I saw this image on the Twitter social media app a few weeks ago.
Yes, I admit I look on Twitter occasionally and sometimes find something worthwhile.
Such as this picture by the French painter Francine van Hove.1 I was drawn to the buttered toast and a dreamy woman spreading a beautiful berry jam over it. It’s almost dream-like in its stillness and sensuousness.
It was the luscious jam and toast that first caught my attention. But as I studied the image, I realized the woman’s face and her relationship to the bread told a story. The painting had a classical feel, like something by Rembrandt or Vermeer, coloured by gentle lighting, ivory skin tone, and the subtle colours of her cheekbone, lips and ear.
Telling a story
She’s unclothed, as far as we can tell. She focuses on the toast and jam, contrasting with her translucent skin. The fingers of her hands holding the spoon and toast are relaxed. The jam draws my attention. I can taste the rich sweetness.
I like the way the woman holds the bread up as she applies the jam as if looking into the eyes of a lover, taking the full measure of its being, its personality.
The painting is titled “Craquante,” meaning “crispy.” Flavour and texture. In the realm of the senses.
We eat a lot of bread in our house. On bread day, as the freshly baked loaves emerge from the oven and pile up on the kitchen counter, I love to sample a slice or two. It’s a brief respite from the business of the morning, packaging and organizing the bread for delivery.
Love at first taste
I love making the first slice into a loaf and then lifting it to my nose to take in its aroma. It’s still a little warm, and the crumb’s humidity carries the smell deeply into my nose. I like the bread’s yeastiness, the distinct smell of the grains I’ve used, and any other additions. Nuts and seeds, for example, impart quite a different aroma than a straight loaf of sourdough bread.
Most often, my first taste is a bite of the bread unadorned. No butter or jam in that initial experience. 2 Those first few bites are of the raw bread, the crust and the crumb alone.
I love searching for the loaf’s essence, built on the flavours of the ingredients: sourdough, flour, salt, sweetness and moistness.
It’s a beautiful moment, getting to know the bread in its most elemental state.
Bread day
I’m joined most bread mornings by my good friend, Davy Rippner, an indispensable partner who helps me stay focused on the details. He packages bread and holds the oven door open as I load loaves and pull them out. He helps keep track of the baking times and keeps the oven warm.
Davy’s first bread taste is usually a toasted slice with a schmear of butter. Jennifer enjoys her first mouthfuls toasted with butter and honey. There is also coffee and music and much conversation while the flavours and smells take shape in our senses.
The kitchen is dusty, and the counters are piled with bags, lists, and baskets. A cutting board and bread knife take up a lot of space, and crumbs are everywhere, with open jars of honey and jam and a big tub of butter.
And once we’ve sensed a personality or established a relationship with the bread, we might venture a few remarks: “Can you taste the molasses?” “Is the crumb a little dry?” “What would you serve this with?”
Taking the full measure of the bread
The questions are only half-answered, mostly. Time moves quickly on bread day, customers will soon call for their bread, and it’s time to return to work.
Tasting the bread — or taking its full measure — happens over time. I may not sense the molasses until the next day, for example, when the bread has cooled and dried a little. But we’ve opened a few doors and learned about the latest bread, this week’s “Baker’s Choice.”
I may soon prefer the bread toasted with butter. Peanut butter is a favourite condiment, sometimes a dollop of Seville Orange Marmalade. The Salish Sourdough sometimes likes to be fried with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. A tiny sprinkle of flaky Maldon salt. I dream of the great sandwiches it will make and the soup that will accompany it.
Taking the full measure of a loaf is a bit of a journey. Sometimes we need time to know it well. Some loaves may not be our best friends and we may withhold comments for fear of hurting their feelings. We respond to bread in the same way we do to people.
Time will tell
As bakers and consumers, we search for the ideal bread experience and probe each loaf’s strengths and weaknesses. And in the case of the woman in this image, “Craquante,” she’s mesmerized by the bread she holds, painting it with jam and butter. Dressing it in clothes she loves, the flavours she wants to taste.
How far will the relationship go? How long will it last?
Time will tell.
A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]
Jan 29
![A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]](https://i0.wp.com/happymonkbaking.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png?w=980&ssl=1)
A bread-fail last week produced great-tasting Sesame-Miso Frisbees or Umami Chapeaus! What to do with the remnants? Hard-bread, rusks, croutons, or what have you. And the Ravens get their fair share, too … O come to me Huginn and Munnin! Fill your beaks and carry my greetings and blessings to Odin! [ See link in my LinkTree in HappyMonk Profile ]
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#showusyourfuckedloaves, #sesamemiso, #sesamemiso, #sesamemisobread, #hardtack, #hardbread, #croutons, #huginnandmunnin, #odin, #penderisland, #southpenderisland, #happymonkbaking, #southerngulfislands|
Jul 21
Latest Happy Monk Blog: The World is Too Much With Us - In our little Island paradise, how to embrace all the beauty when the world is going to hell in a hand basket? ALSO: Baker`s Choice - Brown-Rice Miso and Sesame Sourdough [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 17
Latest Happy Monk Blog: "A Bird Came Down the Walk," a brief flirtation with ChatGPT that was awkward but offered an exquisite poem by Emily Dickinson. [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 3
Resurrected a couple of Salish Sourdough loaves forgotten inside Mildrith, the wood-fired oven. They emerged charred and hell-fired, sadly, so I took a knife to them and made them almost new again!
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#woodfired #woodfiredoven #coboven #Mildrith #Mildriththeoven #woodfiredovenbread #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #burntbread #showusyourfuckedloaves
Jun 9
Strongly recommend installing the Smell-O-Vision™ feature on your device to appreciate the aroma of these Rye-Currant Sourdough loaves, just out of the oven. Wish I could capture it in a jar, or make a scratch ‘n’ sniff postage stamp (like the recent French stamp commemorating the baguette). And this loaf tastes just as lovely as they look!
Jun 1
The Happy Monk Baking Company
Happy Monk Tidings - May 15, 2024 🍞 - BLOG REDUX: "Saving Grace"; BAKER`S CHOICE: Sprouted Purple Barley Sourdough; REGULAR: Seed Feast.
May 15
It’s late at night and chances are there’s a baker near you having fun with bread dough …
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#bakers #bakerslife #bakersofinstagram #bakerslifeforme #nighttime #nightlife #nightsky #bakingmagic
May 5
All spelt, all the time … well, with a few glugs of maple syrup
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#spelt #wholegrain #tinloaves #realbread #breadbakers #breadbakersofinstagram
#artisanbreadbakers #speltbread #speltsourdoughbread #speltbread #wholegrainspeltbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbaker
Apr 20
New Happy Monk Blog: Spring brings mixed blessings! A sense of loss, along with warmth and a new cast of light, "That Science cannot overtake / But Human Nature Feels." Westeros and Emily Dickinson`s sensitive heart. [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Apr 3
This little guy is a workhorse, plain and simple. A brute! Thursday, it milled over 27kg of incredible flour for a recipe that needed the freshest flour possible. And its output was beautiful. Wheat, spelt, rye and buckwheat. A larger mill could have handled that in a fraction of the time, but who’s complaining? Some amazing bread was the result, milled and mixed the same day. A Country Miche from an article by Eric Pallant @epallant in the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of Bread Lines.
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#spelt #speltbread #buckwheat #buckwheatbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #naturallyleavened #artisanbread #realbread #rusticbread #flourmilling #flourmill #komoflourmills #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands
Mar 2
Latest Happy Monk Blog - The Living Rock Island – Our Little Corner of South Pender Island 🍞 [See LinkTree in Profile]
Feb 28
O, for a slice of raisin sourdough! that hath been
Warm’d a long age in the deep delvéd oven,
Tasting of Hestia and the ocean green,
Rest and a slow moving song and sunburnt mirth!
O for a loaf full of the warm South
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded raisins winking at the crumb,
And cinnamon-stainéd mouth;
That I might eat, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
— Apologies to John Keats for my butchery of his “Ode to a Nightingale”
Feb 25
At the outset of the Happy Monk Baking Company, I cherished those early mornings, working alone with Mildrith in the dark before the birds began their glorious morning chorus. The world was silent, unhurried. Mildrith and me, the trees, the solid earth, a passing deer, the baskets of bread dough waiting for the oven.
Going to work in the pre-dawn hours was something bakers did, I thought. They sacrificed sleep and delivered their bread early to appreciative customers. It was a romantic notion on my part, a naïve commitment to the baking trade without fully understanding the consequences, i.e. sleep debt.
It was satisfying to have loaves ready for some customers before noon; it was a triumph! But by the time most of the bread was ready for delivery, bagged and labelled, my eyelids were growing heavy, my mind fuzzy, my body slowing down.
And it wasn’t safe driving up-island.
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#bakerslife #bakers #sleepdeprivation #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredovenbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany
Feb 1
Milling a little corn to mix in with some marinated olives before they go into a tapenade infused dough. Big olive flavour … plus a rare shot of Mildrith, the wood-fired oven!
Nov 19
Happy Monk Tidings - November 15, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE this week: Olive Sourdough Loaf; AND: An Emotional Weather Report [ See LinkTree in Profile ] 🍞
Nov 15
Happy Monk Tidings - November 1, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Sourdough Sandwich Loaf; BLOG: Don`t Let That Wonder Lawyer Tell You It`s Not Real Bread! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Nov 1
Dylan Thomas, one of my muses, would have been 109 years old this Friday, Oct. 27. One of a small-handful of poets whose words are cherished and summoned often for their music and wisdom. They soothe, they sing, they evoke. I`ll be thinking of him this bread day, under "the mustardseed sun"….. and the "switchback sea"…. as he "celebrates and spurns his driftwood thirty fifth wind turned age."
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#dylanthomas #poetsofinstagram #poetrylovers #poetryisnotdead #poetryofinstagram #poets #poetryislife #poetrylove #poetrydaily #poetryworld #poetryinstagram #bakerpoets #poetryforbakers #southpenderisland #penderisland
Happy Monk Tidings - October 25, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE - Sprouted Emmer Sourdough; BLOG: Happy Birthday, Dylan Thomas! [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 25
Happy Monk Tidings - October 18, 2023 - 🍞: BAKER`s CHOICE: Seedy Spelt and Rye Bread; BLOG: It Starts With Wonder? What`s That?
Oct 18
Happy Monk Tidings - October 11, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE: Potato Rosemary Bread; BLOG: Swimming with Otters 🍞
Oct 11
Happy Monk Tidings - BLOG: Abundance: Season of Apples; Baker`s Choice: Pender Island Apple Bread with Pender Apples and Twin Island Cider - October 4, 2023 🍞 [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 4
Happy Monk Tidings - September 27, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE THIS WEEK: Harvest Bread; BLOG: Positively Fourth Avenue - [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 27
Happy Monk Tidings - September 20, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Garlic Levain Bread; BLOG: Harumph! Author Says Leave the Baking to the Professionals! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 20
A hefty Country Miche, formula from Breadlines published by Bread Bakers Guild of America. Hefty in size, hefty in flavour. Four flours (Sifted Metchosin Wheat, Rye, Buckwheat, Spelt), a super-active levain and an intense crust colour. I think I’m addicted! It’s kind of finicky, though, and trying to work out a reasonable schedule to produce 40 loaves for Happy Monk customers.
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. #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakingcompany #wholegrainbread #breadhead #michebread #realbread #rusticbread #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries
Sep 14
Van Hove is a contemporary painter (born in 1942) who lives in Paris. A brief Wikipedia entry is online, but little else is written about her activities. You can find lots of her paintings on Google Images).↩
I use the word “butter” in the generic sense. Jennifer and I are primarily vegan, or at least we prefer plant-based foods. So our “spread” is more accurately plant-based margarine.↩