Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?

[Scepticalscribe]

I’m more like skimming, not reading.

View attachment 825151

Skimming and immersing in equal measure, I should imagine.

That's the thing with those sort of books: Once one comes across a few recipes that are both doable and that you realise you really like, you will find yourself returning to them again and again.

My favourite cookbooks have some very dog-eared pages, yet still boast some pages that are impossibly pristine many years after I bought the respective books.

 

[RootBeerMan]

I’m more like skimming, not reading.

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Here are some free recipes from flour pros!
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/bread/bread-machine

 

[Gutwrench]

Here are some free recipes from flour pros!
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/bread/bread-machine

Thank you! I’m eager to try a starter dough for a baguette. Maybe this weekend.

 

[RootBeerMan]

Thank you! I’m eager to try a starter dough for a baguette. Maybe this weekend.

Love a good baguette! Hope it works out. Here's some info on getting that crispy crust at home! Took me a while to get the crispy crust figured out.
https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/...ting-perfect-crispy-bread-crust-home-0169757/
https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2015/08/09/make-crusty-bread/

 

[0388631]

Baguettes need a good poolish. I still can't figure out how you couldn't manage basic bread. Might be an elevation thing.

 

[scubachap]

Would rather have my nails pulled out than endure a read-through of Dune at this point in my life.

You must not fear. Fear of the endless, endless pages of that book is the enjoyment killer...

 

[rosario1990]

My most favorite field is literature. So all the time I love to read literature.

 

[arkitect]

Today's stash from the library. (God, I love my local library. Struggling on against all the odds. Budget cuts by the Tories… Council neglect. What would my life have been without our public libraries?)

Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls
The women of Troy have their say.

Joan Breton Connelly, The Parthenon Enigma
One for the train, the bus, the coffeeshop. Classical Greek Architecture… the love of my professional life.

Daljit Nagra, Ramayana: A Retelling
Puts me in mind of Christopher Logue's astonishing translation of Homer's Iliad.
A lighter touch, but what I've read so far is fine indeed.
Brings back memories of fires at night on the beaches of Sri Lanka and Bali… music and dance.

[doublepost=1552153711][/doublepost]

Baguettes need a good poolish. I still can't figure out how you couldn't manage basic bread. Might be an elevation thing.

I suspect people often overthink bread making.

In the back of my fridge lives my sourdough starter… been around the world with me. 14 years old.
I bake very seldom, but a day or so before I need to, I take it out, pour off the liquid on top. Scrape the top layer, dollop a couple tablespoons into a fresh container and feed with some flours. Preferably a mix of interesting and organic and not just boring white.
Warmish water; and leave in a warmish place. And by evening it is feisty and risen and bubbly.
Another fresh feed and left over night. Ready to go the next morning.

Flour, water, salt, long rests between folding (none of this kneading the dough for hours…)
Form in their baskets, leave to proof. Out on the kitchen top if I need to bake that evening, or in the fridge over night.

Hottest oven you can imagine, an old quarry tile in the bottom.
Turn out on to the tile, slash with a blade… back into the oven.
Moisture. Spray with water a couple times early on.
40 minutes later.
Best bread in town.

 

[Gutwrench]

Baguettes need a good poolish. I still can't figure out how you couldn't manage basic bread. Might be an elevation thing.

I truly feel lost knowing when the dough is right. It’s intimidating. Plus I’m easily discouraged when investing time, good intentions, and optimism only to have it turn out like a brick.

The machine gets it right much better than I can. I’m pleased they produce a traditional shaped loaf. The fragrance of baking bread in the machine is disappointing. It has a bit of a plastic odor to it...or it’s all in my head. I concede oven baked bread is superior all around.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Today's stash from the library. (God, I love my local library. Struggling on against all the odds. Budget cuts by the Tories… Council neglect. What would my life have been without our public libraries?)

Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls
The women of Troy have their say.

Joan Breton Connelly, The Parthenon Enigma
One for the train, the bus, the coffeeshop. Classical Greek Architecture… the love of my professional life.

Daljit Nagra, Ramayana: A Retelling
Puts me in mind of Christopher Logue's astonishing translation of Homer's Iliad.
A lighter touch, but what I've read so far is fine indeed.
Brings back memories of fires at night on the beaches of Sri Lanka and Bali… music and dance.

View attachment 825579
[doublepost=1552153711][/doublepost]
I suspect people often overthink bread making.

In the back of my fridge lives my sourdough starter… been around the world with me. 14 years old.
I bake very seldom, but a day or so before I need to, I take it out, pour off the liquid on top. Scrape the top layer, dollop a couple tablespoons into a fresh container and feed with some flours. Preferably a mix of interesting and organic and not just boring white.
Warmish water; and leave in a warmish place. And by evening it is feisty and risen and bubbly.
Another fresh feed and left over night. Ready to go the next morning.

Flour, water, salt, long rests between folding (none of this kneading the dough for hours…)
Form in their baskets, leave to proof. Out on the kitchen top if I need to bake that evening, or in the fridge over night.

Hottest oven you can imagine, an old quarry tile in the bottom.
Turn out on to the tile, slash with a blade… back into the oven.
Moisture. Spray with water a couple times early on.
40 minutes later.
Best bread in town.

I loved Pat Barker's The Regeneration Trilogy, and therefore, look forward to what you have to say about the Silence of the Girls (which received excellent reviews).

The Ramayana is fascinating; years ago, before he embarked on the nature programmes which made him a household name, and while he was in charge of BBC2, David Attenborough did an amazing series of programmes on world cultures and religions (made in the 60s, but I saw them as an undergrad twenty years later). Anyway, the best part of one full episode was devoted to the Ramayana, and it was so interesting that it prompted me to head out to buy (and read) a book on Hindu myths and legends.

Would be fascinated to read what you think of the book on the Parthenon.

Great post on bread making.
[doublepost=1552157774][/doublepost]Forgot to mention that Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography of Thomas Cromwell was delivered today, and I have already started reading it.

 

[0388631]

I truly feel lost knowing when the dough is right. It’s intimidating. Plus I’m easily discouraged when investing time, good intentions, and optimism only to have it turn out like a brick.

Dough spring and window method to determine, albeit roughly, of gluten development.

 

[scubachap]

I expected to enjoy it but I actually struggled with The Silence of Girls, got half way through and just sort of drifted away from it. Despite all the rave reviews the women felt sort of flat to me, I'd expected something more insightful, quite what I don't know, but... Anyway, as they say YMMV...

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Thomas Cromwell A Life - by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

Excellent so far, very well written, exceedingly well researched and sourced, and highly recommended if you have an interest in Tudor history.

 

[Gutwrench]

Rereading Six Days of War, Michael Oren.
[doublepost=1552232784][/doublepost]

Thomas Cromwell A Life - by Diarmaid MacCulloch.

Excellent so far, very well written, exceedingly well researched and sourced, and highly recommended if you have an interest in Tudor history.

I have only a passing familiarity of Cromwell and so I should read this too. I might share some weird similarities with his father. Haha. Serious, Cromwell’s life and contribution to English history seems fascinating.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Ivan Rogers - "9 Lessons In Brexit."

 

[RootBeerMan]

Ivan Rogers - "9 Lessons In Brexit."

Ah, I see you're reading a comedy! Or is it a tragedy?

 

[arkitect]

Ah, I see you're reading a comedy! Or is it a tragedy?

Let's just say a Tragicomedic farce.

 

[LizKat]

Let's just say a Tragicomedic farce.

It does seem to be one of the more drawn out explications du texte 'Grass greener on other side of fence' that I have witnessed so far in a long life.

I'm re-reading one of many books that suggests that old saw just ain't so. Robert Fulghum, who wrote the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten put it this way:

"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you are."​

I don't think I really learned everything I have needed to know in kindergarten, but methinks Mr. Fulghum has a point there, even though he may have glossed over a few rules of the road having to do with border crossings.

All this not meant to politicize a perfectly good thread about books. My own actual taste in printed matter has predictably segued into catalogs for perennials and seeds after just two days of a delightful preview of Spring weather.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Ivan Rogers - "9 Lessons In Brexit."

An excellent, pithy, succinct work and an exceptionally well informed and argued work; Ivan Rogers - for the record - was the UK's (excellent) ambassador to the EU (and served Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and, since his resignation in 2017 (darkly undermined by No 10 and their apparatchiks for simply telling it as it was, rather than indulging fantasies and delusions) has been a balanced, intelligent, regretful, sharp and informed commentator on matters related to Brexit.

Ah, I see you're reading a comedy! Or is it a tragedy?

Let's just say a Tragicomedic farce.

Both tragedy and comedy as bitter, dysfunctional, (how can you whip your own party to vote against your own motion on no deal? The mind - well, mine - boggles) delusional and utterly self-destructive farce.

 

[yaxomoxay]

An excellent, pithy, succinct work and an exceptionally well informed and argued work; Ivan Rogers - for the record - was the UK's (excellent) ambassador to the EU (and served Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and, since his resignation in 2017 (darkly undermined by No 10 and their apparatchiks for simply telling it as it was, rather than indulging fantasies and delusions) has been a balanced, intelligent, regretful, sharp and informed commentator on matters related to Brexit.

Is this book Brexit bashing (as in "if you voted for Brexit you're an idiot"), or is it honest in its evaluation (that is, "this is why people voted for Brexit")?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Is this book Brexit bashing (as in "if you voted for Brexit you're an idiot"), or is it honest in its evaluation (that is, "this is why people voted for Brexit")?

Neither.

Seriously, some very good work has emerged on Brexit (Tony Connelly - RTÉ's - that is, the Irish State broadcaster - Brussels correspondent has written a superb book, and there are others), and besides, Ivan Rogers is too experienced, too intelligent, too informed and too fair minded to write such a thing.

If anything, it is a short, rueful (but sharp) sort of "Diplomacy 101" course on how the Brexit negotiations might have been (better) handled, and what the perspectives that informed the respective stances (taken by both sides) are, and why they take and have taken - that form.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Besides, and this is another plus, it is exceedingly readable.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Neither.

Seriously, some very good work has emerged on Brexit (Tony Connelly - RTÉ's - the Irish State broadcaster Brussels correspondent has written a superb book, and there are others), and besides, Ivan Rogers is too experienced, too intelligent, too informed and too fair minded to write such a thing.

If anything, it is a rueful (but sharp) sort of "Diplomacy 101" on how the Brexit negotiations might have been handled, and what the perspectives that informed the respective stances (taken by both sides).

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Besides, and this is another plus, it is exceedingly readable.

Added in the top 10 of my to-read list. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[scubachap]

Just finished...

Highly recommended, particularly if you remember being shocked at seeing pictures in the news of young blokes on a roof whose protective gear consisted of gas masks, home made lead plates tied to them and wellies trying to shovel the contents of a reactor off a roof and back into the smoking hole where it once was...

 

[yaxomoxay]

Just finished...

Highly recommended, particularly if you remember being shocked at seeing pictures in the news of young blokes on a roof whose protective gear consisted of gas masks, home made lead plates tied to them and wellies trying to shovel the contents of a reactor off a roof and back into the smoking hole where it once was...

This looks indeed interesting. Still remember when I couldn't go outside and play if it was raining... I have some memories (I was 6) of the event.

 

[scubachap]

I was 20 so remember it well. The book also explains well why it blew up - the recent hooha between Russia and Ukraine has mean't quite a bit of stuff has been released including KGB files. I'm surprised there's no pics in the book - googling photos and footage was helpful when reading - this one was a great link on youtube.