Peter Reinhart's bread classes - upcoming schedule

[housewolf]

Peter Reinhart, renouned bread baker author of a number of bread baking books such as "Brother Juniper's Bread Book", "Crust & Crumb", "The Bread Baker's Apprentice", "American Pie" and "Artisan Breads Every Day", among others, is on a teaching tour. Excellent opportunity to get some tips on baking fabulous bread from a real bread master.


Hi Everyone,

Just a couple of days till I head out to Southern California to begin the next round of teaching, and then swing up to the Bay Area and Reno for a few more. All the classes in Newport Beach, LA, Sonoma, and San Mateo are currently sold out, but I've been told there are a few seats left in Reno at the Nothing To It Cooking School on March 6th, but they should go fast so, if you're interested, don't wait to contact them.

I'll be going out in short spurts over the next few months and will list seat availability on my next post, when I return from California, but here is the most current schedule:

--March 20th, Asheville, NC, Asheville Bread Festival

--April 17th, Sur la Table (SLT), Kirkland, WA

--April 19th, SLT, Portland, OR

--May 15th, SLT, King of Prussia (Phila), PA

--May 17th, SLT Arlington, VA

--May 18th, SLT,Richmond, VA

--June 21st-23rd, Hudson, OH (Western Reserve Cooking School)

--June 24th-26th, Chesterland, OH (Cleveland--Loretta Paganini School of Cooking)

--July 24th-26th, Brisbane, Australia (Master Class Weekend)

--August 14th, SLT, Naperville, IL

I'm sure there will be others, so I'll post 'em as I get 'em.

More on Pizza Quest when I get back from the west coast.

Looking forward to meeting many of you on this upcoming tour. California here I come....

Peter

[hippywife]

1. Our library doesn't have his new book in yet.

So I have a couple of the others on reserve. :hi:

[housewolf]

2. "Crust and Crumb" was my favorite

Perhaps because it was one of my first bread books and I learned SO much from it - it remains one of my favorite resources. Many folks love the "Bread Baker's Apprentice" more (it's wonderfully technical and chock full of information), (and in fact there's at least one, if not more, online groups who are working their way through baking every bread in it. But I guess I got BBA at a time when my bread baking was tapering off so I didn't bake out of it as much. There's one bread in there, Pain L'Aciene, that's just teriffic and is probably a precurser to the ABin5 techniques.

He's an interesting bread baker to follow because his process has been so evolutionary. Each book builds on what he has learned since the publication of his previous book. Plus he's accessible - anyone now can log onto his forum and ask questions - sometimes he answers and sometimes the forum staff or members answer. The thing about him is that he's really, honestly committed to helping people make great bread either at home or professionally.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the books when you can get then from the library. I know you'll enjoy the breads that you make out of them.

Happy Sunday, hope you don't have to work too hard today! It's a gorgeous spring day today here in Portland - we've seen some sun over the past few days, the narcisssus are blooming as are the flowering trees, the grass is growing and things are sprouting everywhere. Ahhhhh.... Hope it's a pretty day in OK too!

[hippywife]

3. I reserved both of those.

I'm really very interested in Crust & Crumb. I definitely trust your recs where bread is concerned, gal.

Not too much work today. I do have my Sunday Gravy going, and need to make a half recipe of Kali's German Nut Cake, and some oatmeal raisin cookies, egg salad for lunches. Just taking it slow. Nothing like a couple of weeks ago when I was baking two cheesecakes for Bill's birthday and cookies while I was getting sick with the upper respiratory crud that was being passed around at work. Ugh!

It's a beauteous day here today, too. Sun is out, nice breeze, warm temps. Nothing greening or blooming yet, but I'll take what I can get. I got the front door open while I'm working and step out once in a while for a break to enjoy it.

I'm glad you're having a beautiful day, too, B. Enjoy! :hug:

[hippywife]

4. I read Crust and Crumb

in bed last week and I'm thinking I'll be buying it. I really enjoy the way he writes and explains things. :)

I picked up The Baker Baker's Apprentice from the library the other day, too. Will be looking at that one soon.

:loveya:

[housewolf]

5. Good for you, Hippywife!

I'm so glad you enjoyed "Crust & Crumb".

If I can make a suggestion though... you might want to wait to make your purchasing decision until you get "The Bread Baker's Appentice" in your hands. You might find that it's information is even more thorough than what's in "Crust and Crumb". I'm loyal to "Crust & Crumb" because I've had it so long and it was so instrumental in my learning about bread, but others have chosen "Bread Baker's Apprentice" as their go-to book. Another one to get your hands on if you can through your library, is Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread: a Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes" - it's also a excellent learning book with tons of great diagrams and illustrations.

I made some Raisin Bread with a cinnamon swirl from "The Bread Bible" yesterday - yum! Boy is it ever delicious!

You're SO smart to explore cookbooks you're interested in through your library before making a purchasing decision. I admire your self-discipline and ability to hold off and wait to be sure a new cookbook is one you'll use and enjoy.

:hi:

B

[hippywife]

6. Thanx for that advice, B.

I will wait until I read the other before digging in or deciding on a purchase.

There is so little room for cookbooks in my kitchen, and cookbooks can be costly, it does really help to check them out well first to make sure they are ones that I want.

That cinnamon swirl raisin bread sound wonderful. I'll have to try that some time.

Thanx for all your advice, help and encouragement. It's been a real gift and means so much. :hug:

[housewolf]

7. Here's an idea

since PR's whole goal in these books is to develop as much flavor as possible in the breads and each book builds on the previous ones - for instance, the "Blitz Biscuits" recipe in C&C is a precursor to the biscuit recipe in "Artisan Breads Every Day" that we talked about a while ago - and in many cases the differences are more in the procedures than in the ingredients...

Why don't you pick a recipe or two from C&C and write them down, and then when you get BBA, make the recipe from C&C and the recipe from BBA and compare. If you want I can give you a list of recipes that are in both books that you could use to choose from, and also which recipes are in only one of the two books. Or I could scan in the table of contents from BBA for you (unfortunately Amazon only lets you look at pages 1 & 3 of the TOC so you can't see it all!)

If you make the same thing from the 2 different recipes, you might get a good idea of which procedure and results you prefer, which might help you decide. 'Course, then again, maybe you can just renew C&C and keep it with you while you explore BBA.


:toast:

[hippywife]

8. I think I can probably keep both for a while.

There haven't been any holds on them recently but I'll have to check again. LOL

I don't know how soon I'm going to get to baking anything from them. I'm just getting my kitchen legs again. Not sure if I'll still have them next weekend or not. LOL

I'm just playing everything by ear at the moment. But I will look for the differences you're talking about while I have them both.

I would appreciate anything you have to offer on the subject, tho. Always. :)

[hippywife]

9. You know I was just skimming through BBA

and was looking at the sourdough rye formula. I think I can do that. The way he has it written out seems much less intimidating than others I've seen. Makes it seem pretty simple.

I'll have to get some dark rye at the grocery this weekend and try it out. :thumbsup:

Edited: I think I'm going to do a basic sourdough first with the whole wheat and bread flours I currently have on hand. I'm going to try to let it go the maximum amount of time he recommends so it looks like it's going to take three weeks to make bread. Very cool! :D

[housewolf]

10. Keep my updated on your progress!

I'm interested...

Here's a link for the BBA Group's site. They started last May baking all of the breads in BBA in order. Kinda fun to follow.

[hippywife]

11. Can you believe how lazy I am.

I haven't even started it. :rofl:

But in a way I'm glad I haven't. Your other post about the problem with some sourdough starters reminded me I wanted some fresh pineapple juice to start it with anyway. So, I have to wait until I get a new pineapple this weekend. And then I promise I will start it.

:hi: