Getting the Starter STARTED!

One of the projects I’ve wanted to get done — especially while we all have a lot of time on our hands — is to get sourdough starter actually started!

It’s on the counter now and with daily feedings it should be ready to make bread in a week or so. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but beyond that it’s really hard to find yeast in the grocery stores right now.

I will let you know how this project goes. If any of you have made sourdough starter and want to share your tips with me, that would be good thing.

I’m looking forward to actually baking the bread. If I’m doing this right, I should be good to go in the next week or so.

I love to bake and this will be a new wrinkle for me. Getting yeast this way — which is sometimes called “wild” yeast — is a step, I think, in becoming a “real” baker.

Not that I haven’t already paid my dues!

Hope your Saturday is going well! And I hope that you’re finding good things to do while you’re staying in.

“Baker Ben” Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

Do our food choices matter?

Yes, they do. The food choices we make are very important, and in ways you may not have thought about.

The ways we choose to eat have big effects on our economy, the environment, our healthcare system and certainly on animals.

The effects that I’ve focused on the most are how my eating choices affect my own health.

I’ve told many friends over the years about how I went vegetarian for three years in the early ’90s. About how the health effects were startling. About how I lost 90 lbs. About how it made me more serene, more at peace.

Well, back in ’95, I went back to eating meat, junk food and lots and lots of pasta. Plenty of sugar, as well.

And, as you might imagine, the results were not good.

So the direct effects to our health and well-being are a big deal. I don’t want to make this post all about me, but let me just say that the issue of our food choices is very important for me again these days because back on Earth Day, I eliminated meat and sugar from my diet.

The results–just as back in 1992–have been startlingly good. For me, the strategy is just to go back to what worked. It worked very well for me a quarter-century ago, and it’s working again.

How our food choices effect all those other things I mentioned earlier in this post are extremely important, of course.

Here is a link to a brief and excellent article that covers ten of the most important reasons why eliminating meat from your diet would be a good way to go.

For quite a few years now, we have seen a huge change in attitudes about how our carnivorous ways affect farm animals. The animals we eat.

I’ve paid a lot of attention to this issue and for me, the ways in which our food choices affect those animals is also a very big deal. Here’s an article that focuses mostly on that aspect of this issue.

Whether you’re focused more on the direct effects on your own health, or those macro-issues that are playing out on a larger scale, it’s quite clear that the food choices we make matter! They matter a lot!

“Bulldog Ben” Basile

Of Bread and Bread Bags

Yes, that’s the fascinating title for today’s post. I think I better explain…

The part about bread, specifically, is that last Saturday, I messed up–badly. And I’m posting today to own up to what I did…

You see, last Saturday, the 23rd, was National Banana Bread Day and I didn’t… no, I did NOT bake any banana bread!

Not a single loaf.

Had all the ingredients on hand. The bananas were at the peak of ripeness… meaning almost black.

But still, I didn’t so much as turn on the oven!

I’m a complete failure as a home baker! A fraud, a phony!

As midnight approached, I felt worse and worse about this unforgivable omission.

I had even made a point to grab the newest batch of bread bags which had arrived from Amazon three or four weeks ago. I had misplaced them after the delivery and made sure they were around for my next loaf of my favorite fruit-bread combo.

And then, while taking a momentary break from my self-flagellation over my supposed failure, I realized that I was starting on my second batch of bags… And that the bags come in lots of 100…

And it hit me! I’ve baked a hundred loaves of bread over the last fourteen months!

Well, that was a pretty cool thought!

I let myself down from that cross and realized that, although I hadn’t come through on “thee day”, it’s nevertheless true that Ben Been a busy baker and that when you look at the overall picture, I do belong in that proud gaggle of committed, for-real home bakers!

Tomorrow’s the day for the next two loaves of banana bread. I have a regular Wednesday buyer and I’m not going to disappoint him.

And then a loaf of the delightful, round loaf of crusty, rosemary-topped skillet bread I love so well.

I need to buy more zucchini at the grocery today for the next loaf of amazing Lemon-Zucchini bread I’m just wild about…

Yeah, Ben’s not in the Baker’s Hall of Fame. But he’s for real!

“Baker Ben” Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

National Fried Chicken Day is…

This auspicious day is the perfect occasion for me to reflect on the importance of regularly consuming vast quantities of… well, of fried chicken, of course!

One of life’s mysteries which I cannot explain is that I’ve loved fried chicken for as long as I can remember even though it was never served at home.

That is just a bit weird, isn’t it?

And even though I eat it frequently, I don’t make it at home, either.

I know my way around the kitchen and make all kinds of other stuff. But not this life-giving delicacy.

As great as it is, it’s certainly true that frying this fowl at home is no light undertaking.

You need a Dutch oven, or at least a skillet with some serious depth to it.

And getting a good result means giving up a very considerable quantity of high-quality cooking oil, and not one of the cheaper ones. Peanut oil or coconut oil are preferred.

And then you’re left with a vast quantity of used oil. Yes, it’s not too different from the situation we shade-tree mechanics face when we’re thinking of changing our car’s oil in the driveway. And what to do with it after… yeah, that can be an issue.

So maybe I’m not the only one; maybe lots of lovers of what just might be America’s favorite dish head to KFC or Popeye’s in huge numbers but eschew tossing chicken pieces n’ parts into their skillets at home!

This wonderful feeling of relief, of knowing I’m not so different from my chicken-lovin’ friends, will buoy my spirits 30 minutes from now when I’m standing in that long line of hungry guests at that KFC right around the corner from me!

I wonder if they know what day it is?

“Bulldog Ben” Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

Farmhouse Rules is my new fave…

Loving the little “discovery” I made today! I’ve been enjoying several of the cooking shows on Create TV for a while. So many good ones; one I enjoy quite a bit is America’s Test Kitchen. I love that the dishes featured on that show are the hearty “real food” offerings that light up my culinary universe.

Well, I just happened to stumble across Farmhouse Rules on the food network today. Very cool show! It just might be my new fave! I like it a lot.

The show features chef and life-long farmhouse girl, Nancy Fuller, and her 250 year old family farm. (By the way, farmhouse girl is a tag that comes from Nancy herself.)

I like that the show emphasizes good, home-style cooking, is set on a real farm and features a lot of her own brood. The 13 grand kids, especially.

One of the reasons that this one really appeals to me is that it beautifully ties together two things that have become really important to me in the last few years: authentic, made-from-scratch American cuisine and small farming, or permaculture.

If you’ve seen Farmhouse Rules, you don’t need any convincing from me about how good it is. If you haven’t seen it and think you’d like to check it out, here’s the link to the site where can get the low-down on this fine offering from the Food Network.

May you feast on fine, fresh victuals today. And may the television programming you “consume” leave you nourished and enriched!

Renewing my firm commitment to stay away from junk TV, I am,

Bulldog Ben Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

I love cornbread too much!

Back in mid-January I posted about making scratch cornbread. It truly is something I enjoy. A lot.

Strange as it my seem, I think I enjoy the baking as much as the eating.

I did it again. And I’m posting about it again. And I’m not sorry!

I like the photo I took while I had this yummy stuff cooling on the kitchen table. It turned out very well. And it was just the thing to broaden my breakfast choices for this week!

I hope life is going well for you these days. Your kitchen life. Your life in general.

Just eat it up!

“Baker Ben” Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

It’s National Grilled Cheese Day!

Yes, it is! And in honor of the occasion, I am most definitely going to have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

With Cheddar, of course.

Might even throw in some sliced tomato. We’ll see…

Celebrate something today. And eat a grilled cheese samich!

Bulldog Ben

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

Tabasco HQ is in deep trouble!

I keep one eye open for important stories about worsening climate change. There’s certainly no shortage of those these days.

This article is about one spot where the results of warming and the accompanying rise in sea levels is affecting the heart of Cajun country. It’s a place where many folks hold strongly conservative beliefs and where warnings about climate change from scientists and treehuggers are at considerable risk of being ignored or blithely explained away.

Avery Island–where Tabasco Sauce has been made for over 150 years–is slowly sinking. But the main problem is that the water surrounding most of the island is rising very fast. Faster than almost anywhere else on the planet.

It’s not actually an island in the technical or scientific sense, but it’s going to become one soon. By 2050, according to recent estimates.

The Island rises 163′ above sea level now, but the marshes surrounding it are retreating by a staggering 30′ per year. At that rate, the 2,200 acres of Avery Island will shrink dramatically before the mid-century mark, leaving only its core above water. That’s hardly enough real estate to support the growth of peppers and the production of the hot sauce which has made Tabasco one of the best known brands in the food industry and made the McIlhenny family very, very rich.

The Guardian published an article just this morning by writer Oliver Milman which lays out skillfully and in painstaking detail how this unhappy development is unfolding. I strongly recommend this piece to anyone who’s interested in climate change, great hot sauce, or contemporary events affecting life in the American south.

Climate change is real. The seas are rising. And regardless of how long it takes for some Americans to see what’s actually happening all around us, we’re going to have to meet the challenges caused by the damage we’ve done to our planet, and we’re going to have to be for real.

The denying, the explaining away and the foot dragging have got to stop. If we still have a lot of people and a lot of corporations–who have a financial interest in mucking up the issue–pulling in the wrong direction, wondering how we’re going to keep our favorite hot sauce on the store shelves will be the least of our worries.

“Bulldog Ben” Basile

Photo credit Ben Lawrence Basile

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Category: Cooking and Baking

Getting the Starter STARTED!

Do our food choices matter?

Of Bread and Bread Bags

National Fried Chicken Day is…

Farmhouse Rules is my new fave…

I love cornbread too much!

It’s National Grilled Cheese Day!

Tabasco HQ is in deep trouble!