Seems the blog drew all sorts of expertise over the weekend, including this comment from a Brazilian linguist by the name of Angela (who also happens to be a bagel enthusiast): I’ve just read your post on the (possible) origins of the word ‘bagel’. Just so it happens I baked bagels today (no malt syrup […]
READ ONThose of you who’ve been reading me long enough to remember my posts on southern biscuits know that I’ve always felt a little defensive on that topic. I have, after all, spent almost all of my life up north. Who am I to move south and start telling people what to do? Happily over the […]
READ ONFor that matter, what’s gluten? The next time you make a batch of bread or pizza dough, pinch off a little bit and work it between your fingers under the kitchen faucet for a minute. A good proportion of the dough, mostly water-soluble starch, will wash away. Yet a small rubbery ball will remain. That’s […]
READ ONThere’s sense in which the ritual of boiling bagels is just that: a ritual. As I mentioned yesterday, the practice of briefly boiling, then baking, small breads goes back millennia. For some, notably a bevy of commercial bagel makers off the East coast, boiling is a self-defeating spring-inhibiting anachronism. Yet true bagel lovers know that […]
READ ONBagels are one of the more curious items of the bread world. Small, hard, chewy and dense, they’re just about everything good bread isn’t supposed to be. But what can I say, that’s the aesthetic of bagels. Good ones, like this one from one of my favorite West Village spots, have a nice glossy golden […]
READ ONPeople seem to be forever debating the origin of the bagel, but the fact is, nobody really knows it. The earliest printed reference to the bagel comes from a public edict issued in Krakow, Poland in the year 1610. It decrees that all women, upon giving birth to a child, are to be given a […]
READ ONTook most of the morning off to go searching for a quantity of osage orange firewood. This wood has an almost mystical reputation among fire builders, since when dried and burned it emits more BTU’s than any other lumber type in North America. It may be just the fuel I need to get my brick […]
READ ONIf you’re in the mood for bagel-making this week or weekend, there are a couple of things I should mention about the recipe below. First, you don’t strictly need malt powder, nondiastatic malt, or malt syrup to make great bagels. But then they don’t hurt either. Any of them are useful for bagel-making. Malt powder […]
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