Friends in town

Baking is personal. You usually don't do it for yourself - you do it for others. Last night I had a few girlfriends pass through town and stay the night with me. My husband offered to make dinner - I love when he does that because he's so great at it. So, I decided to focus my efforts on making fresh bread for my guests. I needed a recipe that didn't take 3 days and 3 nights of rising and kneeding and rising and so on. As soon as I got home from work I buried myself in my bread book in search of a good loaf to make. Focaccia. Three hours tops and I had all the ingredients - yeast, flour, salt, olive oil, garlic and sage - perfect! I got it started and let it rise while I put fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room. Bread needs a warm place to rise, but it has been really chilly here the last few nights and there's not a warm place in my house (I never turn on the heat). I needed to do laundry anyway, so I started a load and placed the glass bowl of dough on top of the dryer and covered it with a towel. Hey, best thing I could think of! Focaccia is a fun bread to make because when it's done, it looks really cool. During the preparation process, you must poke holes in the dough with your fingertips making several dimples. I basted it with the olive oil, sage and fresh garlic mixture and put it in the oven on the bottom rack @ 400 for 25 minutes.
   While my masterpiece was in the oven, the girls arrived and we opened a bottle of wine. I told them about my new obsession with bread and my ideas for future experimentation. By oven light I could see the loaves were probably done just a few minutes before my timer went off. I pulled them out of the oven and popped them out of their little round pans so they could cool on a rack. Which is really a silly idea if you think about it, because isn't the whole point of baking bread to eat it hot, right out of the oven? So, we did. It was delicious. The crust was nice and firm with a soft center, the herb flavor was not overwhelming. Another success!