Bloomer

I can't help feeling unreasonably proud of today's bread. This is a bloomer, characterised by the diagonal slashes across the loaf, which are decorative (and would be more so if I'd got the distance between them uniform) and help the dough rise tidily.

At Blackheath Farmers Market one of the bread stalls serves something called a London Bloomer, with six slashes. They claim this was introduced during the war, and the slashes divided the loaf into seven portions, to see you through the week. This must be nonsense. Without preservatives etc this bread will be rock hard by Wednesday.

Bread-making can become an obsession, as the number of blogs about it shows. I don't think I'm becoming obsessive, but I will just note that this loaf is stone-baked, with steam, using Allinsons Seed and Grain flour.

Bread

Just look at this: fresh bread from my oven. It's ages since I've made my own bread, but being at home all day, it's an easy thing to do, and I have to say, it's tasty. This is baked using Allinson's Seed & Grain Bread Flour so it's chewy and probably fairly healthy.

I'm having a lazy day today - and why not, after the stress of yesterday. Training a group of 25 second-tier council officers, most of whom seemed to be reluctant victims. I could sympathise; the course isn't for them, and they ought to know most of it already, being in the positions they are. 

So, what have I done today? A few emails etc, the bread of course, and I've been reading Briggflatts, Basil Bunting's verse "autobiography". He's difficult, but worthwhile, I think. It will take a few more readings before I'm really at home. Here's the second stanza:

A mason times his mallet
to a lark's twitter,
listening while the marble rests,
lays his rule
at a letter's edge,
fingertips checking,
till the stone spells a name
naming none,
a man abolished.
Painful lark, labouring to rise!
The solemn mallet says:
In the grave's slot
he lies. We rot.

Actually, I could have chosen a more cheerful extract, but I think that is typical of the simplicity of the language but the complexity of the allusions. The themes in this stanza repeat throughout the poem. It's good to be able to read something slowly, without any pressure to respond.


And I've now got very clean fingernails. (Anyone who's ever made bread will know what I mean.)