Ciabatta

I made this Ciabatta for the minestroni I will post about later. It is a standard bread, with a little olive oil: flour, yeast, and salt. The secret to its extraordinary tenderness, however, is to knead the dough on the paddle setting of a mixer for a full twenty minutes. You get an astonishing, plastic, shiny, dough, which is hard to work with because it is so moist, but yields a great result if you can just push through the difficulty.





The recipe is from "The Bread Bible", just for reference.

Frivol

I'm not sure there could possibly be a better explanation of what I find wrong with Ezra Klein's writing, public personality, politics, etc, etc, than this post about bookshelves. No, it's not about politics, but, well, read it and see.

I especially love how someone who writes what Ezra wrote could possibly claim to be a "wonk". Hey, ignorance is bliss.

Shrimp and Cheesy Polenta

This simple dish was inspired by a romanian restaurant here in queens. A few shrimp marinated in garlic, ginger and lemon (which had nothing to do with the Romanian restaurant), and polenta served with grated Romanian feta (which did). A delicious combination, although I recognize that polenta is better (though less authentic) when made with milk rather than water.