And lovely looking bread once again. I prefer the irregular holes as well but I would still love to know the ingredients for the cardamom bread. I assume that it has a preferment? Is it a poolish type or a biga preferment?

-Elizabeth

B, my mouth is watering.

The beans look so scrummy!

Great northern or navy beans would be great in the dish, too, Elizabeth. I just like to cook with flageolets because they have an ultra creamy texture and when you cook them without a lot of strongly colored things, they sometimes will keep the pale greenish tint, and I find that to be interesting.

Kate–I have a soft spot for country stews–of all kinds, though I do tend to use a French technique pretty often, because it was beaten into my head in culinary school. And, because I grew up watching Julia on the television.

And, because I really love leeks…almost as much as I love my ramps.

Glad to get those saliva glands up and running for you.

Steph, I am glad to know that you and Mike are enjoying my blog. I do try to both inform and entertain; back when I was a journalism major in college, my Reporting 201 professor used to read my weekly beat reports to his wife over Sunday brunch, because they thought they were so funny. They were funny because I had a boring beat to cover (The Community College–a hotbed of action) and so I never had much to report that I did trying to cover it during the week. Except that I was desperate to cover something, because I had to have 20 published clips by the end of the semester. So, I was really trying to think of something to write about, and my beat report, instead of being a dull log of the exciting stories I covered was a journal of my manic attempts of cover events that were dull beyond all comprehension–too dull to print, really, and so they were exciting.

When I teach, I have found that humor sets people at ease, keeps them loose and relaxed and able to learn. Besides, people who are laughing and having a good time will remember what I teach better than people I put to sleep, you know?

Speaking of sleep–I might should maybe go and have some of that. I am beginning to blither.

That would be terrific to see the cardamom bread recipe, Barbara! I look forward to it. In the summer time, I leave sponges in the fridge too. But in winter (and even now) I just leave them on the counter overnight.

This is reminding me that it’s high time I made a French-style boule. It uses TWO preferments – a poolish (rather spongelike but a little gloppier) and a much stiffer bigalike piece of dough. the resulting bread is really great – based on a recipe for Acme’s Rustic Baguettes in Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer.

-Elizabeth