Apr 4th 2008 07:31 am A good year

1986-12-18-peggy-sue.gif

I’ve been on a bread-baking kick lately. There are those of us who fervently believe (know, really) that a true French baguette can be had only in France. You can have “a” baguette elsewhere. You can buy “French bread” at the Piggly Wiggly. Even cookbooks and flour companies promise results “as close to the true French baguette as you can get.” However, there’s only one genuine article.

We all know the French baguette looks something like a Louisville Slugger and, given 24 hours, is almost as hard. Even fresh, it will get you a Texas League single. It has a delightful brown crust that shatters when bitten, rewarding the lips and gums with razor-like shards than can draw blood. It can be purchased everywhere in France, alongside loaves of country breads that actually taste much better and aren’t painful to eat, their only drawback being, they’re not French baguettes. Obviously, the French baguette has a mystique.

I don’t think it’s all that mysterious. When I think of experiencing le McCoy réel, I think of sitting under an umbrella on an improbably beautiful medieval square, far from my own problems, eating a lunch of perfectly prepared something, with an aproned waiter dropping by every 10 minutes to ask, “Voulez-vous quelque plus de vin, le touriste de cochon ?” No wonder everybody remembers French baguettes so fondly!

Well, I’ve got my baguette recipe down pretty good, I think. I dare say, if I could magically transport my bread, fresh, to that medieval square, Frenchmen and tourists alike would throw local baguettes at their baker. Next week, I’ll share it with you.

Posted by jimmyjohnson / Vintage A&J

36 Responses to “A good year”

  1. Sili on 04 Apr 2008 at 7:45 am #

    I can’t complain about the taste of my baguettes, but they are a lot more chewy than crunchy.

    Ah well – c’est la vie.

    Looking forward to your recipe – perhaps that’ll make all better.

  2. Steve from Royal Oak on 04 Apr 2008 at 7:56 am #

    My wife bakes bread from a recipe handed down from her Mother, who had it handed it down from her Mother. A few years ago I was going through old letters from my Mother and Grandma, when I noticed the one in which my Grandma was encouraging my wife’s bread baking when we were first married. She enclosed the bread recipe that she used for years.

    I showed it to my wife, but she never got around to it. One day after watching her bake bread, I decided that I would try my Grandma’s recipe the next week. Of course during the crucial kneading process, the phone rang, making a mess of the phone. But I found great satisfaction in working the bread from a gooey mess to 4 loaves of bread.

    The first batch were flawed as I did not let it rise a second time, but the next time that I made it, I gave the bread to my brothers when we got together a short time later. Something about the aroma, the consistency and the flavor brought my Grandma’s sprit to me. Very gratifying.

  3. Michael Herr on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:00 am #

    That’s one of the reasons I tell my wife I don’t want to go to France. After all, who can enjoy a meal with the waiter calling you a pig?

    You have to make up things like that when you write about the French. It’s like a rule of grammar. Actually, I’ve found the French people to be very nice. I guess the point of the joke is, “They seemed nice, but they could have been calling me a pig for all I know!” I really don’t believe for a moment they were. You should go to to France, if you possibly can. — JJ

  4. Pudge on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:12 am #

    Whenever I try to explain to people what Tiger is doing, I too am met with complete indifference. Not just the womenfolk either, people who I consider sports fans often don’t seem to appreciate what is happening on the links these days.

  5. Jeff in Ann Arbor on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:15 am #

    I taught myself to bake good baguettes some 30+ years ago after we spent a post-grad school pre-family summer in Europe and learned that there were other kinds of food than what I grew up with (German-American). I got so good at it that it was always the best seller later at our co-op nursery school bake sales, and then other parents there asked if they might be able to buy it when there wasn’t a bake sale.

    So as a stay-at-home dad with a four-year-old and a three-month-old, I started a little business (what was I thinking?) in our kitchen. I started very slowly, but after three years, when we moved to a bigger house, I put in an 8×10 commercial kitchen in the back of the attached garage with a pizza oven, a 20 qt. mixer, and an eight foot long maple bench.

    And now, nearly 29 years later, I seem to have never gotten a real job as we had planned I would when the kids got older. I bake 80 baguettes a day, four days a week, and it keeps me off the street, and has even made me a little famous locally. I now sell mostly to a couple of shops, but I still have some individual customers.

    My secret is to use very little yeast and let the dough rise a long, long time. I start it the evening before, give it two rises before shaping, and bake it in the afternoon.

    Aha! It’s working already! My real goal was to trick you into revealing your bread-baking techniques! — JJ

  6. Sheila on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:23 am #

    When we were traveling in France, I always started out with my grade-school French (passable accent, no grammar) and it was amazing what a good response I received. Of course I was butchering the language, and they normally switched the conversation to English, but they appreciated the effort. We went to the Tuileries and sat down at an outdoor restaurant, and were approached in a very stand-offish manner by a waiter. As soon as we started to order food in (bad) French, he was falling over himself to please us. I view going to a foreign country and initially speaking English as ridiculous as someone coming here and expecting us to understand Croatian right off the bat. And expecting them to understand you if you speak louder, or making snide comments in English in their presence as if they do not understand is unreasonable, but we were witness to both behaviors during our trip. My college German has also served me well in my travels. The response there was either to correct my grammar or to ask if they could practice their English on me. So I echo Jimmy’s sentiments with an addition – go to France, and always start the conversation in French, even if you have to pull out a phrasebook to do it.

  7. Heidi also in Pittsburgh on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:23 am #

    Nice trick, Jimmy, but I’ll still be waiting for your recipe next week. (And trying these other tips, too!)

  8. Brian on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:26 am #

    Wow. You know I know A+J as been around for a while, and I know “Peggy Sue Got Married” came out a while back, and you even *say* that the strips “starts” in 1986..

    …and yet, it’s the image of a “Jabba the Hutt” action figure that *really* gives me a sense of how old these are. ^_^;;

  9. Jim in southwest Illannoy on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:51 am #

    Sheila, I spent 11 years in the far east with the Air Force and I echo your sentiments exactly. Once in Korea we got lost trying to get to a South Korean airbase so I pulled out the card they’d given us with phrases in English and Korean for asking directions. The guys made fun of me, but the elderly gentleman I asked for directions didn’t, plus he did get us turned around and heading the right direction.

    As for the bread, many years ago while in Oklahoma a friend I’d been stationed with in the Philippines asked us to come over so he could ask why his bread didn’t turn out. He didn’t follow any recipe; he just threw everything together in a mixer, then into a bread pan to bake. I had to explain to him you don’t put yeast in boiling water, because yeast is alive. I don’t know if he ever did learn to bake bread. I hope he did.

    Jeff, it sounds like you have a fun business.

  10. Bea in Bakersfield on 04 Apr 2008 at 9:09 am #

    I find the kneading of dough, be it bread or pasta, a great experience. Punch and roll, punch and roll, flip…… My Mom was a great teacher. And my college roommates once thought I was a great cook just because I knew how to knead dough. I didn’t cook for them often or they would have known the truth.

  11. Connie on 04 Apr 2008 at 9:19 am #

    Jeff in Ann Arbor, are there any shops in Lansing that buy your baguettes? :-)

    Jimmy, I had to email today’s strip to 3 of my 4 brothers, all addicted to golf. Good job as always!

  12. Robert Stephenson on 04 Apr 2008 at 9:26 am #

    Mr. Johnson,

    Tried to let Ms. La Rosa know that she has another person interested in an Arlo and Janis retrospective, but kept getting a “Cannot perform this operation because the default mail client is not properly installed,” whatever that means (and I’m not actually interested in finding out). In any case, you can pass along another “Yes!”, although it doesn’t sound as though it is needed.

    Take care, Sir.

  13. Steve from Royal Oak on 04 Apr 2008 at 9:47 am #

    My Brother-in-Law is a Marshall at the Buick Open in Flint and because he has been doing it a long time and is a pretty big guy, he always gets assigned to protect Tiger. He has rarely spoken to him, which is probably why he gets asked to come back.

    I went to the Pro-AM a few years ago and as Tiger was walking down the fairway, I yelled “Welcome to Grand Blanc” and he smiled, looked me in the eye and said “Thank you”. Later he hit his ball off the fairway and was twirling his club, nearly hitting my son. My son got a “Oops, sorry”.

    When Tiger first came on the scene, I dismissed him as just a bunch of hype, but very quickly I realized that we are seeing something special. I think of him as a modern day Babe Ruth in that he is a great player that is dominating the game in a charismatic way.

  14. David S. on 04 Apr 2008 at 9:53 am #

    The basic problem with recreating French baguettes at home is that they are all the product of commercial bakeries. People, by and large, don’t bake at home in France. They don’t need to, with a friendly baker just around the block, no matter where they live. Recreating the conditions of a commercial French bakery in an American kitchen is daunting. It’s still possible, though, to turn out decent baquette-like objects that people really like.

  15. Peter B. Steiger on 04 Apr 2008 at 10:01 am #

    Robert, that error message means that when you clicked on the address, your web browser didn’t know what to do. You have to configure your computer to “know” what program you use to send mail – Outlook (or “Ootlook” as we Canadians say), Pegasus, Evolution, whatever.

    Just highlight the address to copy it (ctrl-C) and then manually pull up your email program, start a new message, and paste (ctrl-V) the address into the “To” field.

    Another exciting day at the Arlo and Janis tech support hotline.

  16. Anne in Pa. on 04 Apr 2008 at 10:20 am #

    On a mostly different thread (as always) your blog strip today reminds me of a story my dad used to tell: he traveled all over the country for business in the ’60s. His last name was the same as one astronaut and he resembled a different astronaut. If he gave his name, people would get excited and say “you’re that astronaut!” Although he would deny it, they’d still want his autograph saying ‘oh, you’re the other one’ so he’d scrawl his illegible scrawl and they’d be happy. So, people in the US can be nice, too, to strangers, but if you ever watch an ‘Antiques Roadshow’ with someone claiming to have an astronaut’s autograph, but it’s not, now you know the story.

    I, too, am looking forward to your bread recipe. I’ve just started back into baking bread and am still experimenting.

  17. Jim in SE Mississippi on 04 Apr 2008 at 11:10 am #

    I knew those two years of high school French would come in handy sooner or later! (Actually, there was that time in Quebec when I was able to order iced tea in French.)

  18. Redman in the Big "O" on 04 Apr 2008 at 12:02 pm #

    From old movies, to baking bread and then to maybe the greatest professional golfer who ever lived! That’s why I love America! I to was lucky enough to see this young man in person at a Master’s practice round two years ago. He is a master at his game but even when practicing was somewhat aloof. I spoke to him about the shot that he had just hit but he kept walking with no response. I also spoke to the legend, Gary Player and he smiled and gave me a “thumbs up” and said “Thanks”. All who enjoy the game should try and go to one of the tour stops and see Tiger and his magic with a club. Right Jimmy??

  19. H C Brown on 04 Apr 2008 at 12:21 pm #

    Ah – le bon pain! I am a fan (and was lucky enough to live in France for a short while ‘fore coming here)….the best part of bread is the crust. (I make bread too)

    Yea Tiger! we’ll see him next week.

    and boy did we all get going on bicycles yesterday … nice memories and fun to read

  20. Paul on 04 Apr 2008 at 12:22 pm #

    Why do we have to wait until next week? I like the recipe in the NY times, which also requires small amounts of yeast and a long wait time, but have always done it as a boule` (is that the right word?) because you are supposed to cook in a covered cook pot.

  21. jim on 04 Apr 2008 at 2:17 pm #

    One of the favorite stories to tell around my house is the time my father and sister tried making zucchini bread for the first time. The garden had produced a huge amount of the veggies and my Dad was eager to take his first try at baking bread. After getting a recipe from a friend he and his daughter began baking.

    Unfortunately the first batch came out about an inch think and resembled a tar pit. Dang. Figuring they had just messed up somewhere they threw that batch out and started over.

    Batch number two… same results. What the heck? Maybe the zucchini’s have too much water! Let’s try again with less… same results.

    Dang. So my Dad calls his friend and they start going over the recipe. I just about fell out of my chair when I heard him say

    “Flour? You didn’t say anything about Flour!”

  22. Leslie on 04 Apr 2008 at 2:31 pm #

    We learned to make French bread in culinary school the first week of our baking course. They refused to call it a baguette. Sure tasted good, though. My favorite breads to bake are brioche and focaccia.

  23. Mary in Ohio on 04 Apr 2008 at 3:40 pm #

    The store I work in has a wonderful bakery. One morning I asked the head baker what the , difference was between their Vienna and Italian breads, both long favorites of mine. He said,”The way we cut the crust across the top.”

    The Zucchini bread story reminds me of my best friend’s father’s recipe for carp(He was a great fisherman): Clean the carp. Lay it out on a board in the sun for 2 days. Throw the carp away and eat the board.

    To me, zucchini requires either a) lots of sugar when you make it into bread or b)lots of butter when you fry it.

  24. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 04 Apr 2008 at 8:58 pm #

    “Louisville Slugger” — Anyone else know who was the real and original Louisville Slugger from whom the company took its name? I imagine that his name is now readily available on the Web. When I first looked for the name years ago, I had to search everywhere.

    “Piggly Wiggly” — great supermarkets. Over here, we have a mess of Krogers, Meijers, and WalMarts. A few Giant Eagles, but not as many as the other three.

    Piggly Wigglys are truly a touch of the South. However, the strip itself always seems to be set in the Northeast.

    Does anyone know if Jimmy has given a specific location for the home of the Days?

  25. Jean from Dahlonega GA on 05 Apr 2008 at 7:21 am #

    I’ve never cared for bread (French or otherwise) with crust that, as you say, shatters into blood-drawing shards. I much prefer to sit in a biergarten in Munich, eating German rye bread and drinking wonderful German beer. Yeah, I know-I’m a peasant. I look forward to reading your recipe, though, JJ.

    All the bicycle posts yesterday brought back some great memories. And, I got “Peggy Sue” from Netflix, and enjoyed it immensely. Guess I’ll have to hit the used DVD store for my own copy now.

  26. Jeff in Ann Arbor on 05 Apr 2008 at 9:36 am #

    Jean from Dahlonega GA: A little confession from this French bread baker – as popular as my baguettes are, I’m with you on the rye bread and German beer. But since I also am a homebrewer, I am able to enjoy my own German-style roggenbrot and lager bier.

  27. Jim in SE Mississippi on 05 Apr 2008 at 2:10 pm #

    Rick in Shermantown, Ohio:

    I’d like to think the Days are residents of the southeastern US, but as far as I know, JJ is still treating that as classified information. So I guess they will continue to be a non-directional family.

    Jean and Jeff:

    My German heritage agrees.

    I don’t bake a lot of bread, but I do make the world’s-easiest-to-bake bread, a pain de biere. Its dense texture lends itself well to making French toast and croutons.

  28. Mary in Ohio on 05 Apr 2008 at 4:32 pm #

    I thought there were Piggly-Wigglys in Columbus (OH) – now Winn-Dixie is a southern chain! Several of my teacher friends had no idea why the dog (in the book and movie) had that name.

  29. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 05 Apr 2008 at 9:51 pm #

    Mary:

    Winn-Dixie is definitely a Southern chain. Also, Houchens, a Southern grocery store chain and other industries, began in my birthtown of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

    I just checked for Piggly-Wigglys in Columbus and found none. Here’s a url for the store locations: http://www.pigglywiggly.com/cgi-bin/customize?storelocations.html

    Rick

  30. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 05 Apr 2008 at 9:53 pm #

    Jim:

    Considering that I love the southeastern US, I’d like to agree with that. However, I don’t think that the Southeast has snow, does it?

    Rick

  31. Tom in Glendora, CA on 05 Apr 2008 at 11:37 pm #

    Amazing….more comments about bread than Tiger Woods.

    His accomplishments are incredible. He’ll hold most of the
    records by the time he’s done.

    I thought I played golf horribly for many years when I look
    at how the pros play. Compared to him though, I REALLY stink.

  32. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 06 Apr 2008 at 12:43 pm #

    Jim:

    Crud. I hate it when this happens: “However, I don’t think that the Southeast has snow, does it?”

    I was doing my best not to sound like some snotty kid, but, when I read my comment after Jimmy posted it, I saw immediately that I sounded that way.

    That was not my intention at all.

    Instead, it was meant to be an honest question because I really don’t know what area of the Southeast you mean and whether or not it ever has snow.

    I meant no offense in my first post.

    Rick

    I didn’t read anything offensive into your first post, Rick, but it did make me want to tell a little story. I didn’t have time this morning, so I’ll tell it now. When I first sold A&J to United Media, my editors were very sensitive to anything that might identify the strip as “southern.” For example, I mentioned eating black-eye peas on New Years Day, and my editor called to ask if that was a “southern thing.” They did not want to give editors in other parts of the country the idea it was a “southern” strip! However, I could draw two feet of snow on the ground, and nobody cared, although a good half of the country’s population rarely sees snow. I just thought it was funny. (And, no, I don’t and never have considered A&J a “southern” strip.) — JJ

  33. Jim in SE Mississippi on 06 Apr 2008 at 6:10 pm #

    Rick:

    Not that much any more. But during the winter of 1959-1960 in my hometown in middle Tennessee, I recall a more than six week period with at least some snow on the ground.

  34. Jim in SE Mississippi on 07 Apr 2008 at 12:58 am #

    Oh no, Rick, I took no offense whatsoever. In fact, it’s a valid point. And more importantly, it led to us getting some inside skinny on A&J the comic strip, which I think is one of the primary reasons most of us keep coming to this blog.

  35. Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 07 Apr 2008 at 6:39 am #

    Jimmy and Jim:

    My thanks to both of you.

    Black-eyed peas: truly heaven, along with real, pan-fried chicken fried in bacon grease, spoon bread, and home-made biscuits. My mom was one of the great Kentucky country cooks.

    Southern strips: I remember “Kudzu” well, and I thought that it was one of the better comics. Wasn’t that a Southern strip?

    Rick

  36. HC on 18 Apr 2008 at 8:54 am #

    I don’t konw if you heard the news, but now the best baguette is french again : before that (since 1999) it was american. How ironic, don’t you think ?

    Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120709731194481991.html (and plenty other articles but in French)