This looks to be #150, so I'll start another sourdough thread with pie segue. :) Cathy, I know the liberated feeling you're talking about! I had it when I started these experiments with the discard. I do as I please with most baking recipes, usually to success. I don't have Grainlady's technical knowledge nor Ann's experience and expertise, but I know that if you control the basics, it'll come out. My mother's challah is so tetchy, however, that controlling it is enough without messing with it. A cousin did that when I was young, and tried using it as a base recipe for other breads, and they were breads, but I didn't really like them. You have to know how to not handle the challah (no typos there) to make it work out right. Add to that the old miseries of using cake yeast and I never messed with yeast dough before. I really liked the figgy loaf! Worrying about keeping the yeast alive rather than if I was going to ruin the bread was great. But that was one of those very soupy things, and if I try that again, I'll use less water/more flour. :) It's interesting that so many people think more hydration means lighter bread and more holes! That's the opposite to what I've experienced so far. Leader, like the ciabatta recipe, works the dough and develops the gluten. Controlled hydration seems to work better for me, and I definitely think the miche was too wet given how much better it got as it dried out. I had similar issues with the pizza recipe. One of the ones I tried, which was the result of much study in a pizza working group, was something like 90% hydration of whole wheat (though not soupy!). It was a very sticky dough and had to be made in a pan. It was not at all comfortable with toppings, though it was okay par-baked. Totally wrong for me, and it didn't have a good enough baked texture to stick with. It's not like my pizza recipe is low hydration. Just comparatively low. It's around 70% hydration. Cathy, I agree that inhaling pizza of any kind is frightening! Thank goodness for the widespread publicity for the Heimlich Maneuver! The miche is peasanty, as in plain old bread. I'd be happy to make the pain de levain for you! That has much more complexity even though it's mostly white. It's very yummy! The miche isn't as flavorless now, but it's not stand in line worthy, unfortunately. Next time. It was supposed to be record setting heat this weekend, but we're having monsoon influence, instead. Not the actual monsoons, which are farther South, but damp and cooler. Spaghetti and meatballs and ciabatta sounds delicious and decadent right now! (Decadent because two starches--my mother never served bread with pasta.) My favorite way to eat ciabatta, however, is with a goodly layer of good butter and an even thicker layer of powder grated good parmesan. This is the breakfast the Italian stewards on the ocean liner tempted my mother with when she was underfed and ill and returning home. I am not underfed, so I don't indulge, but the slightly salty, slightly sour bread with the sweet butter and salty, umami parm is just amazing. (Okay, I'm not underfed, but I haven't had breakfast...) Standing in line for the ciabatta... The gyros-ish meatloaf came out fine. It would have been better with more fat (who says that?), but the meat that needed using was very lean. I suppose I could have added some butter, but who does that? Not I. It's tasty, though. I didn't go full out on the seasoning (i.e., used the recipe) because I'd never made this recipe before. It could be kicked up a bit, but the flavor is about right. The leanness means I can be generous with the oil and grill some up later. :) No yoghurt sauce since since there are no pita either and my cucumbers and dill both bit it in the fridge. Tomatoes, onions and peppers will be fine. :) Ann, one lesson I learned best from you is to just put things in the fridge. Fermenting yeast things, that is. Just put it in the fridge. It's the most freeing thing I've learned recently. I've read all about it, of course, and the pizza recipe is one that's meant to develop in the fridge, but the way you just whip up a levain and throw it in the fridge until you're ready, or make up some do and go off to work, with instructions to Moe for when to take it out. Of course it's a given that cold retards yeast, but so much of my bread life until now has been about keeping yeast warm and cozy and encouraging it to rise, retarding the rise in the fridge to manage the slow process of sourdough is a revelation. Thank-you! Edited to add link and fix weird typo. This post was edited by plllog on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 20:51

Aw, plllog. While I'm glad that you're "fine", I continue to think about you. Truly, I can only imagine ... just every single aspect of life would be impacted. I know that I had trouble not knowing when the polar vortexes would end -- not enduring them, just not knowing when it would be over. Not only has this been long term for you, it's so much more encompassing. I'm hoping for some (a lot actually- but no floods!!!!! or flooded garages!!!!) of "gentle, but measurable" rains and that life returns to at least a good new normal. And that you get back to enjoying baking (I know I would coping and not feel inspired right now-- just me.) Maybe it will brighten your day to know that I told my son you responded to his bagel pic. After a few seconds of reading your post, he smiled, and I knew that he came to the description "foundation bagel." More reading and the eyes widened with the real-deal smile erupting, accompanied by a loud "Ha!" I said, "What?" although I knew (and I know you know) what words he had read -- "flacid doughy rings!" A day-brightener! No need to respond to this, but maybe to lighten your day -- here's an excerpt that he had to write about a couple of years ago for rhetoric -- introduction paragraph to review Alton Brown -- Good Eats. Although he's ChemE (thinking about actuarial now, oh my) he loves to read, edit and write. And cook. "Some of my earliest and most powerful memories are of cooking with my mom. The crimson iridescence of a sliced strawberry, the sound of frying bacon (a standing ovation), the smell of proofing yeast…all are indelible sensations that permeate my childhood. And my culinary experiences weren’t just limited to the kitchen. The only TV stations I watched growing up were PBS and The Food Network (I wasn’t aware that others existed or that you could flip between them with a device called a “remote”). When I wasn’t tuning in to Kratts’ Creatures or Arthur and his anthropomorphic friends, I was learning how to flambé with Bobby Flay, filet halibut with Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, and make Coq au Vin with Julia Child. Only one host, however, continually captivated me with his wildly inventive, mad-scientist approach to food. His name? Alton Brown. His game? Good Eats." Continue to think about you! Cathy in SWPA

People make neat things out of old wooden spools, too. I saw a really nice looking walking cane made out of old spools. They, in fact, left the thread on and laquered over it so it became part of the spool. In one of those country decorating magazines I saw where they cut the spool ends off and used them for knobs on their kitchen cabinets. It was kinda cute. We used to make spool dolls by stringing them together. They make spools out of plastic now, and sometimes styrofoam. And they don't hold nearly as much thread as the old ones always did.

I am checking into this as well. It seems some UPS, some Fed Ex stores have this. You bring the stuff, it goes into a locked container which is picked up regularly and shredded offsite. In our area I think it is Iron Mountain who shreds it. The price seems to be as best I can determine, 79 cents a pound. My dh called one place that will charge $150 to shred on location. We do live in a development, but there is minimal sense of community- but we are tossing around the idea of mentioning it to neighbors and seeing if people are interested. That could really work,and would be a lot more convenient than putting 2 boxes in the car when we got around to it. Again though, we do need to go through the boxes to make sure that there is nothing we need...........