True job satisfaction, according to Dan Pink, comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose according, and I agree. In search of satisfaction, I therefore set out to do something I’d never done before. Bake bagels for brunch.

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I bake more bread than we can eat. Even though homemade bread, especially naturally leavened bread, is much more resistant to mould than store-bought, occasionally a piece needs its green and furry bits removed. Even more occasionally, a chunk gets dumped. I could happily bake even more; but what to do with the surplus? I've given loaves away, with great satisfaction on both sides, and even suggested that the recipient pay me to defray my costs, a suggestion that was welcomed with open arms but not, so far, actually acted upon. It seems churlish to keep asking.

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Swedish friends invited us for a casual supper and a movie, and I was arrogant enough to think that I could make them a Swedish-style rye bread. I'd already established, with the same Swedes, that the term limpa, which I had always understood to mean a type of bread, a recipe, in fact described a...

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Life outside of Life has been hectic lately, which is why I am only just getting round to writing up the breads I made for a dinner on the first Saturday after Fornacalia. The meal was chilli with all the fixins, and three breads.

First off, to keep the wolf from the door, thin slices of semoli...

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What to call sourdough breads, given that they’re not always sour? There is a variety of alternatives. The French levain is popular, but somewhat poncy and effete. (Unless, of course, you happen to be French.) We do have the perfectly good English word leaven, but for some obscure reason, while th...

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