Baguettes

It's late, I'm exhausted, and I have to get up early to enter grades, but I had to show you my baguettes.

I'm skipping around Reinhardt's book now, completely against the Merry Baker project's initial game plan, but I feel confident enough now to eschew structure in favor of desire. And this weekend's desire was for baguettes.

Baguettes to go with a Father's Day/ Parents' 34th Wedding Anniversary Feast. Fennel-Honey pork loin chops, mashed potatoes with caramelized onions and fennel, a roasted beet and carrot salad, and a green salad. Plus my father-in-law's wickedly strong martinis, Manhattans, and whiskey sours. I began wishing I hadn't macerated the strawberries in brandy.

This recipe was popular with the crowd and ridiculously easy to make: you mix up a basic lean dough recipe on day one, let it ferment in the fridge overnight, make (almost) the same recipe again on day 2, combine the doughs, and voila! Crusty, chewy baguettes with a moist crumb and pleasing, caramelized flour taste.

The hardest part of this project, as always, was the shaping and slashing. I thought I'd cut my dough into three equal parts, but as my father pointed out, it ended up being more of a Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear affair. I'm pleased with the slashes, but they should be more dramatic; I hesitated, concentrating more on the perpendicular nature of the slash than its length or depth, resulting in very shallow cuts.

My father-in-law called them formidable.

My mom called them delicious.

And I'm calling it a night.