BREAKING NEWS :

I picked up “James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking” at the Enumclaw Friends of the Library book sale and it is one of the three best cook books I have.

My top three are the James Beard book, and Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and “The Way to Cook.”

The cool thing about Beard’s book is whomever owned it prior to me made copious notes on nearly every page.

This person was a very good writer and cook. I believe it was a woman and a very interesting person. I would love to know who it was.

Beard’s book has some of the best basic techniques for sauces and virtually everything else, and his clear opinions on food and cooking are the best.

Julia Child is simply a stable. I also TIVO all  her shows. I just can’t get enough of her.

After work it seemed like a good night to get my brioche dough ready for cinnamon rolls in the morning.

Letting it rise over night in the refrigerator works very well for me.

My technique of using a bread machine to do the initial mixing and kneading and doing the final kneading on the board before putting it in the refrigerator saves me a lot of time and the texture comes out perfect for me.

I’ve learned not to mix in hardly any flour when I knead it myself. I just use my dough scraper to plop it around and let it be a very loose.

While I was waiting for it to knead in the machine I put together a quick fudge brownie batch.

I picked up the best book from the Enumlaw Friends of the Library book sale – “Rosie’s All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book.”

I never eat what I make out of it but my kids and everyone at the office really likes the stuff.

Of course as usual I can’t seem to follow a recipe. I threw in some marshmallows and chocolate chips. They haven’t set up yet but my son didn’t mind.

This French toast recipe caught my attention yesterday while I was laying out the Kent paper.

I have never liked French toast very much, but my kids love it and when I was young my dad loved mom’s French toast.

Since I don’t eat real food thanks to a tortuous medical establishment, it will be  fun (or as close as I get to fun) for me to try a different twist on the classic bread in egg mixture.

(The other image that comes to mind with French toast is the movie “Kramer vs. Kramer” where Dustin Hoffman makes French toast with his son.)

The angel food cake French toast recipe on recipe.com looks interesting, but next weekend my daughter will be home and I thought I would try something different.

I think I will pipe a cream cheese mixture of some sort into the center of angel food logs then deep fry them. I’ll top with a raspberry sauce and sour cream.

Might be a good idea to dip the cake in a batter and freeze them for about 30 minutes or so to set everything before deep frying. Similar to chicken Kiev techniques I have used.

What do you think?

At about 2p.m. today, July 24, a dark Hyundai SUV was involved in a road rage
incident traveling southbound on I-405 near N.E. 85th in Kirkland. The driver of the SUV took the exit to in an attempt to follow the car that he claims to have cut him off.

The driver of the dark SUV exited to eastbound N.E 85th at a high rate of speed. The vehicle lost
control and traveled across the eastbound lanes striking a grey BMW traveling westbound on N.E. 85th.

The driver of the BMW, who was not involved in the road rage incident, was killed by the impact of the collision.

The driver of the black Hyundai was placed under arrest and is being investigated on vehicular
homicide charges.

Any witnesses to this incident are urged to get in contact with the Washington State Patrol.

Very wet day — I got soaked the first time shooting the Maple Valley Police Department bicycle rodeo. Got a lot of cool shots of the kids and Officer Jeff Harmon.

Next was the Maple Valley Farmers Market. It got serious with the rain when I drove up, but there were a lot of people there despite the cold — and it was cold — apparently it is the first day of winter. Got soaked again –

I headed down to the Kent International Festival after that. The rain stopped for a part of the afternoon and the festival was as much fun as I thought it would be. Great food booths and entertainment.

Tonight I am making brioche for cinnamon/sticky rolls. I just finished the dough and put it in the refrigerator to rise over night — make the rolls in the morning — I am thinking about putting white chocolate chips in them with a cream cheese glaze. Bring them to the Maple Valley office and Kent Monday. I don’t get to eat them, but I live vicariously through my friends at work.

I  have been working on Charles Olson’s projective verse essay (1950) — the heart, the breath, the line –  Well worth reading for anyone interested in the lineage of modern poetry.

Talked to Malorie Spreen and Ed Corrigan about it at the farmers market today — two of the best poets around — catch their performances sometime at the Maple Valley Creative Arts Center Open Mic on Saturday evenings –

Olson spent time in the late 40s visiting Ezra Pound when he was in the psychiatric institution. Pound to Olson to Ferlinghetti –

I didn’t get home from Kent until 5 p.m., but I wanted to make some brown butter chocolate-white chocolate chip cookies for my son, Chris.

Nothing like living through your kids. After I watched him eat the cookies I don’t get to touch thanks to my evil physician, Dr. Neverhavefun, I decided a batch of roasted vegetables would satisfy.

Oil, lemon juice, basil, thyme, oregano and garlic with about a tablespoon of butter just to show my doctor who’s the boss.

I cut up whatever I have in the refrigerator that doesn’t have some growth on it, throw it in a bowl and pour the oil dressing over it.

Toss it in a roasting pan for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

It’s not cookies, but the small amount of butter make me feel like a rebel.

What a night. I have not seen a snow storm like this in years.

In the early 90s Ginny and I were stuck in Seattle during a horrendous snow storm that hit suddenly in the afternoon. My office was in Queen Anne and Ginny was at Seattle U.

I remember we left Seattle around 3 or 4 and both got home after midnight. It was such a relief when we made it. We sat up for hours talking about our adventure. That was fun.

This time I I decided to stay at the office. I don’t have young kids now, and I guess less courage.

Also, I have to send pages tomorrow. I felt confident I could get home OK, but the morning could be a serious problem, and pages still need to be sent.

Enumclaw, where I live, has more than 8-inches of snow and the roads are challenging at best.

My son is taking care of the house and making sure the water is dripping so the pipes do not freeze.

I wish I had an oven and stove top here. I need to do some prep work for Thanksgiving. Tonight I was planning  to make turkey stock  and I was going to start the pie crusts.

This year I am making brioche bread for Thanksgiving rather than rolls.

I make a cheesecake for the kids with 5 pounds of cream cheese and a cherry topping. I taught Katy, my daughter, how to make it and she has mastered it. She has been making it the last two years, but because of the storm she may not make it home from Spokane.

I will probably make my cherry-carmel pie (this is a recipe I developed a month or so ago from a mistake) and a pumpkin pie — that is if I make it home by Thursday.

Brioche may be my favorite bread to make that I can’t eat.

Thanks to the wonderful world of medical science I am allowed to bake it, and then live through my son’s stomach.

Brioche is my base for sticky buns and other sweet rolls, but it makes a very good loaf-pan sandwich bread, principally because of the bucket of butter used in the dough.

I use a bread machine to mix it when I am in a hurry like I was this weekend.  There was a lot to cover Saturday.

I put the ingredients in the machine and let it do the mixing and one rise. I usually don’t  just put everything in and leave. I mix the dry ingredients and butter, then the wet. I watch it and scrape the sides to make sure it is coming together in a ball.

I use a short four cups of flour, a nearly a half pound of butter and salt.

I switch between white and brown sugar depending on the flavor I want.  I use four eggs and either buttermilk or milk.

After my bread machine mixes it and cycles through one rise, I take it out, knead it and let it rise in the pan.

Careful when baking, it browns quickly because of the butter. I use foil for most of the baking time.

It has a very rich and a delicate texture, according to my son.

Made bagels for my Sunday bread making fun.

I hate to admit I peak the fun meter on Sundays by making bread of some sort.

Bagels are very quick to make compared to sandwich bread or French bread or cinnamon rolls, which calls for brioche.

I make bagels with about 3 to 3 1/2 cups of white flour, 1 cup of warm water, 1 package of yeast, sugar, salt and both oil and butter.

Proof the yeast in the water with a couple of teaspoons of sugar.

Mix about 2 1/2 cups of flour with the salt and add a tablespoon or two of cold butter in a food processor.

Add a tablespoon or so of oil to the water and pour it slowly into the flour with the food processor running. Add enough flour so it balls up.

Let it rest for 5 minutes and run the processor again for about 10 turns or so, then turn it out onto a floured surface.

Add enough flour to make a stiff dough and knead until smooth.

I let it rise for an hour or so (about double whatever that means). I punch it down and knead it and roll into a log shape. I cut it into to 9 or 10 even pieces, and roll into little logs with my hand and shape it into a bagel with a  hole in the middle (use your finger to make it big enough).

I put the bagels on a greased sheet pan and cover with a towel. While the bagels are rising in the pan I fill a large kettle with water and bring it to a boil. Also preheat the oven to 400. By the time the water is boiling the bagels are ready to take a boiling bath.

I drop them in for about a minute or two ( a couple at a time) then back to the pan and into the oven. Flip them after about 5 minutes or so and cook another 20 minutes. Probably about a 200 degree internal temperature, or until they are nicely browned and thunky.

Brush some melted butter on the bagels when you take them out of the oven.

I worked on a new bread recipe Sunday — buttermilk sandwich bread .

About 3 1/4 cups of white flour, 1/4 of cornmeal, 1 cup of buttermilk and 1/2 cup warm water, teaspoon or so of salt and three tablespoons of butter.

Proof a package of rapid rise yeast in the water.

I do the mixing in a food processor, then knead by hand with two rises in a bowl and one in the loaf pan.

To make it like sandwich bread I put a baking pan on top of the loaf pan with a heavy bottom pan of water inside it. After about 30 minutes or so I take off the pan and let the top brown. I want an internal temperature of 200 degrees.

I don’t get to eat bread because it tastes too good. My doctor has a special blood test to check if I have had any fun or enjoyment between visits.

My son said it was great.

Always good to live through others.

Buttermilk sandwich bread – I think I’ve become my grandmother.