Dough Head

Today I made Marsala wine biscotti and then pepper biscuits and then oat bread with cornmeal and molasses. Now I am dreaming of making a very garlicky olive-spinach pie like they sell at Jeanette's Bakery in Providence. I love that place. It's a hole-in-the-wall on Branch Ave, a pale turquoise triple-decker with a storefront and a brick oven on the ground floor. They sell out every day by noon, and they've been there forever. This is no fancy joint - the husband-and-wife team will call you Honey, and if you're fumbling for quarters they'll say, it's okay, just take it.

I am a dough head. I have been hooked on the magic of yeast and flour since I first made bread in 1976. The smell is divine. The taste is magnificent. I have even made my own flours from whole grains using my large hand-cranked food-mill which is bolted to the table which is bolted to the wall!

I have a feeling I will be baking well into my old age. I love everything about it, the smells, the textures. I love baking in the early morning, in the silence. If I could I'd have a simple bakery, just bread, and wine biscuits and pepper biscuits loose in cardboard boxes the way Palmieri's of Federal Hill did, and when the baking was over I'd have a jam session in the front of the bakery, where dogs and people would be invited.

In both winter and summer I gravitate to my oven where I have two baking stones and two stoneware baking pans. I never tire of the magic of the yeast, the feel of the flours, the glutenous dough and the aromas. Flour and yeast speak to me and I listen. I buy 100 pounds of flour every few months from a bakers supply nearby. Twelve dollars for fifty pounds! That could feed the whole neighborhood!