ball, let it proof for half an hour, and then bake! And you're supposed to get this wonderful crisp/chewy-crusted, soft, Euro-bakery style artisan bread (if you bake it in a loaf in a heavy pan like a dutch oven). But you can adapt it to any type of bread product--cinnamon buns, challah, etc. and it's all supposed to be A-MA-ZING. And the fridge version keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, so you can pull out a hunk any time you feel like making something along the way!
I myself haven't tried it yet, but if the number of people I've seen blog about something from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book (linked blow) is any indication as to the results, then I feel fairly comfortable making this shameless plug with no personal experience. C'mon, the simplicity itself is worth a shot, wouldn't you agree??
Here's the original feature article about the countertop method in the NY Times.
(The recipe is available as a link on the left hand bar of the article)
Here's a food blogger that goes through a recipe for the refrigerator version, for Sticky Pecan Rolls!!! (This is where I originally found a detailed recipe and realized why everyone in the food blogging world thinks this method is so darn cool)
The cool bakers at King Arthur Flour discuss the method and share a recipe for No-Knead Harvest Bread in their blog.
A couple of the books on the subject:
My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. (by the bakery owner who was featured in the NY Times Article; overnight at room temp method)
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. (the fridge method)
On Cameras and Food Photography
So Michael and I are in the midst of a camera upgrade decision. My old Sony Cyber-Shot, randomly bought and handed off to me by my dad circa 2004, works fine; however, with the dents inflicted upon it over the years (*cough*little sister*cough*), the increasingly pathological speed of battery power drainage, and its seizure-like propensity to turn off randomly (e.g. just when I want to take a nice pic of my momentarily posing cats), dealing with it has just gotten less and less appealing over time.
I wanted to have some nicer camera to take my baking pics with, and also we figured we might as well get a mid-range camera so we can use it for high-quality images from normal traveling and life-archival purposes as well. The point is that I could have gotten a fancy DSLR like everyone else in the food blogging world does (no offense, everyone else), but for normal use, it's a little bit overkill and the idea of being tourists with a honking big expensive camera just shouts mugging-waiting-to-happen to us. If I develop into a budding photographer that just oozes f-stops and ISOs, then maybe I'll invest in a DSLR someday. But even then, it's staying at home, in a drawer with a comfortable padded bed. Which means I still need something for traveling and everything else in life.
So we're looking at a couple ultrazoom models, which are still considered compact cameras but are DSLR wannabes in their capabilities, namely the Canon PowerShot SX20 IS and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35. They're basically just a step down from DSLRs, have a lot of the same manual functions, decent lenses, but importantly are at least a few to several hundred dollars cheaper and are more modest in size and weight. Basically they cost about how much all digital cameras cost about 5 years ago, which is pretty nice for the functions you get out of this price range today. Hey, 20X optical zoom is pretty darn cool.
There are nitpicky pros and cons to each of the cameras, but nothing that breaks the deal, and so since they're so similar, we're having a hard time deciding...the Panasonic is lighter, has a long-lasting lithium-ion battery, has some nice anti-distortion software capabilities, has the option to take pictures in RAW format, and is a bit cheaper. The Canon has somewhat superior long distance performance (20X zoom compared to 18X in the Panasonic), is supposed to be designed more ergonomically, the little LCD viewing screen can be pulled out and put at different angles (so you can do weird angles or hold it above your head and still be able to see via the screen what you're shooting at), has the little port for a potential mega-flash attachment, uses more-convenient AA batteries, and Michael likes the position of the microphones on the camera.
Anyone have any experience with either of these and have any suggestions? We're going to try to find at least one of them in person today while out shopping just to see how the controls look and how the camera feels in the hand.
As far as staging for my food photography, I was originally contemplating the idea of shelling out 50-100 bucks to get some "professional" lights and/or small staging platforms. Until I found this:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/
This guy is a professional photographer, and adding to his street cred is that he has fashioned this ghetto cardboard box stage in which you cut out the sides and install tissue paper over the holes, and with any old bright light that you can position behind the screens, ta-da, you have instant diffused light for your photography! I love the Alton-Brownesque DIY-ness of this method. That and I have a lot of cardboard boxes.
And added with that my new camera will have probably some setting to adjust for fluorescent light sources, the days of over-exposed flash pictures of baked goods at 11pm will be history! Badass blogging, here I come!!
Whatever you're thinking are your most likely options, go someplace and try them out. I found that my ability to easily comprehend a camera's operating methodology greatly influenced my feelings towards it.
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