With Continual Reference to Justin Kahn.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Man Does Not Live on Bread Alone: Part I of a II Part Series


Pictured:Charleton Heston asks, "What is Justin putting in his bread that makes it so yummy?"

(This is the beginning of a series which ended yesterday.)

I am proud to say that I am now a succesful bread chef. Maybe, one of the best in the world, but I don't know b/c stats on bread chefs are not widely available.

If you count the prototype loaves, the first succesful loaf of bread was admittedly maybe the most expensive loaf of bread since the famed Faberge Bread. In fact, I used the Faberge recipe but simply replaced the Faberge Eggs with Target Eggs.

Anyway, I was pretty proud. I admit I left the flour on my nose longer than absolutely necessary(18 hours). But I felt like people might not ask me if I had made bread recently, if I didn't give them clues like that. I'm always having to give little social cues like that, b/c most of the people I run across appear to be socially inept. One guy, a cop, didn't even raise the bread topic, despite all the clues I was giving. I had to yell in his face HEY! DID YOU KNOW BAILEY'S CANNOT BE USED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR VEGETABLE OIL, WHEN MAKING BREAD AT HOME.

Uninterested, he made me feel like I was putting him out, by getting a speeding ticket. Would service with a smile kill you, pal?

STAY TUNED FOR YESTERDAY'S POST (SCROLL DOWN)
NOTE: Those of my regular readers who already read yesterday's post don't have to follow that directive. If you want to, you can.

7 comments:

unenlightened said...

Fascinating! I thought I was the only bread-making philosopher on the planet. Why isn't there a learned journal on the philosophy of bread? Personally I prefer a dualistic bread machine consisting of a passive bread bowl, and some sort of fiery-furnace.
I find that yeast attacks the irony, giving the bread a slightly metallic taste, so I try to use stone-ground rhetoric whenever I can. Look forward to reading your analyses of egg glazes and poppy seeds. May it always land buttered side up for you, bob.

Justin said...

unenlightened:

As soon as I finished your comment, I knew that you weren't from around here. Well, maybe not as soon as I finished reading the comment, but once I was like "Wait, my name isn't Bob-Is it?" and than there was a few seconds lapse and I was like "Oh, from across the pond, I'd bet."

To get to the point, you have a much more sophisticated philosophy of bread, than myself. I am an existentialist. I live from loaf to loaf. You seem to possess a much more sophisticated metaphysics of loaf. Impressive.

Sadly, as long as contemporary American philosophy is dominated by Analytical Philosophy there will be no room for the big questions you raise. Perhaps over, yonder?
Thanks again, bob.
justin

Justin said...

anonymous:
As soon as I read your post, I realized you are an american.

Unfortunately, I can't identify you otherwise. It lacks the Wit of a StephAn, who sometimes goes stealth.

But other than that you remain dim and in the shadows to me.

I prefer it that way.

Justin
P.S. A waterpik sounds awesome. I'd ask you, but something as personal as brushing my teeth, I'd rather work through with one of my friends.

adhyayan said...

nice one.. keep writing.. bread chef.. hmm pretty narrow domain expertise...

Justin said...

Gordo: As I am very greatful for your support and am not one to question regular contributors it does seem to me that you are alluding to the famous story of the Meat Chopper, the bread chef & the Wax Reconfigurer. Given that is a story and only a story, I can only imagine that acting on it and opening a restaurant would be appropriate if and only if I lived in Australia.

Anonymous said...

Witless, dim and shadowlike.

Could be the title of a graphic novel.

Picture our hero, not terribly bright, in fact the fruit of a long line of sub-par intellects inhabiting a nebulous underworld of shadows and poor lighting. Blotto, as his luckless mother named him earns his meager living polishing shoes in the employ of a mean spirited cobbler whose life ambition (sadly unrealized) is to sing opera. Instead of soaring to the crescendos of Rigoletto he makes Blotto’s life a living hell by subjecting him to scratchy recordings of obscure German opera and an unending stream of criticisms interspersed with pedantic and uninspired observations about life and purpose which he shovels at poor Blotto. In his mind, the cobbler imagines each nugget a glimpse of truth and beauty. Poor Blotto suffers under the care of this maniacal gardener who mounds the fertilizer deeply indeed around the sickly tree.

At night Blotto is transformed, he escapes the cobbler’s shack digging both the Wirst du des Frankenmiens and the philosophical manure from his ears and makes his way home to his one room flat. There, with the help of his trusty bread machine he conjures muffins of spice and sugar and yes, Baileys, which he distributes to the homeless denizens of the block while helping them deal with the feast of small misfortunes (like a really bad tapas bar) that life in its bounty has showered on them.

Niklas said...

When I bake, naturelle, I feel just as pleased with my self as you just did Justin. It's the closest a man can come to hunting your own food in an urban area. You do however have to buy the ingredients at the same store as you more easily could buy some bread. But that's beside the point.