It's a social commitment at least as much as a creative/culinary one, and since there aren't a lot of people you'd want to give a pie minus a slice to, that keeps the extra calories under control.
I suspect that deep-fried-battered haggis might exist which could be very spherical.
Could also do it on pi approximation day (July 22), then one doesn't have to be so exact about it.
22/7 ~= 3.14
(Yes this is worth fighting over!)
( = 3.1415929204 )
is one approximation I have read about, attributed by some, to ancient or medieval Indian or Chinese mathematicians.
Has nobody here ever done this? It comes out perfectly cooked.
For me, that got shot down in flames over the winter because I kept getting sick. :/
A week ago someone asked why I was going to the gym that evening and I said, "Because it will make going tomorrow so much easier."
Start again.
This usually means having the supplies ready and the tools out.
When I started my niche-musueums.com website I bootstrapped it by posting a new museum I had been to every day for a month. It took 15-30 minutes a day and within a few weeks I had a site I was really proud of.
I think the key is to give yourself permission to stop without feeling guilty about it. Any time I start a new streak like this I deliberately tell myself that it's not going to be forever and I can stop any time for any reason.
It taught me the importance of ritual, and it also taught me how... incredibly imperceptive a lot of people are. (I was living with a family member at the time, who was constantly asking me if I was "getting out of the house" regularly. Yes. Every day. For a month, and then 3 months, and then half-a-year, and then almost a full year, and then more than a year. On that note, it's essential to not let others' expectations cloud your appreciation for what you're doing. Somehow, it had wormed its way into my subconscious rationale that part of the reason that I was taking my walks was to live up to their expectations. When it became clear that they didn't really care - at least not enough to notice - that kind of deflated things a bit.)
I made one, for the first time in my life, last week. It brought me tremendous joy not only to make it, but to have something nice to share with friends.
I haven't made one for a few years, though - having a pie in my house is a recipe for me eating 5000 calories of pie and vanilla ice cream over the next few days.
When my grandma died a few years ago, I asked my aunts if I could have one of her pie pans. Apparently none of her other 17 grandkids thought to ask that - so I got all three (philistines!). Those basic metal pans are among my most cherished possessions.
Once you've baked it perfectly to the exact recipe a few times, then you can start adapting.
Of course, there will come a point in your skill level where you will have the intuition to adapt recipes that you've never cooked before. But many people assume they can do that immediately, fail, then assume they can't cook and give up.
I will say though that the other biggest area where people fail is having a janky oven that can't maintain a stable temperature, or where you set it to 200C but it only reaches 160C. So an oven thermometer is a useful tool to buy.
Once I fed about 20 friends--one of the best days I've lived.
I mean, yes, at worse you burn your neighbourhood down and your dog runs away. But in terms of the more likely failure modes like screwing up the dough, breaking it, messing up how watery it is, etc. you can mostly just keep baking until it's done, mix it up, put into bowls, serve with ice cream, down the hatch.
Pick a country, research what food it has that you've never tried, find a few online recipes and YouTube guides and give it a go.
This was a ton of fun. I have no idea if anything I cooked was even remotely like the authentic original, but it was still a very rewarding exercise.
If you live somewhere with a lot of international supermarkets (the SF Bay Area is great for those) it also gives you an excuse for a shopping adventure for ingredients.
(My favorite recipe we tried with this was Doubles from Trinidad https://www.africanbites.com/doubles-chickpeas-sandwich/)
Eventually had the confidence to experiment with making Naan.
This led to experimenting with Asian-style Pot-Stickers.
The main benefit to me was confidence, and belief in pmarca's "you can just do things".
Who has a better chance of developing an innovative omelette dish? Thomas Keller, or someone who can't make scrambled eggs without setting off the smoke alarm?
The point is, experts can bootstrap you so you can progress quicker than you can on your own. This is why mentors exist, and is the basis of Bloom's 2 sigma study.
We mostly live on autopilot, without thinking about what we love to do or what we might love to do.
Every day, we read about people whose lives have been changed by jiu jitsu, CrossFit, or learning a foreign language.
It is dedication, focus, goal setting, and practice that change our lives, not so much the activity we devote our time to.
Although pies are delicious and I love making them.
I'm just making a slight point that walking is probably the simplest most effective thing you can do to improve almost every aspect of your life.
I bake pies but I also like mushrooms and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every other individual here has random associations they can make.
In person, this is seen as commandeering a linear discussion to your personal topic and repeated violations get you uninvited from conversations for being selfish.
On the internet we can just ignore a thread, which is what I should have done here but I've typed this far so I'll go ahead and post it.
> Hardin Woods would bake [...] using fresh ingredients local to her home in Salem, Oregon
> She baked her first pie, a lemon meringue
> The next day Hardin Woods made a peach pie
> After that came a chocolate cream pie
Does lime, peach and chocolate ripen within the same season in Oregon? Vickie cooking for is community is already touching, this claim about freshness and locality is skimmed by people who are already convinced, spotted by those who disagree and raise critics of the skeptics.
Vs. too many pies have fillings straight out of a can.
My father has always had a million hobbies, and his work was what was preventing him from fully exploring them. He's taken to retirement like a fish to water.
My mother on the other hand (still working at 73) like most academics has been very dedicated to her work, and her main hobby outside of work has been hiking.
I'm a little worried that she'll struggle a bit to adapt to retirement.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dynQV-oKM0E [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208840291-the-serviceber...
Apologies to Crocodile Dundee.
So what's your recommendation? Other ingredients? Special tricks? Do you keep lab journals?
Days later on New Years I decided my resolution would be to not buy bread for an entire year and make it all myself. Also I was a father or 3 and funds tight back then so buying bread for school lunches all the time really added up.
So I started making bread and did not buy any for months. Slowly it became better and slowly I started making other items like pizza dough and bagels and cinnamon buns. I got to a point where I no longer needed to measure and could just free pour ingredients and my baking was really good.
Then soon into 2014 I decided to buy a huge stock pile of flour and several other ingredients from Costco so had like 200lbs of flour and lots of oil and pasta sauce and chicken and suddenly work laid half of us off until things picked up. Having all those ingredients saved me and my kids. Never did they go hungry. We ate lots of pizza and always had bread and bagels and if I had to buy it already made there is no way I would have made it.
I did not achieve my resolution on July 14 2024 me and my wife split up suddenly after some shenanigans on her end and I was suddenly the primary care giver for 3 kids and the stress was too much and I did not have it in me to continue making bread but kept strong for my kids and never let on my struggles.
Lastly even though I did not achieve my resolution I did make it almost 7 full month's making bread and I never lost it. I still make bread but my biggest hit is homemade pizza. My kids struggle to eat store bought stuff as my home made is just so much better. If anyone would like some simple pointers on how to make amazing pizza dough comment and I would be happy to give a few quick tips.
There are many factors that will change how your dough tastes, feels and bakes. Texture is a massive factor on how people rate your bread or other doughs. Two big factors that massively help with that are as follows.
First knowing how long you must knead the dough for. I won't get into too much detail for this just look up dough window pane test on YouTube and there are lots of videos. The TLDR is you knead until you can take a small ball of the dough and gently spreading it with your thumbs should be able to make a thin pain that lets light through easily without ripping. If it rips you need more kneading. Again look at some videos.
The BIGGEST improvement to my doughs was when I started adding powdered milk. I use about half cup to 3/4 cup when making enough pizza dough for about 3 large pizza. For a couple loafs of bread probably half cup is plenty. Again lots of information on why powdered milk helps but will let you research if you want to know more.
All I can say is that my dough was always good before milk powder but the day I saw the suggestion to use it and did I can't go back. I have had friends say my pizza is the best they ever had. Last year my ex asked me if I wanted to come meet her friends and some girls but also would I mind making some pizza dough lol!
Honestly there are lots of tips for good bread and dough but just adding milk powder will up your bread huge. Good luck I hope you give it a go if so also hope you come back and comment how it went. Cheers!
I was baking sourdough since before the pandemic, and will continue baking in the future. It's a bit of work, but it's not too much work and the results are pretty damn fantastic.
Focaccia though, if I baked that regularly I'd have to go back on a GLP-1. Focaccia taught me to read the seals on olive oil in the supermarket and actually pick the right one for the break.
Problem is, for some reason it never tastes sour enough, or like the commercial sourdough. I have done slow rise in the fridge over 24+ hours etc. Made sourdough starter from scratch several times, same result.
Bread tastes good, just not sour, or rather sour enough to tell it's sourdough.
Waffles: https://www.seriouseats.com/bread-baking-sourdough-waffles-r...
Pizza crust: https://www.sourdoughhome.com/sourdough-pizza-made-with-disc...
Come on, you can't just drop that morsel without telling us what we should be looking for in the right olive oil for focaccia.
Great video that talks about selecting the olive oil for your use case and which seals aren't just self granted. I personally have been using colavita. Its fantastic.
I hate it but it's taught me that freshness actually matters. I bought some for focaccia and it was amazing. Saved it in the pantry for special occasions. Went back six months later and it had zero flavor. Just tasted like generic oil. Flat.
It ruined me.
Also if you're an engineer and like cooking, check out that guy's YouTube channel, He's very analytical in explaining cooking
Break is an autowrong. Should be bread.
If you want an oven you get microwave/oven combo.
Might be similar in Korea? China? Taiwan? India?
There's a lot of mysticism around baking online, but in truth it's very easy. Just follow the recipe and you'll be ok. You don't need to carefully weigh ingredients and stuff like people say.
Plus, I can eat it without getting fat.
Bread is a totally different thing. Only four ingredients: a ground up grass seed, a mineral, a single celled fungus that lives in the dough, and water. The results range from complete disaster to the best thing you've ever eaten. It all depends on your technique.
That's why it has captivated so many and in particular men, as you can get really deep and geeky. There's only so far you can go with banana bread.
Hear hear. I'm at a local optimum where my bread tastes good, but it's a bit crumbly. When I change anything, it's nope nope backpedal. Trying to find the next step that'll improve my home baked bread
I can't speak for the world, but:
1. Good bread is really hard to come by in the United States. Unless you're going to a bakery twice a week[1], or your local grocery has a contract with one [2]... Your idea of 'bread' is probably mushy garbage that I would describe as more similar to 'cake'.
2. Sourdough is relatively easy to make. Flour, salt, water, starter, time[3].
---
[1] Going anywhere to buy one item that is eaten or goes bad in three days is a big ask... Which is why this isn't a great option.
[2] The overwhelming majority don't, and when they do, they want $7 a loaf.
[3] Which a lot of people had plenty of.
There are, and most of them don't have good bread. (Baguettes are about the only good bread that you can reliably expect to find in them. Sometimes they have San Francisco-style sourdough, which in my experience, tastes like someone dumped a shot of lemon vinegar into it. Just because a bread uses sourdough starter doesn't mean it needs to taste sour. I feel much the same way about hops and beer.)
Regularly visiting the bakery is, for reasons I've mentioned, a lot of friction for one purchase.
My closest one carries... Weird specialty hipster breads (because it is more focused on tarts and pastries and sweets - bread is just an afterthought for it).
The one I'd go to, if my closest grocery weren't stocking them is way out of my way. I would not be making that trip twice a week.
That is still not "really hard to come by" as per your original claim. It's very common (not just in large cities!) to have a local bakery where you can get good bread. Whether you choose to go or not, it is available to you.
“Good” bread according to the majority and bread that is specifically up to your standards are probably two very different things.
My grocery store’s bakery sells many types of fresh bread: sourdough, white, rye, croissants, ciabatta, buns, rolls, bagels, and so on. Many grocery stores in my city have a bakery section with a selection of fresh bread like this. (Even Walmart I think, but I don’t shop there).
It’s not the best bread I’ve ever eaten, but it’s fresh, good, tasty bread. It’s not “mushy garbage” and it’s not “cake” like you described in your original comment. It’s not “weird specialty hipster” bread. It’s just simple, real, fresh bread.
I started making my own simple bread and now I can’t eat store bought bread. Just takes like sawdust to me. It’s not really all that hard. Add a little rosemary and some olive oil and it’s delicious. No need to fuss over sourdough (over rated in my opinion). Over time you learn how ingredients work and what ratios work. So becomes easier and easier. I can throw together amazing corn bread and be eating it a little more than half hour later.
What a wonderful way to keep your wife's memory alive.