Bread with Brad

Hey folks,

It's been a while, I know, I'm sorry for that. Living in Buenos Aires is beginning to feel more and more like an odyssey of sorts. Every time I think I have everything managed and my life can start calming down another calamity hits and I must quickly readjust and adapt to the new scenario.

For example, last Sunday my loyal computer which had served me well for four years finally gave up the ghost, and with it all of my lesson plans, materials, and documents I had stored for the last four years. Thus I was left with the daunting task of trying to scramble together a number of new lessons for all of my students for that week, which was no easy task. Luckily I was able to purchase a new computer early in the week, but I've still had to recreate all of my lost lessons, which has taken countless hours of time.

That being said, this has been the first moment I've had to write and update my blog, and I want to focus this installment on bread and bread making.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a bread making course with my former TEFL professor Brad. Brad does a lot of TEFL work but he also worked as a Chef and owned a restaurant in South Africa. He still enjoys cooking and will offer bread making classes and other cooking related events every so often.

Thus when I received the invitation to attend the bread making class I was more than happy to accept. Bread is one of my favorite foods and probably makes up the base of my weekly diet. The problem? Good bread is hard to come buy in Buenos Aires and it is not cheap. To buy a loaf of whole wheat sandwich bread you'd need to pay upwards of 15 pesos. To make a loaf of that, would cost about 3 or 4 pesos, which is what you'd pay for a cheap tasteless baguette in the supermarket.

Aside from the issue of pricing there is also the learning curve one must overcome. I recall the many times I've endeavored to make a loaf of bread. Each time I would end up with my hands so completely covered in soggy bread dough, desperately trying to knead the watery mess into something resembling a deflated bouncy ball. Furthermore it usually took half an hour of dedicated scrubbing to wash all the water-flour mess off my hands when I had finished.

Now I know how simple bread making can be. I've practiced all the steps, I know the general ratios, I know dark breads from white breads, dry yeast from fresh yeast, and baguettes from sandwich breads and flat breads. The course was about 3 hours long and in it we made four types of bread. First we made a whole wheat seed loaf, next we learned to make flat breads, then we made a delicious tomato and herb bread, and finally we made Kyle's bread. Yes, that's what we named it. Brad asked me what type of bread I wanted to make and I said "a light fluffy bread with lots of holes inside." The bread didn't have a name so we just called it "Kyle's bread."

The course had a mixed group of students. Some were native Argentines and some were like me, expats living and working in Buenos Aires. The group was lively and fun and all of us were eager to learn.  

From Left to right: Maria, Maria Luisa, and Mariana are enjoying some of the flat breads and whole wheat breads! 

I can say with certainty that Brad's bread course fulfilled the age-old quote:

 "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Brad's bread making class gave me the skills and experience to finally feel confident making bread.

Making the Whole Wheat Seed Loaf

Ratios
1 kilo flour to 50 grams of yeast
1 kilo flour to 600 ml of water

Mix 1 cup of warm water with two teaspoons of sugar. Add the yeast and stir until the yeast is fully dissolved. Allow the yeast to activate in the warm water for about 5-10 minutes (It should look like a creamy cafe con leche).

For the dough: Mix 1 kilo of flour with 1-2 tspns of salt, 2 tablespoons of oat flour, 2 tbsp of flax seeds, 2 tbsp of sesame seeds, 2 tbsp of sunflower, 2 tbsp of black sesame, and two tbsp of vegetable oil (the oil allows for the dough to be mixed and kneaded more easily and gives texture). Rub the oil through the flour until thoroughly mixed.

Next add the 600 ml of water to the flour mixture in roughly 50 ml amounts. Mixing it into the dough after each time the water is added. Important note: It is much easier to add water to the dough than to add flour, so add water in small amounts until the dough has reached a uniform, non-sticky consistency.

Once the dough is malleable and doesn't stick to your hands (it should still be moist), place the dough onto a flat surface and begin to knead it, pound it, do whatever you have to do to have fun and release energy and stress. The pounding process releases the gluten in the dough and is probably the most fun part of bread making. Do this for about 5 minutes.

Now shape the dough into whatever shape you want your bread to be. Create sharp cuts on the top of the loaf with a knife to give it the artisan look. Allow the dough to sit and rise for about 15 to 20 minutes and allow to cook in the oven until the crust is hard (15 minutes-medium heat), and voila, you have yourself a fresh, healthy, loaf of bread! Bon apetit!

The finished loaves!

Epic Week: An Introvert's Nightmare

Hey folks,

I figured it was finally time to crawl out of the cave I've been living in all weekend and write the next installment to my blog. Truth be told I haven't actually moved into a cave, it is a term I prefer to use in describing my retreats into isolation and solitude after taking in too much of the world. I take these retreats often, and can go for days without actually speaking to anyone. Granted it is much easier not to talk to anyone if there is a language barrier, but it also helps that I am an introvert.

Right now many of you may be saying, "ohhhh, I wonder if he has enough friends?" Or, "Why is he such a loner?" After all, who in their right mind can really go for days without speaking to anyone? This must imply that poor lonely individual has no one to speak to. Well, more often than not that individual isn't lonely, has plenty of friends, and really enjoys their solitude. I am one of those.

For me, a quiet weekend relaxing, reading, running, exploring, and cooking, is much less stressful and less mentally taxing than attending parties or large social gatherings. In fact I often dread such events, not because I have some bizarre phobia of social interaction but because after an hour or two of withstanding a social siege my mind is so mentally numbed by all the noise, social interaction, and small talk, that I usually arrive home exhausted and collapse in a tired heap on the futon. This is typical introvert. The upside to being an introvert is that you are almost never bored, and when you are bored it is almost always when you are with other people.

At this point you are probably wondering how this has anything to do with Buenos Aires. This is where I tell you. A city, at least in my opinion, is an introvert's worst nightmare. The barrage of sensory stimuli are everywhere. They are in the form of billboards, advertisements, graffiti, talking, noise, endless traffic, a thousand different coffee shops all advertising their cafe and medialunas promos. The same goes for pizza, pasta, ice cream and just about any other shop you can imagine. For every hour I spend receiving these intense visual stimuli I probably need an hour in peace to re-energize.

This is why the week was so epic. To begin, the week didn't start out very well. In my first class on Monday morning I open my computer to present the lesson and to my shock and horror the computer had died. The several hours after that class were spent walking the streets of el microcentro, the business hub of Buenos Aires, searching for a new power cable. Tuesday wasn't too difficult but Wednesday and Thursday I worked from the early hours of the morning until about 10:30 at night. I actually recall late on Wednesday how the class I had that morning seemed as if it had taken place days before. So much happened that time seemed to stretch to accommodate all of it.

Finally on Friday I inhaled a refreshing breath of relief. I ordered a coffee and some pastries with a friend and we chilled out all Friday afternoon. After the coffee I entered the cave and have been living there until this afternoon, emerging for brief moments to check facebook or write this blog, only to re-enter the cave once my task had been completed.

Just as it began, it must also end. My time in the world is finished for this Sunday. I did my daily run early this morning at about 7:30, Church at 10:30, finished all of my lessons for the week, dinner at 5:30, but still need to find some time to read. One final thing to know about introverts... we are very organized.