ooh la la, elle a fait croissants!!

I finally ventured in the complex art of homemade butter croissants. Following the Tartine recipe, it took me 3 days to finish! Patience is really the key here, along with strong muscles to hammer down the butter and roll out the dough. In the end, they tasted delicious!

DAY 1: prepare the overnight poolish and a sourdough levain, they will serve as ferment allowing a slow rise and a more complex flavor.

DAY 2: mix the dough, beat the butter into a flatten sheet and laminate the dough with the butter. Before spending the night wrapped in plastic in the fridge, the dough is folded and laminated with the an immense quantity of butter. The folding and rolling out the dough is what gives it its ultimate butter flakiness.   

DAY 3: after a slow rise in the fridge, I rolled out the dough, cut it into triangles and rolled the croissants. I made 2 batches of small and regular croissants and froze 1/3 of the dough to use next week. 

These are going to lucky fellows over at Outsystems.  

pig ears, anyone?

Where does one buy pig ears in this grand city?
Here, at the Sweet Auburn Curb Market...

... where you can buy whole pigs!

 

... and smoked ham. Yummy!

oh, the places you'll go!

you'll be on your way up

you'll be seeing great sights.

you'll join the high fliers 

who soar to high heights.

many of you already know what this is all about. but some don't. so I'll make a bit of suspense out of it! 

tie me up

I rarely use this blog to speak of products, but these slippers caught my eye mostly because we don't have any decent slippers to wear around the house and always walk around in socks or bare foot. Aside from seeming very comfortable and simple, you lace them up yourselves. This is Lasso. 

pão alentejano

This was suppose to be "pão alentejano" but since I still don't have a scale, it's just "pão". The measurements were a bit off, so instead of a dense loaf, typical of bread from this region of Portugal, it came out of the oven very soft and full of holes! A very delicious one I would say and Pedro agrees: after the first loaf came out of the oven, he ate half! 

I get most of my inspiration in Paulo's blog and from reading several books. He explains every single detail and what to expect in each stage. After many trials and errors, I now understand how the dough should behave, what a decent starter should smell like, what flours are best and, above all, the importance of patience. This bread took 7 hours from start to finish! I didn't labor around it for 7 hours, as you can imagine. It's quite easy to make, it only took about 30-40 minutes total, from mixing the flour to kneading and shaping. 

back to the darkroom

Returning to the darkroom takes time. And patience. These photos could have been great if I had developed the negative properly. It's part of a bundle of canisters loaded with Polypan F 50 film that have been stashed away in boxes for about 2 years and only now I've taken the time and patience to develop them. I'm slow, but I eventually get things done. 

They are of my father working the fields.

felicidário

Happiness is:

Via Felicidário

on how to make a come back by admitting to the obvious beauty in golden fork-shaped cabinet door knobs

Lots has happened since my last post. I haven't been away, just distant and not much in the mood to blog or photograph. It was a phase and now it's dissipating and I'm starting to carry my camera around more often and trying to find beauty in things like the knobs in our new apartment's kitchen! Very kitsch. 
I haven't been on my most cheerful side lately. Nor have I been making things with my hands, just bread. I'm also tried of how this blog looks like. It needs a makeover. I'll have to schedule an appointment with Pedro for this. 
I need to make a come back cause today is going to be a great day!