I DID IT!!

I made homemade foccacia without using the bread machine. Now, some of you may snort derisively and think it's no big deal, but kneading has never been one of my accomplishments. When I was first married, I did try to make homemade French bread, and the baguettes ended up so incredibly hard and tough that my new husband and his best friend were able to re-enact the light saber battle between Obiwan Kenobe and Darth Vader in our apartment living room with barely a loss of crumb. I retreated to the safe comfort of a bread machine, but deep down I yearned for the good, solid comfort of making my own bread. Back to my Greek peasant roots, as it were, milking the goats, milling the flour, and putting it all together. I am Woman, watch me roar.

Yeah, well, instead I wore out three bread machines, and I have absolutely no shame or complaint about the quality of bread that has come out of them. In fact, tonight I'm going to set the bread machine on Timer (if I remember to do this after watching 2-3 episodes of "Nip/Tuck") and hopefully have a hot loaf of bread waiting for breakfast tomorrow morning.

HOWEVER, back to my accomplishment: I bought a copy of "Cook's Illustrated" magazine (October 2010) issue and decided that their recipe for Rosemary Foccacia might be suited to my talents. (If you can't find the recipe online or in your own issue of "Cook's Illustrated," let me know.) First, I had to make the Biga (or starter) the night before, which I dutifully did. The next day, Sunday, I got started with the bread dough around 3 p.m. and it really did take a while but I had two foccacia rounds ready for dinner at around 7 p.m. The article explained why it took so long, in detail worthy of a Chemistry class, but bottom line is that I folded the dough in on itself three separate times, with 30-minute rest periods, before shaping and baking; there were a few 5-minute rest periods in there too.

It was absolutely awesome, much better than bread machine dough, and really delicious. I'll do it again . . . when I have that much time. In the meantime, my Zojarushi bread machine suits me quite well.