Ciabatta

Ciabatta

Recipe by Daniel Leader

This is probably the easiest of the craft breads in Daniel Leader's "Local Breads". Just flour, water, salt, yeast and a little patience are all you need to produce a really wonderful couple of loaves or batch of rolls. Don't be scared off by the amount of water in the dough. The little bit of additional effort needed to work with this level of hydration is well worth it. Besides, making these rolls is much easier than forming baguettes.

Ingredients

For The Biga

• 65 grams Tepid Water
• 2 grams Instant Yeast
• 100 grams Bread flour

For The Dough

• 167 grams  Biga
• 425 grams Tepid Water
• 10 grams Instant Yeast
• 500 grams Bread Flour
• 10 grams Sea or Kosher Salt

Cooking Directions

The Biga

The Biga 12 Hours Later



1. The evening before you plan to bake prepare the biga. Combine the water, yeast and flour in a small bowl and knead briefly until its is fairly smooth. Form the biga into a ball.
2. Lightly oil the bowl, pop in the biga, and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave it at room temperature for an hour. Then place it in the refrigerator overnight (12 to 17 hours).
3. Remove the biga from the refrigerator and scrape it into a mixing bowl. Add the water and stir it to break up the biga.
4. Add the remaining ingredients and mix by hand until the dough begins to come together.
5. Using the dough hook mix the dough in medium high (8 on a KitchenAid) for about 15 minutes. You'll have to occasionally stop the mixer and scrape the very wet dough off the hook and sides of the bowl.
6. After 15 minutes, turn the mixer up to it's highest speed for another 2 or 3 minutes.
7. Use the windowpane test and if necessary mix on high a few more minutes.
8. Transfer the dough to a straight sided container and note how high it will need to rise to triple in volume.
9. Cover the container with plastic wrap and allow the dough to ferment.
10. WARNING - This dough is very wet and contains a large amount of yeast - keep an eye on the dough as it can very easily overflow the bowl.
11. When the dough has tripled in volume scrape it out onto a very well floured work surface.
12. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.





Be gentle - you don't want to lose the bubbles.



13. With heavily floured hands gently push the dough into a 10x12 inch rectangle.
14. Dust the dough with flour and using a pizza cutter slice it into rectangles about 2x3 inches.
15. Immediately transfer the dough rectangles to 2 parchment paper covered baking sheets, placing them 2 inches apart.
16. Let the dough rise about a half an hour. The rectangles will be puffed and and you will be able to see bubbles forming under the skin.
17. Bake in a 475 degree oven for 20 minutes or until the rolls are light golden brown.






Ready to eat!

Retirement Planning Italy - International Driving Permit

A few months back I posted a bit about our plans for a trip to visit Guardia Sanframondi, a smallish (about 5000 people) hill town in Campania. There's no easy way to get to Guardia. The nearest town that has train service is Telese Terme - not a bad choice (and the owner of the B&B where we'll be staying does seem willing to come and get her clients) but we wanted to have a little freedom to travel the country side and maybe even drop by some of our favorite spots in and around Napoli. So we'll be renting a car and that means driving. In Italy.

So, in the event you to decide to embark on such a perilous endeavor ...

The International Driving Permit

This was pretty much the easiest part of preparing for our visit to Guardia Sanframondi. All I did was fill out and print the online form, find my local AAA office (conveniently located adjacent to one of the better Indian restaurants in Philly) and head down with my driver's license.

The fee for the permit is $15.00. You need two passport type photos which you can probably get at the AAA office. They were $11.99 at the office I used.  Total cost including tax was $27.71. You can apply by mail as well but delivery can take 4-6 weeks according to the AAA website.

The IDP is not a driver's license.  It's a permit that in conjunction with your current state license (and passport) allows you to drive in counties that are signatories to the United Nations Convention on International Road Traffic of 19 September 1949.

One Quick Car Rental Note


As I browsed the various rental cars on offer through sites like Orbitz and Expedia, I learned the first important EU rental car lesson:

Know how to drive a manual transmission car

Except for the largest and most expensive vehicles, they're all manuals. If no one in your travel party can handle a stick, you're going to literally "pay the price".

NGD - Gibson 50th Anniversary SG

As a long time fan of The Who, I've occasionally thought I ought to get myself a Gibson SG just because Pete played 'em during what are arguably the band's most creatively productive years (mid-1968 - 1972). The model he played, an early 60's SG Special with P-90 pickups, has been difficult to find, particularly the iconic cherry finish model made famous at Woodstock. (Not to mention the cost of such a "vintage" instrument.) Even scoring a P-90 equipped SG has been difficult at times, as Gibson tends to focus on the more popular humbucker equipped models. That's all changed in the last couple years.

Late last year, however, Gibson issue a 50th Anniversary Pete Townshend SG in Arctic (Polaris) White at a fairly reasonable (for Gibson) price. Of course, some Who fans complained about the color (Pete played the white models only on a relatively short tour supporting Quadrophenia). I thought it rather attractive and started to watch the usual websites for deals. Most dealers had it for sale at about $1299 - not bad, but that was a little expensive given I already own three other electrics and don't have a band to "justify" buying another instrument.

About a month ago, some dealers started offering the Townshend SG at $999. I was sorely tempted. Then last week, Musician's Friend, the mailorder arm of Guitar Center, put the darn thing on sale for $899. Beth said OK, and three days later the big brown truck delivered.

Do not leave on porch...

So... it showed up about 3:00 in guitar size box with Gibson printed on the side, so it's a pretty good thing I happened to be home sick.  Inside, supported by bubble wrap, a black "thermometer" case, complete with "WHO" stencil:

and inside that:

Everything's fine, but of course the poor baby has spent the last 9 hours or more in the back of a UPS truck so she's a touch cold. So just a quick tune up to check that the electronics are OK. Fit and finish look excellent - no scrapes, globs of glue, or misplaced binding. The finish is fairly thin nitro, so a little of the mahogany grain is visible up close.

Three hours later...

OK, let's see what we've got here. First thought - order straplocks. Yes, SGs do exhibit neck dive. This one's no exception. Second thought: P-90's are hot. Volume wise, they're quite close to the pickups in my Santana III. Let's see... not as light as I'd imagined based on reviews and yep, you don't have to be Townshend to bend the neck.

Now let's try to sound like 1969. Set my little Blues Jr. (stock speaker, BillM mods) to "Who" tone (Bass 6, Mid 5 (Townshend's custom HiWatt amps didn't have a "mid" control), Treble 8, "clean"), a touch of reverb, and plug straight in. Yeah, that's it. P-90 is the live Who sound from the good old days. Which of course everybody knows, but it's still pretty cool to hear it coming out of your amp for the first time.

More thoughts: Intonation is pretty darn good for a fixed (though compensated) bridge. Gibson's specs say the nut is PLEK'd but it is tight - a few touches with a sharpened pencil cleared up a couple of tuning pings. I'm toying with the idea of an adjustable bridge - they cost less than $40 from StewMac, but I'll keep her stock for a few months before I make up my mind.

The all mahogany construction is very resonant. Back in the day, there was an idea that very heavy electric guitar bodies (e.g. solid maple or the massive Alembic style "hippie sandwich" construction) coupled with brass bridges and nuts would result in a guitar with a very clear tone and tremendous sustain. (And yes, I was a believer too.) It's pretty obvious that very few people actually sat down and compared instruments side-by-side.

This SG is noticeably more resonant than my PRS Santana III (a guitar built in the Les Paul style with a 2 piece maple top and mahogany body and neck). That's likely due to the fact that the SG is a couple pounds lighter and the PRS tremolo partially decouples the strings from the guitar body. I can feel a plucked open A string vibrating for 11-12 seconds on the SG as opposed to about 8-9 seconds on the Santana.

Conclusions: This is the best price/performance instrument Gibson makes outside of the studio line. Every guitar playing Who fan needs one of these.