Farine

Crazy for Bread

Bake Your Own Bread

Just got word that Farine is featured as Bread Blog of October by the three bloggers who started the Bake Your Own Bread campaign (the above image is their logo): Connie of My Discovery of Bread, Heather of Girlichef and Michelle of Delectable Musings.
I am very grateful for the honor and hope that BYOB members find on Farine enough recipes they want to try. I cannot agree more with the message: stop buying industrial bread (those squishy loaves we have all encountered) and make your own or go buy bread from your local artisan bakery! Artisan bread is good and it is wholesome. (Your community baker or you don’t put in ingredients with unpronounceable names). 
By doing so, you will help perpetuate a skill that has helped keep mankind alive for countless centuries… Welcome to Farine, BYOB members!

Finnish Barley Bread (Ohrarieska)

This barley bread is one of the flatbreads Naomi Duguid baked at the Kneading Conference West last month and possibly my favorite (although the Pugliese sponge bread* is a close contestant). The recipe is adapted from the inspiring book she wrote with Jeffrey Alford, Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas.
Naomi first tasted this bread one summer night in the far north of Finland as an after-sauna snack and in her introduction to the recipe, she says it is delicious, chewy and very versatile. It contains no wheat flour, only pearl barley and whole barley flour and it is enriched with buttermilk.
Like Naomi, we had it with butter and jam accompanied by strong black coffee but at lunch, the day after, it proved perfect with leftover baked tomatoes (the tomatoes had been roasted with garlic, herbs, Parmesan cheese and panko crumbs with a drizzle of olive oil).

I too have cherished memories of white summer nights by lakesides in Finland, a long long time ago. I remember rye bread though, not barley, maybe because we didn’t travel as far north as Naomi: she says that spring barley can be grown in even colder climates than winter ryes and on the evening she discovered ohrarieska, she was beyond the Artic Circle. 
So to me barley is more evocative of Scotland (where I have yet to go) but where I traveled extensively in my imagination (not to mention through the centuries) via the Outlander series of novels by Diane Gabaldon. Chick lit it may be but oh so gripping! For the record I don’t love all the books in the series equally and I have especially strong negative feelings about the last one (An Echo in the Bone) in which I thought the plot and characters were way out of kilter (I disliked the title too). But the novels still offer a fantastic reading experience for those of us who are willing to (seriously) suspend disbelief and they do feature barley! One of these days, I’ll have to try my hand at Jocasta’s auld-country bannocks.
I must say that I have yet to meet a male reader who likes the series but I can tell you from reading the books in airports, in trains or in buses (in a pre-e-reader era) that many women feel very strongly about it: it happened several times that perfect strangers leaned towards me and shared the love. What fun!
So yes, barley, books, Scotland and now Finland: this baker’s atlas is slowly filling in… Thank you, Naomi and Diana!

Ingredients:  (for one loaf, about 8 inches in diameter)

  • 430 g pearl barley
  • 482 g buttermilk (I used cultured)
  • 226 g water
  • 270 g barley flour (I used Fairhaven‘s)
  • 4 g baking soda
  • 10 g salt (could be bumped up to 14 g, depending on taste)

Method:

  1. Combine pearl barley and buttermilk in a bowl and let soak overnight
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/177°C
  3. Lightly oil and flour an 8-inch cast-iron skillet
  4. Add water to the buttermilk-barley mixture, then transfer to a blender and blend until the barley is well pulverized
  5. Return the batter to the bowl, add the barley flour, soda and salt, and mix well
  6. Turn the batter out into the skillet
  7. Bake in the center of the oven for 50 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool before slicing
The Finnish Barley Bread is going to Susan for this week’s issue of YeastSpotting.

* The recipe for the Pugliese sponge bread is to be found in Homebaking (another of the books Naomi wrote with Jeffrey Alford).

Scott Mangold: Test-Baking with Local Wheats

Related posts:
Kneading Conference West 2012
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time
Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters

This year as last year, it was tough to make a choice between all the workshops, lectures, roundtables and demos offered at the Kneading Conference West and on that gorgeous Saturday morning (the last morning), I would especially have loved to attend one of the events taking place in the outdoor tent area instead of hanging out in the lobby kitchen, which is where Scott was giving his demo. But local grains were calling and local grains I picked!
I am glad I did. Sott gave us useful pointers which I am happy to share here.  I took copious notes and so did my friend and fellow SHB/bread blogger breadsong who was sitting next to me. When she heard I was going to write up the class for this blog, she very kindly sent me her notes. What follows is an amalgamed summary of what we both wrote down. Thank you, breadsong!
The whole wheat Scott Mangold is currently baking with at Breadfarm, his beautiful bakery in the Skagit valley, is milled nearby at Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill but it is grown in Whatcom county. Stephen Jones, Director, WSU Research and Extension Center at Mt. Vernon, is seeking to grow locally flavorful wheat that could be used by bakers and Scott hopes to be able to make a Skagit Valley bread one day. Meanwhile he tries the flours he can put his hands on with varied results: local wheats are inherently inconsistent. Even when working with them as individual varieties, there will be variability in flour performance because of the climate and the weather.
For this morning’s demo, Scott picked Camas Red Fife (12.8% protein), Renan (a standard French varietal, 12.3% protein), Hedlin Farm’s Bauermeister (10% protein – last year’s crop as this year’s is fairly low in protein) and Red Russian (14.6% protein).



Scott describes the in-bakery test bake system that he has devised for himself: when he gets his hands on a new flour, he always begins by taking a small amount which he mixes in a straight dough, then ferments and bakes. The process never varies, which makes later comparisons much easier. He strongly recommends that we too, at home or at the bakery:

  • Take detailed notes about times, temperatures and water amounts
  • Rely on feel: as the flour absorbs the water, the dough feel may change. You may have to adjust hydration to get the consistency you are looking for (keep notes on the amount of added water)
  • Make note of the dough temperature at the end of the mixing
As bakers, we need to keep in mind that:
  • Flour is at its best within 24 hours of milling. After that, it needs at least two weeks to oxidize properly
  • When protein is concerned, quality trumps quantity: The speed of dough development correlates with the quality of the protein: glutenin provides elasticity and gliadin extensibility. Spring wheat has higher levels of protein but these proteins are organized in a less compact way. Winter wheat’s dormancy period during the growing season makes for a better perfoming protein
  • The quality of the protein is what determines how long the dough needs to be mixed. When gluten develops poorly during mixing, use the stretch and fold technique
What goes on in a dough
  • Yeast consumes sugar and produces gas (the warmer the dough and/or the more leavening it contains, the faster it happens)
  • Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) produce lactic and acetic acids.  If using a pre-ferment and a long fermentation, acidity is produced even in yeasted breads. Acidity strengthens the bonds of gluten. The colder the dough, the slower the production of acidity
  • Enzymes are at work: amylase converts starch to sugar and protease weakens the gluten. Enzymatic activity is less temperature-dependent and more time-dependent
  • These three phenomena are “happening in a dance together”
Enzymes
  • Amylase is activated in the presence of water and breaks down complex sugars to produce simple sugars that the yeast can feed on. Amylase activity is measured by the flour’s falling number  (an information which is seldom to be found on the bags of flour available to home bakers). A high falling number (ex: 400) means that the flour is a slow mover and will be good for long-fermented doughs. A low falling number (ex: 250 or less) means that amylatic activity is high. Amylase brings a nutty flavor to the bread
  • Protease‘s role is to denature protein: it helps increase the extensibility of the dough by softening a strong gluten. Salt is a protease inhibitor and is good for a loose dough which it helps tighten
  • Using more pre-ferment or a riper pre-ferment to boost acidity will strengthen protein bonds. You can adjust the temperature of the pre-ferment to influence the level of acidity 
  • Protease activity and amylase activity go hand in hand: they increase with time
Pre-ferments
When we use a pre-ferment, we are extending the time when the flour is wet, thus increasing enzymatic activity and acidity: we allow the amylase to break down more complex sugars into simple sugars that the yeast can feed on and the increased acidity counters the increased proteolytic activity (the weakening of the gluten by the protease)
  • Poolish (liquid pre-ferment): when it is ripe, its surface will dome and it’ll be bubbly. An upward “curl” will be visible at the edges. As it continues to ripen, the surface will become concave and sink in and it will show lines. The poolish is then at its prime
  • Biga (stiff pre-ferment): use a poke test. Use it when it feels the same as a fermented dough ready to shape or bake
Soakers
  • Whole-milled wheat yields a flour which contains much more active enzymes
  • Peter Reinhart‘s technique (epoxy method) when baking with whole wheat is to let the processes happen prior to the mixing by using a soaker
  • A soaker is basically a long autolyse: it allows for enzymatic activity in the absence of fermentation and acidity. The protease acts on the gluten and the amylase creates sugar which is not consumed by yeast since no yeast is present
  • In a nutshell, a soaker yields more sugar, uses more water and makes the dough weaker. If you suspect that the dough will be too weak, use salt in the soaker
Autolyse

  • Do an autolyse: the autolyse allows for full absorption of the water into the flour, facilitating the bonding of the protein molecules and the development of the gluten. It also jumpstarts enzymatic activity. At the bakery, Scott uses a modified autolyse, soaking flour and water overnight in the walk-in. Then in the morning he uses 15 or 20% of this autolyse in each mix without doing a new autolyse for each. He learned the technique from Jeff Yankellow who used it for Team USA 2000
  • Hydrate the autolyse at 70% (in regular baking, whole wheat would require a much higher hydration, maybe 85%, as it loves water)
  • Let the autolyse rest 20 minutes

Mixing

  • Add yeast, disperse in the mixer and let it incorporate for a few minutes before adding the salt (salt is a tenderizer and breaks down protein)
  • Periodically evaluate the development of the dough in the mixing bowl (windowpane test)
  • If the proteins are not strong enough, you will weaken the gluten if you continue mixing. Use more folds
  • Don’t mix too fast: it weakens the dough
  • Stiffer doughs generate more heat during mixing
  • Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a strengthener for weak doughs
  • Desired dough temperature for these tests is 75°F at the end of the mixing
Fermentation and proofing
  • The more time for fermentation, the more alcohol (and flavor) is produced: flavor results from a combination of sugar and alcohol. If the yeast consumes all the sugar, you’ll get a flatter-tasting loaf
Evaluating the dough
  • Scott is following the method devised by Cliff Leir of fol épi bakery in Victoria, BC, to evaluate the dough as it comes out of the mixer: he takes two ounces of each mix, forms small boules and leaves them to sit, covered, next to each other so that he can compare the rise to spread ratio of each and assess proteolytic activity (degree of gluten weakening by protease)
  • For each dough, after 30 minutes of bulk fermentation, check to see how quickly it is fermenting and how is the gluten handling the fermentation. Do a tug test: what is the dough’s resistance? Test elasticity: does the dough stand up or fall back down after being tugged (standing up is a predictor of good loaf volume)? Is the dough trapping gas? Stretch another gluten window and see how the gluten is holding up/developing. A good gluten window will be hard to break at that stage
  • After 45 minutes of bulk fermentation, check the dough again: how is it inflating? Do a poke test (as you would for a proof test), does the dough push back? If the dough holds your fingerprint, it could mean that the gluten is strong enough to hold down the rise; the gas produced by the yeast is being held tightly; there will be more pressure in the loaf and smaller holes in the crumb. Does the dough feel sticky or release water?
Note: The dough may be fermenting but could be releasing gas if it is porous (it happens when gas is escaping but you don’t see any holes in the surface of the dough). When it is time to shape, check to see if the dough is collapsing. If the proteins are breaking down, you will have small holes and a homogenous crumb.
Variables in fermentation and proofing
  • Rapid fermentation/slow proof: the yeast is running out of sugar. Next time, reduce the amount of leavening and use a soaker instead of a pre-ferment
  • Rapid fermentation/fast proof: enzymatic activity is high. Sometimes the dough will get wetter and softer. Next time you might want to decrease hydration. Do not use a soaker
  • Slow fermentation/slow proof: low amylase activity. Use both a pre-ferment and a soaker but decrease the amount of leavening in the pre-ferment to give yeast more time
  • Slow fermentation/fast proof: very rare. Sometimes it is a good thing, but if it isn’t, just don’t use that flour again
Compensating for flour deficiencies based on test results
If the flour contains a high percentage of protein, next time:
  • Do an autolyse
  • Under-mix (a web of gluten is a lot like thread count on a sheet: the less you mix, the fewer the connections between the strands)
  • Stretch and fold (more frequently)
  • Boost acidity by using a riper pre-ferment or more pre-ferment
  • Increase hydration
  • Bump up proteolytic activity by not salting the pre-ferment or soaker
If the quality of the gluten is poor, next time:
  • Reduce fermentation time
  • Increase leavening
  • Pre-ferment a greater portion of the flour
  • Bump up acidity: use pre-ferment when at or past its prime
  • Stiffen up the dough by decreasing hydration (but you’ll lose some flavor)
  • Don’t use a soaker
If dough is hyperactive, next time:
  • Decrease the amount of leavening in the pre-ferment
  • Decrease fermentation time
If poor rise and no color out of the oven, next  time: 
  • Give amylase more time (use a soaker)
  • Increase the quantity of pre-ferment (giving more time to amylitic activity)
  • Extend fermentation time (more folds), so that the amylase has more time to cleave the sugar off the starch

The results of the testing are mostly relevant to those of us who have access to the same flours as Scott. But just to give you an idea of the conclusions he was able to draw for himself in case he wanted to use these flours again, here is what he found:

  • Camas Red Fife: Seems fine for baking purposes. Add water. Use an unsalted soaker. Use a pre-ferment (small amount). Decrease the yeast and increase fermentation time
  • Renan: Increase hydration to make the dough softer. Increase the amount of sugar available to the yeast by using a soaker with salt and a pre-ferment
  • Hedlin Bauermeister: Slow it down by half, do more folds, bump up acidity by using a ripe pre-ferment and maybe use a soaker
  • Red Russian: Bump up acidity by using a ripe pre-ferment. Do not use a soaker

Such pointers are what we are looking to get out of these tests. Scott is encouraging: “It is a lot of information to wrap your head around but once you see the various adjustments that can be made, it is fairly straightforward.”
He adds: “We have years of work ahead of us here in Western Washington. We need to find wheats that are resistant to rust while looking for flavor and long fermentations. We have a miller but no storage capacity (such as the grain elevators in the Midwest). The miller could conceivably make a blend of local wheats but his mill isn’t equipped to mill white flour. Also, our customers do not buy lots of whole grain breads, so we cannot completely switch over. But we would still like to use local wheat, so we need to find a solution.”
Right now grain is mostly grown here as a rotation crop and sold to Asia as pastry wheat. Farmers usually lose money on it but it is good for the soil. If they could make money on grain, they could grow more. They would make more money off of the commodity market. As for the baker,  he would get a better product than when he buys from the Midwest something that was milled last year and doesn’t offer good nutrition.
There are ways to make white flour more nutritious, for instance going for a higher extraction flour. Cliff Leir (who mills his own flour) soaks the wheat for a minimum of eight to ten hours, which softens the bran. When milled, the bran pops off in big flakes which builds up in a catch sifter and the whole aleurone layer and germ make it into the white flour.


Results of the test bake

Andrew Whitley: Bread Matters

What you’ll find below is a summary of the keynote address delivered at the Kneading Conference West 2012 by Andrew Whitley, author of Bread matters: the state of modern bread and a definitive guide to baking your own. It is based on the notes I took as he was speaking. Any error or inconsistency is my own as I couldn’t write quite as fast as he talked (although I tried hard!)

Baker Andrew Whitley started his professional life as a broadcaster in the BBC Russian Service. He attributes his choice of a new profession to the deep influence of four writers on his world wiew: Leo Tolstoy, who challenged people born into privilege to work out for themselves what constituted a good life, extolled the dignity of labor and urged a reconciliation of the work of the brain and that of the hands; Anton Chekhov, who had little time for people paralyzed by hereditary guilt; John Ruskin, for whom artisan work was a creative response to the availability of raw materials grown in nature, not torn apart by excessive processes; and Rachel Carson, whose impeccable science and elegiac evocation of nature in Silent Spring led him to finally change his life for ever.
Coming as he did from a privileged background, Andrew was nevertheless a firm believer in the dignity of labor; he knew he wanted to actually do something about the problems identified by Carson; he also felt that working with whole grains (as opposed to the reconstituted flours sold in England under the label “wholemeal” which are often white flour with the bran added back in) was a search for vitality and connectedness that said something about the integrity of one’s personal and professional life. So he started growing wheat on an allotment in the middle of London. While the occupation was morally satisfying, he quickly realized that it wouldn’t allow him to pay the mortgage and when he heard of a watermill being restored in Northern England, he jumped at the chance of buying its flour and becoming a baker.
First he needed to figure out how to make bread. The learning curve was steep, especially because the local wheat was wildly unpredictable. Also, nobody was familiar with the kind of bread he was striving to make. As he put it: “I went to a part of the country with almost no population to make a product nobody asked for with a grain that didn’t have the right properties.” Against all odds, it worked and for this, he credits his early customers who were both encouraging and steadfastly supportive.
Bread matters to us as individuals because it is part of our nourishment. In certain developing countries, it is the main staple and people are still enormously dependent on it. In Great-Britain, the bread culture can be characterized by irreverence or indifference. There is no consideration for the nutritional quality and digestibility of wheat grown for human consumption. Poor choices have been made in terms of plant breeding since World War II,  the goal being always to maximize yield through chemical and mechanical means. But the way we make bread as a society has huge consequences for the soil, agronomical methods and choice of seeds as well as for the distribution and consumption of the product and its disposal (in the United Kingdom, up to 30% of bread is thrown away untouched, still in its unopened plastic bag). 
Agronomy has an interesting effect on the quality of grain: nitrogen is applied to the wheat after flowering (late nitrogen method) to boost the protein content. But what is the quality of this protein? Tests have shown that organic wheat with a protein level of 11% has the same baking properties as non-organic wheat checking in at 13% protein and that wheat treated with late nitrogen contained twice as much gliadin (for more info on the link between gliadin and coeliac disease, click here). In another experiment, scientists compared the nutritional quality of wheat coming harvested at the same time and from the same fields but milled differently: half was stoneground, the other half roller-milled. The stoneground flour contained many more nutrients than the roller-milled one.
Due to the combined effect of new wheat-growing technologies, milling methods which take much more out of the grain than traditional ones and the acceleration of the baking process itself, the industrial construct of water, flour, salt and additives that is now eaten by most people in the UK may be called a loaf but it should never be dignified by the name of bread. Although choices appear deceptively wide at the supermarket, the fact remains that, beyond superficial differences, all British loaves are actually very much the same.
When a baker allows flour to ferment for a significant amount of time especially in the presence of sourdough, changes happen in bread that seem to make it more nutritional. It is hard to research digestibility scientifically but anecdotes are reliable stories about how people feel when they eat something. The Real Bread Campaign – which Andrew Whitley helped launch –  was born of the desire to make bread better for ourselves, our families, our communities and our environment. It calls for honest labeling of all ingredients and processes. The bread industry accuses the campaign of seeking to drag it down. But isn’t its coming clean as to what it does and uses a reasonable thing to ask? The industry refuses to list the enzymes it uses routinely, for instance. Why?
A fervent believer in the need to re-localize the food chain, Andrew seeks to be an agent of revitalization of the local supply chain for grain and flour. Most of the grain grown in Scotland – where he now lives and works – goes to the commodity market where it is subject to investors and speculators. Andrew himself owns five acres of land on which he grows several varietals with the goal of evaluating their baking properties. He is involved with a project run by Martin Wolfe of the Organic Research Centre to produce multiple varieties of seeds and combine them in order to help them resist pests and other adverse conditions. He hopes that one day he’ll be able to bake from wheat entirely grown in Scotland.
He seeks to encourage community-supported baking through a system of donations or through novel forms of community funding, for instance ‘loaf loans” under the terms of which 7.5% of the interest due is paid in bread vouchers; or “bread basket” systems under which one customer buys one basket of ten loaves, gets one free and sells the other nine to colleague and friends, making it possible for the bread to reach people who would otherwise never think of walking into an actual bakery.
The cultural context needs to evolve: dietary changes will come from a combination of changes in regulations and actions at the individual level. Minimum nutritional standards should be set for minerals and vitamins in flour. No additives should be allowed. The pressure should go all the way from the consumer to the breeder. Last time the UK tried to raise the standards for bread was during World War II when it instituted the “national loaf”. Today’s bread, based on the values of simplicity and common ownership, could be rebranded and promoted as the “common loaf”.
In fermenting dough, many transformations come together to yield a flavorful and healthful bread. At the time of the French Revolution, “le pain se lève” (the bread is rising) was both a password and a call to arms among the insurgents who prepared to storm the Bastille. Today British consumers still have a long way to go to free themselves from large corporate interests that do not have their best interest at heart. As Andrew sees it, the move towards real bread is light-years ahead in the United States. Events such as the Kneading Conference are an essentiel ingredient in the fermenting process. The bread is definitely rising!


A field of heirloom wheat at WWU Mt Vernon Research and Extension Center
with orchards in the background and the snowy peak of Mt Baker in the distance
(the Center is the seat of the Kneading Conference West)

Related posts:
Kneading Conference West 2012
Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time

Naomi Duguid: Bread Over Time

Meeting Naomi Duguid in person at the Kneading Conference West 2012 was a moving moment: she has been an iconic presence in my life since I bought Flatbread and Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas when it first came out many many years ago: here was a woman who dared. She dared to travel to the most remote corners of the world and observe cooks and bakers at work, collecting recipes. She did what most of us tied to a regular day job could only dream of and dream I did, a true armchair traveler, savoring each of her books as they came out.
Well, it turned out that she was just as moved to meet us, her readers and bread fellows. When she reached the podium to deliver the keynote address, there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them and whispered in the mike: “Don’t mind me, emotion always comes first! It’ll be over in a minute” and it was. But however quickly brought under control, her emotion added a deep resonance to what she had to tell us.
We have established that we all care about bread, she said. Now how do we translate that into action? Well, a time-proven way of looking forward is to look back.
We are standing on the shoulders of hunters, gatherers, growers, people who have looked for ways to transform grain into food that would sustain themselves and their communities. Solving the problem meant survival. Eventually they may have thought of using a rock (or a mortar and pestle) to make flour, so that they could make bread. They brewed beer, they rolled couscous, they made leavened or unleavened flatbreads. Perhaps they built an oven.
All of these people were deeply involved in and committed to the local production of grain.
Today as well finding ways to use grain to sustain life in our communities may make the difference between surviving or not. But how do you give “bread” (loosely defined) its value again? When you have no respect for the process, you have no respect for the product. How do we get back the sense of the special that we lost in the commodification of grain?
As soon as you scale up production to a large scale, you dumb down the product. Predictability becomes the goal and the unpredictability of nature the problem to solve. Commercial bakers want their flour to be consistent, so we produce the lowest extraction flour where nothing alive remains. We lose flavors and varietals. We don’t know the taste of the grain grown across the road.
Let’s reverse the trend. Let’s go back to our homes and bakeries and add at least two products that contain whole grains to our repertoires and at least one item largely made with another grain than wheat. A world of flavors is waiting…
In Tibet, whole grain hulless barley is roasted, then ground into tsampa, a very fine flour. This flour is then mixed with hot tea. With butter and salt added, it becomes a kind of instant bread. The story of tsampa is a tribute to human creativity, ingenuity and survival instinct in an unyielding environment.

Let’s bring back respect in our relationship to grain: respect for the farmer, the miller, the baker; respect for our customers (be they our families or the people who actually buy our breads). Let’s move forward with that relationship by incorporating whole grains into our baking and using other grains than wheat whenever we have a chance. 
***
The above is a synopsis of Naomi’s address based on the notes I took as she was speaking. If any of you readers were there listening to her and think I forgot something important, please let me know (mc.farine@gmail.com) and I’ll add it in.
Meanwhile I would like to share a story: when I was in elementary school in Paris, I had no access to a library. My school had no books to lend that I can remember. If our arrondissement had a public library (and I am pretty sure it did), we were never taken there. At my grandparents’ house (where we spent most weekends), I had all of my father’s and uncle’s childhood books at my disposal and read and re-read them avidly but they were mostly boy books. At home I had girl books which were given to me for my birthdays or at Christmas. Those too, I read and re-read avidly. Among those, Daughter of the Mountains by Louise Rankin, a book about a young Tibetan girl which I obviously read in French (I had no English at all then). I remember my brothers teasing me mercilessly about the title (Momo, Fille des Montagnes) which, I admit, sounded a bit silly, even to my ten-year old ears.
But mostly I remember loving the book with a passion and reading it dozens of times over from cover to cover. To this day, I can taste the tsampa that Momo carried in a little pouch around her neck and survived on during her long and arduous search for her stolen puppy: it was so vividly described that I literally yearned for it.
As Naomi was talking, I had the feeling that some lose threads in the tapestry of life were weaving themselves together for me. I may never follow in Naomi’s actual footsteps to far reaches of the world but I can certainly answer her call and spurred on by the taste and smell of the tsampa I remember eating vicariously in a beloved childhood book, open my baking to new flavors. I owe it to the little Parisian girl who grew up dreaming of life in the high mountains of Tibet…