I read an article in the NY times about six months ago about no-knead bread. I tried it and it works like a charm. Home made bread that's got that chewy texture of rustic bread and a great crispy crust. I've made four so far and they all looked pretty much like this....



The recipe...

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

  ¶ 10:58 AM 2 comments

  BBC- Doctor Who - Radiophonatron

You too can create your own Dr Who theme mashup thanks to a fun Radiophonics workshop sampler page. Literally seconds of fun.  ¶ 11:54 PM 0 comments

  When I arrived back here, one of the things I was looking forward to was the late night selection on Radio 3. In the past that would have been Late Junction (World and New music) on Monday to Thursday 10:15 to midnight, Mixing It (New music and weird stuff) and Andy Kershaw on Sundays at the same time.

I didn't expect to have to hunt for them. It turns out Andy is now on Monday nights and Late Junction is on Tuesday to Thursday, but both at 11:15 to 1am. Not ideal if you have to get up the next morning. Mixing it has disappeared. It took a little digging to find out what happened to it. The BBC controler just let it go quietly, the presenters weren't allowed to say anything other than 'that's it, goodbye.'

Following a lot of emails, they have decided to resurrect the show on resonance FM on Wednesday nights... yay!

In the meantime I'll keep listening to wfmu for continual audio surprises  ¶ 1:51 PM 1 comments

  So, Regarding Buenos Aires (A proposito de Buenos Aires). Pants. Elasticated nylon brown pants.

So disappointing.

The film festival notes that "eleven new Argentinian filmmakers merge their talents and perspectives to deliver a quizzically enigmatic portrait of BA considering a conceptual presence rather than precise geography. In the manner of Vigo's A propos de Nice."

So, in film festival terms, quizzically enigmatic means rubbish you can't understand.

One woman was so disgruntled that she asked for a complaint form. The reason being I guess that the international consultant (okay, dream job there, watch films, pick films) was very enthusiastic about the film as he introduced it. What he didn't say, and maybe he should have, was this:

The film you're about to see is missing a few elements: Plot, characters, a sense of narrative and any redeeming factors. Even the locations they chose are dull and depressing.   ¶ 12:59 PM 0 comments

 
This week and next it's the Bradford Film Festival which means that there are good films to see nearly every day. It also means there are strange, intriguing, unsettling and sometimes downright awful films to see as well (like the Armenian short film To die is to live which was basically a montage of performance art with a thrash metal soundtrack and lots of very loud breaking glass... for eight minutes). But aside from that, so far it's been good.

On Saturday, while Liz was away visiting friends I went to see From Russia With Love. If, like me the only Bond films you've seen in the cinema have been Roger Moore and onwards (Moonraker was my first I think), then you've missed a treat. For me, all films are better on the big screen, and it's a real treat to be able to see classics of old up there (last year, for example, they had The Ipcress File which was great). The second Bond film is much closer in tone to the latest, and the train compartment fight, between Robert Shaw's blonde killer and Bond is just as ferocious as anything Daniel Craig got up to.

On Monday we went to see Pandora's Box , a restored print of the 1929 silent German classic. I believe that everyone should try and see a silent film on the big screen. We had a specially commissioned score and a pianist with great endurance (it's over two hours long) and the film itself is nihilistic psychodrama gold. After a few minute the fact that the actors aren't speaking is irrelevant, you're following the story and the characters. It's only afterwards you think that this was the way your (great) grandparents devoured film.

Other films:

The Lives of Others: Riveting Oscar winner about a Stasi eavesdropper who gets involved in those he has under surveillance.

Catch a Fire: worthy South African crime drama with redemption at its core.

The Caiman: Italian satire from Nani Moretti about a B-movie director who ends up making a satire about Berlusconi.

Pitbull: Downbeat Polish hit, imagine an episode of the Bill in which everyone downs vodka every couple of minutes.

Now we're off to have a Bradford curry for lunch, then see Twelve Angry Men followed by Regarding Buenos Aires  ¶ 10:41 AM 1 comments

  Two years ago, very shortly after we met, Liz asked me if I'd like to join her on a 'bit of a walk'. Said 'bit' turned out to be the fifteen mile route to 'Ell and back. Which goes nowhere near Elland but is organised by the Elland rotary club. It's also in the Long distance walkers association handbook and, by any definition but theirs, is a long walk. By the LDWA standards 15 miles is a social stroll, there is a 30 mile option as well for those that don't do walks under 20 miles.

We had a great time so we did it again yesterday. Despite the BBC weatherman gleefully describing Sunday's weather as being 'wonderfully spring like' the night before, it was a wee bit windy up on the tops. It's a nice way to spend a Sunday morning, and afternoon, and you get pie and peas when you finish, proper mushy peas and a nice pie which is mostly meat, and mint sauce. That's cuisine that is, especially when washed down with a pint of guinness.  ¶ 6:09 PM 0 comments

  I do seem to be causing an unnatural amount of "not with me looking like this" moments...  ¶ 9:20 PM 0 comments

    ¶ 10:54 PM 0 comments

  A week and a bit away from t'web and I'm beginning to get a little twitchy. It's a little weird though, being back for so little time and already the last year has taken on something of a dream like quality, almost as though it never really happened. There were a few things I was looking forward to (in addition to seeing friends and family): Bacon butties with brown sauce, mature cheddar cheese, a pint of bitter in the pub, frosty mornings (which I'm still looking forward to).
The house in Greetland is great, fine views south over the valley, Liz assures me that it's fantastically green (but with the colour blindness I'm afraid I see green as, well, green, it's never lush or fantastic or bright, I'm just happy when I can tell the difference between it and brown.

Hemos estado acá por una semana sin el internet (y lo extrañé). Es raro estar acá por poco tiempo sentir que el año pasado ya tiene un aspecto de un sueño (un buen sueño pero irreal en unas formas como no hubiera ocurrido). Tuve muchas ganas de algunas cosas en la vuelta acá. Un sandwich de panceta con salsa marron, queso fuerte, una pinta de la cerveza local, las mañanas heladas. La casita es excelente con vistas buenisimas al sur del valle verde. Liz me dice que es muy verde (por el daltonismo mío no puedo ver muchos tipos de verde, estoy contento ver la diferencia entre verde y marron).
  ¶ 4:28 PM 2 comments