DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The origins of this groove are lost in time. I’ve been playing it for years, whenever a slow or half-time section in an arena-rock anthem comes along. Lazarus is the name of one such song, which I recorded with a band in about 1994, when I had the huge two-level two-of-everything kit pictured in The Drummer Gallery.

       1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a
4  RC  ooo ooo ooo ooo 
-  SD      o       o
4  KD  o  o   o  oo   o

Patronize these links, man:

• Virtual Drummer loop
• MIDI
• MP3

I was in a hurry to make bread over the weekend, but my barm was on a different schedule, so I decided to make a commercially-yeasted bread — which I have not done in months.

My favorite recipe for yeasted sandwich bread is Joe Ortiz’ Pain sur Poolish, which is a baguette recipe. The year I learned to make bread, I made this recipe every 2 days for about 4 months.

Since that time, I’ve done a lot of baking, and a lot of reading about baking, and so I’ve modified Joe’s recipe somewhat. Using Peter Reinhart’s principles, I cut the yeast in the poolish drastically, to use barely a pinch, and I extend the fermentation time from 6 hours to ~18. This gives the enzymes plenty of time to unlock the starch molecules in the flour.

The dough in this recipe is extremely wet — nearly ciabatta-like. Shaping loaves requires lots of extra flour, and the result will still be a lumpy mess.

I baked these off directly on a hot stone, and the results were astounding. The loaves were too floppy to gash in any traditional sense, but still they sprung dramatically, to about twice their original size. The crumb was somewhat miraculous: open and airy and chewy, with the sort of flavor you can only get by letting wet flour sit at room temperature for 24 hours before baking. I pulled them from the oven too early, so the crust did not stay crisp, but overall this was an exciting development.

Lou Preston once told me that his wild-yeasted doughs are mixed to 72% hydration. At the time I concluded that I could never approach that level without also having an Alan Scott oven — home ovens do not get hot enough (I believed) to make such wet dough spring sufficiently before the crust gelatinizes — but perhaps this experiment is an indication that my conclusion was premature. More experimenting is warranted, in any case.

Set in a Swiss bank, Numbered Account tells a story of murder and revenge. This is a true page-turner, with memorable characters and a satisfying plot. I was not surprised, after reading it, to learn that it was a NYT bestseller.

If you like thrillers, especially contemporary spy-fiction writers such as Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy, you will like this book.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (Hardback)
• Amazon (Paperback)

I bought this book for two reasons: the title is clever, and there’s a quote from Neal Stephenson on the back.

Here’s what Neal says about S, G, & E: “A turbocharged neo-Dickensian hot rod [with] plenty of intellectual horsepower.”

I think that pretty much sums it up!

Ruff’s writing is at times similar to Stephenson, and even more frequently similar to Vonnegut. Like many of Vonnegut’s books, S, G, & E made me laugh out loud. Also like some of Vonnegut’s stuff, this book has been labeled “science fiction,” and also like much of Vonnegut’s stuff, it really isn’t.

Patronize these links, man:

• Book Excerpt
• Amazon (Paperback)
• Review from sfsite.com

I received yet another catalog from Eyewire today, in spite of my half-dozen faxes plus one voice call politely requesting to be removed from their list.

But today is a different day, for I’ve discovered a secret weapon, provided to me by the US Supreme Court and made easy to use by the good folks at Junkbusters.

In short, US residents tired of relentless direct-mail marketing can download Form 1500 from the USPS website and submit it via mail with a copy of the offending paper spam attached; the advertiser risks prosecution for sending even one more piece of mail.

I have never in my life, when filling out a form for the federal government, experienced this much joy.