Just reading the quotes for “Red Dawn” on the IMDB makes me want to punch a commie in the face. I don’t think I could be trusted to keep things playful at the event in question.

I can’t make it, but I hope anyone who is dresses appopriately.

Flyer below the fold:

Ok, sorry- the image was too big to re-size nicely here. Here’s the link instead to the kickass flyer.

Anadama bread is a traditional coastal New England bread with molasses and cornmeal that makes excellent toast and incredible peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The original recipe, so the legend goes, comes from a Rockport, Massachusetts man (up the coast on Cape Ann, next to Gloucester where they’re all gruff fisherman) whose wife ran off and left him with nothing in the house but cornmeal, molasses, and flour. He baked all these into a loaf and named it “Anna, damn ‘er.” History is silent on whether Anna deserved this infamy.

I have been making Anadama bread for years, from recipes by James Beard and Peter Reinhardt, but since I have had some time off recently caring for an infant, I’ve gone back to the drawing board, refined the basic formula into by far the best version I have ever tasted, and am now ready to pass it along to you, you lucky dog.

My basic innovations are to use a somewhat higher proportion of cornmeal and molasses than I’ve seen elsewhere, to add a little (optional) whole wheat flour for nutrition and complexity, and to use a two-starter method to build the dough rather than the traditional straight method.

The extra molasses and cornmeal (which is really pushing the limit for what this formula can take and still rise well) give the bread a distinctively “Anadama” character which I like a lot. For the same reason, I also prefer to use blackstrap molasses, the darkest, most intensely flavored molasses out there. It just tastes better in this bread, though you may certainly use dark or golden molasses if that’s what you have around.

The two starters, a soaker and a sponge, are here for several reasons. The cornmeal soaker softens up the grain, which means: more sugar is available for the yeast to feed on; the particles of meal are softer and less prone to cut into the bread’s gluten structure, giving a lighter loaf; and the cornmeal cooks more completely in the oven. A sponge of some of the flour gives great depth of flavor, promotes the activity of enzymes that make the dough more elastic, and also lowers the pH of the dough slightly, which (probably, so the theory goes) helps to soften the bran in the whole wheat and therefore keeps the loaf lighter. Putting all this together may seem like a pain in the keister, but it really amounts to five minutes of work done over two days.

Soaker:

10 oz cornmeal
10 oz water, room temperature

Sponge:

8 oz (1 3/4 cups) all-purpose or bread flour (11% protein content minimum)
7 oz water, room temperature
1/2 tsp yeast

Main Dough:

8 oz (1 3/4 cups) all-purpose or bread flour (11% protein content minimum), plus more in reserve
6 oz (1 1/2 cups) whole wheat flour (or, 6 more ounces AP or bread flour)
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
.4 oz (1 1/2 tsp) salt
4.5 oz (1/3 cup) molasses, preferably blackstrap
1 oz (2 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature

(For the hardcore here’s the baker’s percentages):
Flour…………….. 100%
Water……………. 77%
Yeast…………….. about 1.1%
Salt………………. 1.8%
Cornmeal……….. 45%
Molasses………… 20%
Unsalted Butter…. 4.5%

1.) The night before you bake, make your soaker: combine the cornmeal and water in a small bowl, mix well, and cover with plastic wrap. Alternatively, you can make a hot soaker on baking day: heat the water to about 130-140 degrees, combine cornmeal and water, mix well, cover, and let stand for 4 hours. The higher temperature seems to help the cornmeal take up the water more quickly, and may contribute to a softer dough.

2.) The morning of baking day, make your sponge. Combine the flour, water and yeast in a large bowl, whisk or stir together vigorously for at least a minute, and let sit 3-4 hours or until nicely ripe. (Ripe means that the sponge is bubbly and domed, and just beginning to recede. You will know it’s ready when it looks like a badlands landscape, with canals just beginning to form on the surface between islands of starter.)

3.) Place the flour, yeast and salt for the main dough in a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, and whisk to combine. Add the soaker, the sponge, the molasses, and the butter.

4.) Mix in stand mixer on low to medium speed for 6-8 minutes (using the paddle until things come together, and then switching to the dough hook), or, if kneading by hand, mix just until the ingredients are combined and then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-12 minutes. Add flour as necessary to make a smooth but somewhat tacky dough – it should clear the bowl but cling a little to a dry finger applied to the surface for a few seconds.

(This is a good opportunity to hone your skills working with a wonky dough – it tends to start off looking drier than it should, and then because of all the cornmeal cutting into the newly formed gluten, becomes rather unruly before turning into a smooth dough. You may need to add flour while you knead, but give it at least two minutes by machine or four by hand before adding flour a tablespoon at a time, to ensure you don’t overdo it. )

5.) Place kneaded dough in a lightly oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place (80 degrees) for 90 minutes. Halfway through, give the dough a business-letter fold ((A business-letter fold is a fancy way of punching down partially risen dough. The intended effects are two: to gently expel some of the gas that has begun to accumulate, and to line up the gluten structure of the dough to promote a good rise, a good shape, and an attractive loaf.

Here’s how:

1.) Using a bowl scraper, remove the dough from the rising bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Using the flats of your fingers, gently press down all over the dough to let some air out. Do not mash the edges, do not try to pop visible bubbles, and do not be forceful.

2) Gently pull the sides of the dough outward just a little so that the entire mass is an ovalish-rectanglish shape with the long sides going left to right.

3.) With your hands, take the left side of the dough up and fold it about two-thirds of the way over the rest of the mass, as if you were folding a letter into thirds. Repeat with the right side, folding it all the way to the opposite edge. Do not press down to seal.

3a.) In some very slack doughs – not this one – you may turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process before returning the dough to its bowl, to build additional strength.

4.) Replace dough in bowl, folded side down, and cover once again with plastic wrap. )).

6.) Remove dough from bowl, divide into two equal pieces, and gently preshape ((To preshape a loaf is to take the ugly cut piece you have, and turn it into something orderly so that it will form a neater loaf that will rise and eat better.

1.) Place the dough piece cut side up on a very lightly floured surface. Take the top edge and fold it toward the middle of the mass. With the heel of your hand, gently but firmly press it into place. Take the piece of edge that’s at about 2:00 and repeat. Continue clockwise like this all the way around. When you are finished, the dough should be closer to round, and elastic enough to spring back just a little when you take your hand away.

2.) Then, take the 12:00 and 6:00 edges and bring them toward each other. Press them together to gently seal. Repeat with the 3:00 and 6:00 edges. Repeat again in each direction. Alternatively, if you are expert at shaping round loaves, you can tighten the gluten on the “good” surface a bit using whatever method you prefer.

3.) Finally, turn the preshaped piece of dough seam side down onto a lightly floured surface, cover with a bowl or plastic wrap and let rest for 15-20 minutes. )). Let rest covered for 15 minutes.

7.) Preheat oven to 350.

8.) Shape each piece into a freeform round or batard loaf, or shape and place in lightly oiled loaf pans. Proof 60-90 minutes or until nearly doubled.

9.) Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes, turning halfway through. If you wish, you may steam the oven ((To steam an oven:

1.) Place an old cast iron skillet or cake pan you never plan to use again on the floor of the oven, or on the lowest rack if using an electric oven. Preheat the oven with the pan inside.

2.) When you place your loaves in the oven, carefully pour 1 cup of very hot or boiling water into the pan before you shut the oven door. Be careful! – steam burns are bad news.

If you are afraid of pouring water into your oven, you can use a few ice cubes instead, placing them in the pan when the loaf goes in, though this does rob the oven of a little heat. You can also use a spray bottle to mist the dough with water prior to going in the oven, and then spray the oven walls quickly with water at two-minute intervals for the first eight minutes or so of baking. This method also leads to great heat loss, so tack a few more minutes of baking time on the end.

Now… why steam your oven at all? Well, steam will keep the starches in the crust from gelatinizing (hardening) as quickly while the loaf undergoes its last speedy rise in the intense heat of the oven. For this recipe this is optional, but you will probably find you get a slightly better oven spring from steam. )) when you place the loaves to promote a better oven spring.

10.) When the internal temperature is above 190 degrees, and the loaf is a nice dark golden brown on all sides, remove from oven. (Or, just give ‘em the full 50 minutes if there’s doubt.) Remove from pans, if used, and place on a rack to cool. Wait at least 1 hour before slicing! ((Why wait until the bread is cool before slicing? Because bread isn’t done baking until the loaf has come back down to almost room temperature. As the loaf cools, the internal structure is continuing to gelatinize (set and become edible) and flavor compounds are continuing to develop. This process doesn’t fully run its course until the bread is nearly cool. The only bread you should eat hot is bad bread; good bread deserves good treatment and a full cooling before cutting. ))

Footnotes:

There’s two things that I am for sure: a rabid pro football fan (American style) and a bleeding heart pablum puker.

So, I’ve been growing increasingly concerned over the last few years as reports have surfaced of the extent and callousness of the NFL’s disregard for on-field player injuries and for disabilities suffered by retired players. Now, I’m no idiot. I know coaches regularly put guys in numbed up against cracked ribs or a broken finger to finish a series or a game. It’s football! But when you get beyond that, into the realm of doping up a lineman with a broken spine and sending him into the game, or letting your QB or running back play when he’s been hit on the head so hard he’s not sure of his name, the date, or which way is up, that’s a different story. Then pro football with its pads and lucrative ad deals, devolves into mere crude bloodsport (rather than a bloodsport at a remove, which is so much more civilized and refined). My own New England Patriots and their coach Bill Belichick are reportedly among the worst offenders here, taking horrible and stupid risks with players’ health that has cut many careers, and doubtless many lives, short.

Now, again, that’s theoretically an uncomplicated matter of well-informed people making choices as adults to put themselves in harm’s way. But the truth, naturally is not so neat. Via unfogged I have found a fascinating and dismaying article in Men’s Journal about the shameful and shabby treatment of retired injured players at the hands of the NFLPA (the players’ union), the league itself, and the various bodies set up to take care of retired players.

[Wik] A final question: What sense could it possibly make to put a player who makes $6M a year, by contract, for multiple years, in harm’s way unnecessarily? How is that good business? Your journeyman halfback plays on an injured knee, blows out his meniscus and his ACL or fractures his spine, and then collects the rest of his four-year contract from the sidelines, unable to do what he was hired to do but owed every penny of his salary. Wouldn’t it make more rational sense to take better care of your players and try not to play them when injured, in an effort to preserve your investment in him? Hell, leaving aside the fact that this would be the decent thing to do, it’s economically sensible!

Am I right? Am I right?

It’s been a long standing point of minor contention between myself and Goodwyfe Johno that for some reason she won’t let me have a flamejob put on our Oldsmobile sedan. Says it’s a frivolous waste of money… I guess I can see her point, but I have a hard time liking it.

But let nobody say she’s not a good person: yesterday she found for me a guy who makes flamejob decals… for home stand mixers like my Kitchenaid Artisan 600! A silver-and-black flamejob diamond-plate pattern flamejob decal is on its way to my home as we speak, to give my Kitchenaid mixer at least 100 more horsepower of pure high-grade awesome. My mixer, when done, will look very much like this (except awesome silver on awesome red):

I love the internets.

Well… we did.

Linus John:

… and with a very sleep-deprived papa, enjoying the soothing tones of Cuban dance music played at deafening volume. Good kid. (Nota bene: even on no sleep with a new infant in the house, I still look at least 5-8 years younger than my actual age. Good genes, evidently!)

We come to the end of our educational series, “Alternate State Mottoes for Stupid States” with a state that is last on many lists, no matter how ordered, Wyoming. There is surprisingly much to say about a state that 99.83% of America’s population has wisely chosen not to live in:

* Come dig a hole in Wyoming!
* The Cowboy State. Other Village People not allowed
* WyOMFG!
* ET’s Summer Home
* Cedant arma togae
* First to make the tactical error of allowing women to vote
* Less is more. But more is more, too
* Square, but fun
* Rodeo riding is not gay
* Don’t Feed Grizzly Bears. They Eat People.
* Don’t Feed Cowboys. They Eat People.
* The other square state
* Home of the majestic jackalope
* Largely Balrog Free
* Woefully underdeveloped and tragically cowboyified
* Come for the arid emptiness, stay for the arid emptiness
* Save a horse, ride a Wyomingite
* Yogi lives in Jellystone Park, fucko
* Got Geothermal Activity?
* Join the Dick Cheney Memorial Hunt Club and bag a lawyer!
* No limit on lawyers!
* It’s Wyoming, Baby
* It takes decades of training to become a competent cowpoker
* Brokeback Mountain is in Faggotty Colorado
* In Bauxite, the Future
* Rocky Mountain Oysters, it’s what’s for dinner
* We Love Our Congressman
* The Diversity State, if by Diversity you mean lots of white folk in jeans and cowboy hats
* Land of a perverse number of mountains
* Like No Place on Earth. That’s not a good thing.
* Not Much, And Lots Of It
* Land of Wary Glances
* Big Fats
* A Rocky Mountain New Jersey
* The Suffering State
* With this few people, you’d think it’d be harder to find assholes
* Flat Is Where It’s At
* Say “Wynot” and I’ll pop a cap in your ass
* The Dwarrodelf
* Jackson Hole isn’t as bad as it sounds
* I Live In Wyoming. Please Kill Me.
* Proving You Don’t Need A City To Be A State
* Where men are lonely and sheep are scared
* 48% Government Owned
* Alice doesn’t live here anymore
* Gateway to Utah

[Wik]Don’t worry, your alternate motto fun is not completely dead – there are plans in the works to attack Puerto Rico and our Nation’s capitol, and our crack team of researchers is looking into new and innovative ways to ridicule Europeans.