Home Baking with Natural Yeasts

All the doughs are kneaded by hand on a pastry board.

For about for months now, I have been baking bread at home in our tiny toaster oven.
I have been used to baking in large commercial ovens. Baking in a small toaster oven requires different techniques to produce a lite and well baked bread. Here's a general outline of what ingredients and techniques I use repeatedly.

Goji Berry Yeast Spring water.

Organic Fig Yeast Spring Water.

Our toaster oven, I use two trays, one deep one on top to protect the dough from the top element.

Sesame Bread, using wild yeast and fig yeast water.

Plain breads, using wild yeast and Goji yeast water.

Reunited with old books.

Last month I received a box, from my Father in New York, containing some books which I had enjoyed collecting as a past time. It feels as though the time when I was collecting them was so long ago. Recalling what I was doing during that time is nice, especially since that time marked a change in my life. At that time, I became more interested in reading in my spare time, and I had very much enjoyed a weekend at used book shops in the city and Long Island. Used books were cheap, $2 or $3 dollars for a nice paperback sometimes with nice retro cover art.


I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's 'Blackbeard'. My first Vonnegut. Brian, my old friend from New York would be shocked to hear that after all these years I have never read a Kurt Vonnegut book. I'm enjoying it.

忙しいライフ - Poor Neglected Blog

I'm sorry... this blog has been neglected over the last few months.
My days seem short, and the time that I do have to relax, I often feel that I should something else besides sitting in front of my パソコン laptop organizing photos and what not.
Much has been going on, I don't know where to begin.

It has been almost six months since I moved to Japan.
まだ、月曜日から金曜日までいっています。I'm still going to language school Monday - Friday from 10 - 12. I suppose it is going alright. Learning a new language, for me at least, is difficult at times. Vocabulary is the key really, I think. Which is my challenge overall, I need to greatly expand upon it.

Other than that, I have been baking bread weekly for the last three months or so.
I use my own homegrown natural yeasts and bake the breads in our tiny toaster oven.
The results have been good, getting better certainly. Baking, making, and handling bread, from start to finish is enjoyable. I love the soft texture of the kneaded dough, the smell, and I think putting my hands in a big bag of flour is therapeutic, there isn't anything with a softer texture than finely ground flour.
たのしいだよ。

Also, most recently I have have faced one of the biggest challenges in my life. As it turned out, I couldn't hang in there, i hadn't the ability to hang in there until the end, which isn't so bad, since I have learned quite a bit, and I can say that I gave it me best effort stopping just short of my breaking point. This experience will certainly help guide me through future ventures and perhaps make me think deeply about what choices I make.

More on all the latest activities in the posts to come.
もっと日本語つかってみたい。
My Japanese level is at a very basic level.
でも、がんばります。