Delicious Easy Bread, from The Careless Cook

 

 

For a long time now, I’ve stopped buying bread that can sit on my shelf for weeks. Ever read what grocery store bread is made of? Better be good at high school chemistry to truly understand. 

 

It struck me that the grocery bread may last as long in my belly as it does on the shelf!

 

You been to Europe?  Let me inform you. If you buy bread in Europe, you better eat it in three days before mold sets in. European bread has only three or a few more natural ingredients, with no chemicals.

 

Now, some of the nervous crowd may say, “It just make sense to have bread that lasts until your next birthday.”

 

If you are one of those, get used to the wonderful things that begin to happen to your body. Bet it’ll be wonderfully amusing. You and your doctor can share a beer and laugh about it!

 

I have a better way to enjoy life. Bake your own bread!

 

You may say, bread is just too hard to make. Takes too long and I don’t have the time. Anyway, I don’t know how, and what if I don’t like it?

 

Read a few little tips to ease your reluctance and sooth your tummy. Then get off the couch and into the kitchen:

 

1.It ain’t difficult!

 

2.Making the dough takes about ten to fiften minutes.

 

3.Lucky you, I’m going to show you how to do it.

 

4. You will like it, and so will your body and so will your friends who think you are a pro.

 

Wait a sec…..doesn’t take long? What have you been drinking?

Yes, I’ve been drinking….coffee….it’s morning!

 

Check this: Prep time, just as I mentioned. 

 

Four hours letting the dough rise….all by itself... while you do whatever wonderful things you have planned. And what if you forget and let the dough rise another hour or so, don't sweat it.

 

Baking time: 40 min

 

Ok, time to get to the details that turns you  into a quick morning  baker!

 

INCREDIENTS FOR A SESATIONAL LOAF OF BREAD

 

3 Cups of flour (I use Italian flour) and a little more for dusting.

¼ Teaspoon yeast

1 Teaspoon salt (I use fairly coarse sea salt)

1 ½ Cups hot water (about 125 -130F). I use my finger to test. If my finger doesn’t scream, the temp right good.

 

(If you wish, just as I wished, add a heaping teaspoon of dried Italian herbs. No problem if you do or don’t.)

 

 

NOW THE REALLY EASY PARTS

 

1.     Mix the ingredients in a big bowl (I used a spatula to make sure everything is totally mixed.)

2.     Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (I used a shower cap)

3.     Let the dough rest for 3 hours at room temp. (I put mine in the oven with the oven light on.  Do not turn the oven on!)

4.     After three hours, put a hand full of flour on the counter or cutting bord. Scurry the bread dough out of the bowl and on the board. Dust flour over the dough.

5.     Fold the dough together about 12 times, adding more dusting flour if you need it.

6.     Use a longer ceramic dish the length of the dough. 

Before you put the dough in, put in parchment pape.

7.     Cover the dough and let it rest on the counter for another hour.

8.     At the end of the hour, turn the oven on to 450F.  Note I put a loaf of water below.

9.     When the oven reaches 450F, put the ceramic dish with the parchment paper and dough in the oven. (The parchment will turn brown, but will not burn, but sure helps ease the baked bread out!)

10.  Bake the bread for about 35 minutes or when it is browned to your desire. (I like mine very dark brown!)

 

There you have a wonderful bread, soft on the inside, crispy crust.

 

No, it did not take you very long.  Ten minutes to get the dough going. Another five minutes to fold the dough.  The rest of the time is just letting the dough sit.

 

When you cut a slice, paint some butter if you must.  

 

If you really want to charm your friends, tell them how you worked several days with a well-known French baker! Not just fifteen minutes while you did the laundry cut the grass and watched a great movie, while you downed a luscious wine with your loved one. 

 

Fifteen minutes just isn’t nearly impressive enough.

France and England 1937 Part 3

 

                                           France and England 1937  

 

A woman’s voice, stricken with sniffles and maybe tears. He opened the door. Slowly and holding the pistol, although the voice was fairly familiar, but after men of various languages had pounded on him. What the hell. Why shouldn’t a woman give it a try?

 

“Sharon?”

 

“Oh my God, I…..I just….” Followed with a powerful hit from the other side of the open door!

 

The pistol went flying and his breakfast sparing partner showed his snarling face. This time Allain showed his stuff, carefully using kicks and fists to down the bastard, then landed with both knees on the man’s chest. If he wanted to breath he was going to have to earn it.

 

Sharon jerked Allain’s shoulder! “Please don’t hurt my husband!”

 

Allain quickly shook her hand away, hit the man again hard in the face, then again. Blood splattered! Already both cheeks had turned red, blood drippled down his chin.

 

Allain looked back at Sharon. “You brought him here! Now your turn to drag him away! 

 

The man was just getting up, still on his knees. Allain turned, swung with his palm hard into the man’s jaw, probably breaking it. He yelled and clutched his face.

 

Allain got to his feet.  “Now, Sharon, or whatever you call yourself, drag this worthless piece of slop down the stairs. The doorman is going to be waiting.”

 

Sharon did what she could, now speaking clearly in Italian slang. Allain didn’t grasp it, but guessed it wasn’t glad to see ya. 

 

“And by the way, you don’t have kids, do you!”

 

She was no longer crying. More like snarling! Her finger nails scratched his face bringing blood, then pulled a knife!

 

Allain slapped her face, hard! And again, even harder. Now the tears came back. “I don’t smack women, but you don’t fit the profile!”

 

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Breakfast became just coffee. Sitting alone, not picking up the newspaper.  Another waiter came by and oddly sat down at his table.

 

“I won’t tell you my name, but I am from….”

 

“MI6? I’m guessing.”

 

“Doesn’t matter. I was supposed to watch you, but I didn’t do a very good job.”

 

Allain shrugged.  “And why are you watching me? What have I supposed to have done?”

 

“You? Nothing.  You know Frank Howard?”

 

“I did. He’s dead.”

 

“We understand you’re a writer for the same newspaper and you’ve helped him spread anti-Fascist newspapers in Italy. We may need your help.”

 

Another shrug. “I’m not saying a thing. I don’t know you, or who you work for. Could be anyone.”

 

“Come with me, please. I have a better place to talk and explain things.”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“Downstairs in this hotel. Don’t worry. I have an office right here.”

 

Thoughts fluttered. Maybe he is MI6. Seems likely since we are going to an office in the hotel.

 

Down they went, step after step, echoes on the close cement walls. The man didn’t push. Walked in front, chatting at bit.

 

They stopped in front of a steel door and stepped in, lights on, a desk, and the two men who had tried to capture him in his hotel room.

 

Allain turned quickly. The so-called waiter pushed back.

 

A lot of Italian spoken. One of the men pulled out a gun and pointed.

 

The MI6 guy, or whoever he was, said nothing. The man with the gun turned and said something. The English man nodded, then said in English. “This place is quiet. Might as well do it now.” 

 

Before anyone had a chance to say another word, Allain put his hand in a pants pocket and shot the Beretta M1934 right through it. All three went down. One in the stomach, and one in the chest plus the English man took it in the hip, leaving him yelling in agony as he hit the floor.

 

“My God! You shot me!”  The Italians said nothing. They couldn’t.

 

“You’re not MI6,” Allain say. “I am. Well not really. But FBI working with MI6. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”

 

The man was moaning, unable to speak. But soon he would.  Allain asked this and that. The man held his hip, looking up at Allain standing over him, still saying nothing.

 

Allain kicked the man’s hurt hip.  The man whined, rolling to his good hip.

 

“See, I can do his all day.” He kicked him once and again, making the man left screaming, this time loudly.  Allain didn’t ask, just kicked harder. 

 

Someone must have seen the unknown waiter with a customer going down stairs to the deep caverns of the hotel, where few are allowed.

 

Bobbies showed up and soon two MI6 men. Lots of obvious questions flowed: what, why and who?

 

“So why did you happen to have a pistol?”

 

“I took it off one of the Italian gentlemen.”

 

“And now two men are dead and another is seriously wounded?”

 

One of the other Secret Intelligent Service men spoke. “The two dead, I know them. OVRA. Been chasing them for weeks.”

 

“OK. You may find the waiter is something too.” The MI6 man who had spoken just shrugged his shoulders. 

 

The conversation changed to Allain again.  “You told the third man you were MI6? And obviously you are not.”

 

“True. I’m just a reporter.”

 

“Wait a moment. Why were these men chasing a reporter?”

 

“Does the Name Frank Howard ring a bell? There may be a couple of others, an Italian man and a woman you may want to look for. They had a room here.”

 

One of the MI6 men sighed. “You know where they are?”

 

“I only know where they were. If they come to bash my head in, I'l let you know.”

But he had an inkling. 

 

                                                          

France and England 1937 Short Story, Part 2

 

                                      France and England 1937

                                             Short Story, Part 2 

He wanted to oblige with coffee, but it did not turn out the way he thought when they got to his room in the hotel.

 

No dispatching of clothing. Glasses of water substituted for wine, and a lengthy diatribe of more divorce procedures and a deluge o tears instead of pillow talk. 

 

An hour or more, and the deluge washed away, along with thoughts of anything else, including breakfast. 

 

He sent her back to her hotel in a cab. A good-by hug satisfied the both of them.  

 

He slept well all alone and happy, and made it to breakfast on his own. 

 

Lovely white table cloth, and a waiter with black trousers, white starched shirt and black bow tie. 

 

Allain, dressed stylishly in a suit, passed on a full breakfast. Coffee and a tall glass of fresh orange juice, slowly sipped, did its job of freshening him up. 

 

He casually picked up the carefully folded, crisp morning’s newspaper, hoping for a clue of what’s happening today or yesterday, when a man approached with unhappy thoughts. 

 

“My wife said you made a pass at her!” Followed by bulldozer of a slap so hard it sent Allain’s brain on a boat to China, leaving his face to decide if his teeth had given up. Maybe it was a centurion forcing him to divulge the secret of how Christ rolled that damn stone away? 

 

The man was tall, in a bespoke, dark woolen suit, white shirt and red tie. The slap tossed Allain’s thought to a place far away. 

 

The man leaned forward and smacked the palms of both hands flat on the table. Allain may have lost his thoughts, but was accomplished at spying a face filled with anger, and was beginning to catch the scent of garlic or the scent of a long dead rodent. The man’s knee caught the edge of the table, not giving Allain’s pants time to avoid a flying cup of scalding coffee and a glass of orange juice. 

 

An alert waiter strode quickly, and carefully stepping between them. “May I help you gentlemen?” 

 

“Nothing worthy,” Allain said with a smile. “Just a discussion of manners.” 

 

Still another waiter asked if Allain would like another breakfast. “I think not. I didn’t enjoy the first one.” 

 

The waiter promised his suit would be renewed, with a half dozen apologies.

 

Allain skipped asking for a doctor or help getting to his room. He finally got to his feet, and the man whispered, “Il faux parle”, but the accent was a bit short of good French.

 

We have to talk? Allain understood the French phrase, but not the sense of it.

 

“By the way, who is your wife?”

 

“You know who she is!”

 

“Not yet I don’t, but I’d like to. You going to tell me or maybe show me a photo of your monkeys.”

 

The waiters quickly grabbed the man’s arms, let him to the front door and made sure the doorman didn’t let him back in.

 

As he left, the waiters looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, as if to say, who is his wife and who the hell is he?

 

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Allain undressed, put on a complementary white bath robe, left his suit at the door to be cleaned. Then locked the door, tossed the robe on the bed, and looked in the mirror before taking a shower. Then put on pajamas and climbed into bed. 

 

Early morning yearned for him, but he was still sleeping when there was a knock at the door. Certainly his suit was not ready. Too early.  And the knock was more than a tap, and wasn’t followed by a soft courtesy call.   

 

Thoughts rippled across his mind, none of them good. Couldn’t be the OVRA, Mussolini’s secret police, or maybe the husband he’d met at breakfast?  Still thinking, he put an ear to the door. Mussolini’s brutes were all over France.  But, England? They wouldn’t dare. 

 

Hitler’s killers, on the other hand, were a different story. Over forty thousand British citizens followed Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists who thought Hitler is top hat. Swell guy! Let’s all have a pint of Berlin’s best Bier!

 

The knock came sharper, louder, like the wood was about to be turned into Billy clubs.

 

“Hold on for God’s sakes!” He wrapped his bath robe, slid into slippers, pitter pattered to the door, unlocked it and cracked it open.

 

Two men pushed the door with heavy force, grabbed him and did their best to drag him out. Didn’t happen. Allain pulled back as hard as he could. The heavy door did a good job of cracking a couple of fingers. The closest man yelled, the other took a foolish moment that loosened his hold. Allain swung a fist at a delicate area. The man winced and tried to hold Allain’s arm, but ended with one knee on the floor. Allain grabbed that man’s fingers and pushed one finger hard enough to make him forget why he was there. A good kick left them back out the door, sturdy enough to get the door latched.

 

With the door secured, Allain pressed his back against it and heard some words. Dialect: Neapolitan, Sicilian, Venetian?  All he really heard for sure was heavy shoes moving away.  He looked down to see a very nice Baretta automatic pistol. Italians? A pistol almost never tells the whole story.

 

Allain once again showered, dressed and was about to leave when another pounding on the door made him pick up his new Baretta.

“Who is it?”             End of Part 2

France and England 1937

 

                                               Short Story,  Part 1

 

 

Harry told Allain to watch himself. “Excellent.” Allain took another delicious sip of French red wine of some sort, thinking Harry should be watching himself. With a war creeping toward France, England, and the rest of the continent, everyone should be watching-out, even if a tide of Germans was not yet goose stepping across the channel. French people lived thinking about storm clouds rising and crushing hope. Meanwhile, the government’s regiment of the blind dance merrily to the steps of heavenly bliss, enjoying parties with icy champagne. 

 

Churchill seemed to have open eyes, God bless him, while others kept theirs pointed at the next party. But this was France and Churchill was across the water, and even their hope suffered. 

 

Frank Howard learned it the hard way. Hard way? Stupid expression. Frank was just a common newspaper writer, who had passed some paper to another friend who worked in Mussolini‘s Italy. Frank and a friend both were no longer among the living. Probably, the work of Mussolini’s secret police. One never knows and never will.

 

Sure, why worry? The trouble with democratic countries was they don’t understand that words don’t count with those who only believe in power and would always want more, and ready to do everything to get it. Austria, Czechoslovakia and Albania ring any bells? Allain heard it ringing, with a storm flashing in his mind.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Tired of France, he went back to England, staying in his usual hotel, sitting at the bar. Allain happened to see her for the first time after her divorce. Really her? The face was all too familiar. He bought her a drink.

 

“No,” Alice said. “Not divorced.” She paused a second. “Well not really.”  A telltale lemon dress. Sparkling eyes, light brown locks. Anxious to be herself again. He sure remembered.

 

Very nice bar in Hotel Gossip, or at least he called it that, fronted on one of the many tangled streets in Mayfair. 

 

Alice slowly picked up her drink, and gingerly took a sip of a delightfully chilled martini in a beautiful tulip glass. A touch of red lipstick on the rim also let everyone know she was here to be seen for a reason. Chit chat. But he liked the thought of “Not really.” Better yet, she looked at the bartender and raised a forefinger for a second Martini. 

 

“You’re not drinking?” She politely stared and waited for a reason.

 

“I have a little brandy coming.” And soon it did, warmed and delicious. He held it up and made a toast to a long life of Brandies and Martinis.

 

Another woman approached and slid her nicely curved red dress bottom onto another close red leather barstool.  Alice smiled, and evidently knew her. “Sharon, this is Allain, a friend from years back. And don’t worry, or maybe you should worry.”   

 

“Oh my god, not another Frenchman, ready to sweep me off my feet and keep me there!” A touch of Italian came out, but just a touch, or maybe not.

 

“I do my best.”  Allain gave a smile. “French from my mother, well Canadian French anyway. Father is a New York City American.”

 

“We’ll both offer another toast,” Alice said, taking another sip of her Martini. “Here’s to French men who aren’t.”

 

“Well damn, wait for me,” Sharon said as the barkeep settled a tall frosted gem of a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon on the rim.  

 

Funny, seeing Alice in this hotel, and unusual for him to be holding back, for reasons that didn’t seem to fit. It was like tasting last week’s luscious sponge cake and finding the icing didn’t taste quite right. It made him want to take another look at the menu.  

 

Hummm, maybe a slice of Sharon chiffon, with an icing of Roman patois? Sturdy body, interesting conversation. Her eyes caught his and seem to slide a ‘sure, why not’ his way. Oh, that dark hair!

 

Alice must have realized something was going on by the time the three of them were down to the last of their pitiful icebergs and forgotten toasts.  

 

Sharon said it was time to call it a night, but as a gentleman, he suggested they should go to a wonderful Indian restaurant. He added a nice smile and a ‘bet you can’t wink’. 

 

Sharon finished things up. “No Indian for me.” That inch of Italian again. “My husband is in our room, watching the kids.” 

 

Of course. He should have known. He sliced open an obligatory smile from his list of obligatories, asking all about the kids. How many? “Two.”

 

“Boys or girls?” 

 

“One of each. The boy is just five and the girl is eight.”  

 

Then a quick by-by. 

 

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Alice found a cab and a perfect Indian spot, wonderful food, an hour of chit chat and a delightful red wine to top it off. 

 

Easy to know how much he didn’t relish hearing the tedious details of her wonderfully torrid divorce, but he did his best. Could have summed it up with He loved someone else.

 

Finally, she got around to saying what she really wanted, which included lying in a cosey bed, with breakfast served on a silver try, including steaming coffee. 

 

                                                            End of Part 1