Later in the summer I'll be offering some bread-making courses, and as part of that I've been excavating part of my personal baking history. Today, that was the story of how I came by one of my sourdough starters, the 100-year old Tuscan pasta madre. I snapped this portrait this morning.

Active sourdough starter

A...

There’s more ➢

Until recently, the Mangalitza, or Mangalitsa, or Mangalica pig was the stuff of stories for me. This woolly pig, first selected in Hungary, has been raved about as a very tasty pig indeed, a breed whose salvation lay in being eaten more widely. On a couple of trips to Hungary I did keep half an eye open for it, but at least on my sketchy investigations it appeared to be without honour in its own country.

There’s more ➢

Alex Blumberg interviewed Pierre Sutton and his daughter Keisha on a recent episode of his series Without Fail. Sutton's giant achievement was to create black-owned "race" music radio stations, and listening to the episode triggered a memory from long, long ago.

There’s more ➢

I haven't seen that video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing her ass off, and nor will I, but kudos to Wired for using it as a peg on which to hang a good story about copyright, mash-ups, fair use and the like.

There’s more ➢

I cannot remember when I started following Bonnie Ohara's Instagram feed or what originally led me there, but I was thrilled for her when she announced that she had been asked to write a book. I was even more thrilled a little while ago to discover that the book -- Bread Baking for Beginners: The Essential Guide to Baking Kneaded Breads, No-Knead Breads, and Enriched Breads -- had become a runaway success.

There’s more ➢