Bread experimentation

Over the past year or so, I've been getting into bread baking. We heard about the five minute artisan bread recipe on Splendid Table and decided to try it. Our first loaf came out really well. Better than we expected actually. Soon we wanted additional recipes and improved technique tips, so it was necessary to buy the book. Unfortunately, the book didn't have as many tips as I had hoped, but the internet was loaded with them.

I've found that baking bread and brewing beer were very similar, except that the turn around time on the bread is much shorter. This "rapid prototyping" meant that I could experiment with lots of variables in as short period and find what worked best for me. At first, I was baking about one loaf a week and buying bread from the store to supplement the home made stuff. Now, I'm up to about three loaves a week and sometimes more if friends request some. We haven't bought bread from the store in at least six months.

What I've found so far is the best loaves start as very wet dough. Almost too wet to work with. Also, to get improved flavor, I use about 1/3 the amount of yeast the recipe calls for. In the five minute bread book, they recommend streaming when the bread goes in by putting a cup of water in the bottom of the oven. That may work in Seattle, but in Boise, it's too dry for that method. Instead the loaf spends the first half of the bake in an inverted pot that I mist twice to keep steamy. That seems to make a big difference in the crust.

So at this point, the bread experiment is going well. It's turning out good results and I'm having fun trying new variations each time. And with that, it's time to go bake the next experiment.

2011 Resolution: Part 4 of 12 - Robie Creek

I had never run a half marathon before Robie. Last summer, Matt convinced me it would be a good idea to run Ragnar with him. I was volunteered to run the second longest set of legs at a total of about 34 miles. The first leg was 14 miles, so I technically ran the distance of a half marathon in a race once before but it wasn't really the same.

There were four of us who ran Robie "together" and by that I mean we all arrived at the start and left the party at the end at the same time. We didn't really run it together, but it was fun all the same. This year's theme (there is always a theme at Robie) was pirates. Mel had the best/only traditionally pirate outfit of our group. Dom had a shirt proclaiming her status as a 14th generation pirate, complete with her great-great-great...grandfather's pirate flag. Matt decided to take the debate of Pirates vs Ninjas to the race and dressed as a barefooted ninja. Unfortunately for him, they regraded the road with extra gravel since we did our practice run. That slowed him down a bit which was thankful for since it meant I could keep up with him. I decided that maybe they didn't mean pirates of the high seas but rather pirates of the interwebs so I attached a floppy disk to my shirt and wrote "You wouldn't steal a car" on it. Not many people got the reference but that made it funnier in my mind.

The race started with some bad Jimmy Buffet covers and a little swash-buckling community theater. After the first half mile, the course takes you past a fire house and all the helpful firemen were out front offering bacon and donuts to anyone running, but with 12.6 miles and a nasty hill still to go, there were few that were interested. As we left town, we climbed through some neighborhoods in the foothills. At about mile 2, there was a slight downhill and since I was wearing shoes, I was able to get ahead of Matt. After that, it was just a quick 11 miles to the finish. The only real drawback about this run was the weather. I was expecting cold and rainy so when it turned out to be warm and sunny, I wasn't prepared, and I have a nice tan line across my forehead to prove it.

In the end, we all had good runs. I finished in 1:52 and Matt was five minutes behind me. It turns out that despite finishing about 50th in my age group, I still finished in the top 10% of runners overall. That seems to be where I've finished every race so far this year. I'll have to work on getting to the top 5% soon. Considering the winner finished in 1:18 (about the time I crested the hill at mile 9), I still have plenty of room to improve. But the race felt good and there was enough beer at the finish to make up for the last race. I'm already looking forward to next year and figuring out an even more obscure costume idea.

2011 Resolution: Part 3 of 12 - Les Bois 10k

I'm falling a little behind on these, but the running is still going well. In March, we ran the Les Bois 10k race from Fort Boise up into the foothills and back. It was the largest race so far with over 200 people running. As the weather gets warmer, more runners are participating, but I guess that is to be expected. It was still a little cold that morning and started to rain half way though, but all the runners seemed to be having a good time. On the way out, we kept climbing hills which didn't feel as good as I had hoped. It had been too wet to run on the trails recently and road running just doesn't prepare you for hills. For the 3 miles of hill climbing in this race, that wasn't too big of a problem, but it signaled that we should train on more hill before Robie next month.

The race went well and I kept a good pace throughout. On the downhill section a few high school kids passed me as they tore down the trail with no fear of knee or ankle problems. I remember those days. At the finish, they had the usual array of fruit and breakfast baked goods. I half jokingly asked what was vegan and to my delight, they had vegan muffins (also gluten free muffins, but I was less interested in those). I tried one and went back to tell Dom about them to try to help her finish strong, but she thought I was lying to get her to run faster. As it turned out, the muffins were so good, I didn't see the beer sitting on the ground under the muffin table. Oh well, I guess not every race this year is going to end with a cheap beer at the finish line.

2011 Resolutions: Part 2 of 12

Life had been busy recently, but it's March and I've already done three races. The second race of the year was exceptionally informal. It was the Boise Hashers "Men R Pigs" run. Special recognition had to go to the guy who ran all 4.4 mile with the better part of a pound of cooked bacon pinned to his shirt. By the end, it all looked pretty gross. There were about 80 people in the races so it was a very nice size.

We started in a park on the green belt near the foothills so I assumed we do mostly trail running so I wore my Vibrums. Turns out, that was a flawed assumption. The entire race was on roads. Running barefoot on roads is hard on your calves even if the Vibrums protect the bottom of your feet. Hills also makes the calves work harder so this course of all roads and mostly hills killed my calves. I kept telling myself that if I got to the top of the main hill (which never seemed to end), then my calves could rest. I had forgotten that when running barefoot, downhill is just as hard as up and maybe worse.

At the top of the hill, I was in sixth place, but people with padding in their shoes went much faster on the downhill. I kept pushing to keep up with them and managed to finish eighth overall. A respectable finish, I thought. The downside was that it hurt to walk for most of the next week. Oops.

As with all hash events, there was beer at the finish. This was the second race of the year and the second to end with cheap, bad beer. The first race was Michalob Ultra and this one was MGD. We'll see how well that tradition continues going forward.

My phone battery is almost dead so the third race will have to wait for another time.

New phone

A few weeks ago,i got a new phone. It's an android from htc and I've been having too much fun with it. As a result I've been ignoring the computer and therefore not written for a while. When I realized this today, the first thought I had was, "I wonder if there's an app for adding blog posts." Of course there is. I've now installed it and have fewer excuse not to post. Well that's really all I have to say about it so far, now to do the final test on the app by posting this.