No.768

This being the occasion of bread batch No.768.

A red letter day in that I started a new bag of flour - Royalty from Wright's of reference 1 - and got to play with the string with which one end of the bag is sewn up; very artisanale. String which I sometimes get through with great ease, just pulling out the key end, sometimes not.

For the first time, I noticed that the string closes the bottom of the bag, while glue closes the top - with the top end probably being a lot easier to open than the bottom end. And maybe you want the extra strength of the string at the bottom when you are lugging the bag about. Notwithstanding, on this occasion I opened the bottom with a knife.

Which proved quite straightforward, yielding the debris snapped above. Plus the blade of the knife in question.

Just before the lid goes down on the first rise of something more than two hours. To be precise, two hours and fifteen minutes on this occasion.

All done, just after 16:30; around six and a half hours start to finish. Not very convenient if you are supposed to be at work. However, the first loaf was very good - both the same day when it had only just cooled and the following morning when a bit more flavour had developed.

In the margins, I noticed the candytuft out front, which has been flowering more or less continuously since about this time last year. Maybe it never stops? I think from a stray seed dropped in by a bird. See reference 2.

And the jelly lichen out back, continuing to do well in the mild, damp weather.

Up close and personal.

PS: the latest offer from Cypress, Texas. Having read so much about the place over the years, it seems rather a pity that I am most unlikely ever to make it there in person.

Sadly, inspection of the archive suggests that 'over the years' is a rather free translation of five years, nothing like as long as I had thought. See reference 3.

References

Reference 1: https://wrightsbaking.co.uk/shop/royalty-flour/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=candytuft.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-puzzle-for-wednesday.html.

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