Harvest around the Corner

Well, the news is in, harvest is just around the corner. For many it has begun, but gently, slowly. The cool spring, short summer, cool early fall, drying winds, minimal rains have all collaborated to push back the harvest for ten days to two weeks. This after multiple years of early (précoce) harvests here. It keeps you on your toes!

But, those first white grapes are coming in, and the younger reds for rosé. Picked in the cool morning air they are carried in bins to the cellars, de-stemmed (égrappées) and pressed directly before being pumped into the stainless tanks where they'll be kept cool and permitted to start fermenting either that same day, or two days later, depending on the vintner and his ability to quickly descend the temperature of his juice.
We had two fierce rain storms last week. Good news for the agricultural world -- yes, it's been a dry summer. But bad news for my roof (ouch!), and my sleep. Okay, a good harvest in 2010 is very important, that the grapes be fully ripe and not stunted is of supreme importance. But I tell you, it is a bummer getting up at 4 in the morning to put pans and cups and towels under not quite a dozen leaks, and the next night from 1-2. Yup. Better get that B&B in Arles sold so I can repair my roof!

But on to the ostensible reason for this post. This is also a period that I've lots of visitors (thank you!) and of course we visit the wineries. Thankfully I've friends and colleagues in a number of them. Thus even during this busy period we've been welcomed warmly, briefly shaking the hand of one vintner as he headed off to shower having just finished harvesting and pressing for the day. He simply left the store to me and I handled the tasting.

Last week's visits were between harvest days. The storms came down mid-week and all was put on hold till the roots absorbed the extra water. This helped the grapes finish up their ripening and from this Monday (in the case of those on the lower and more Southern slopes) the harvest picked back up.

And so depending on where you are in Provence and Southern France at this moment you will no doubt have many a tractor in the roads pulling their very full bins behind them. Some may drip a bit of that lovely red juice along the road, leaving their trail of crumbs if you will... Others having worked more carefully (hand-picked) will be gently heading down to the cellar, to the de-stemmer (égrappeur) and the presse. It's a busy busy time down here.

The Oenologist's visit

The harvest is in -- excepting the late ripening Mourvèdre which is slated to be brought in Monday, five days after the other varietals. It is a time for attentive and daily cellar work. Sugar is transforming into alcohol. Daily the density of the liquid is measured: sugared liquid is heavier than water (thus numbers in the thousand plus); and alcohol is lighter (numbers in the very high 900s). Daily the total acidity is measured (by the lab), as well as the sulfites (those naturally present, those combined with the liquid, and those floating freely), the temperature and the presence of malic acid which will transform into lactic acid. Yeasts are working on the wine, but also indigenous bacteria. It is a highly methodical surveillance of a natural and occasionally shifting process. Each year, each grape, each day is different.



This year, for many, the sugar quantity is high. The grapes are very sweet. But, the tannic ripeness wasn't commensurate (phenolic ripeness). As such, the precise timing for the harvest was not an easy decision. And, in the cellar, the numerous consequences of this must be handled with care. If the malo-lactic acid transformation begins before the alcoholic fermentation is finished, this provokes problems, and must be attended to quickly -- urging the vintner to intervene and speed up the alcoholic fermentation by raising the temperature of the vat, for instance.



A few of the tanks have already finished their alcoholic fermentation. Six-eight days was sufficient. The temperature during this period was controled--kept relatively cool; the yeasts were efficient in their work, and the sugar has been fully transformed into alcohol. However, at this point, depending on whether the end product is a vin de pays, or an AOC wine, more or less extraction of matière is desired. Thus, for that which will become a higher-end wine, the solids, le marc, is left with the juice to macerate for another week or more and so, thus extracting a maximum of density and concentration, polyphenols and other good things. To encourage this process, the tank may be heated, and the liquid stirred up by pouring it out into a neighboring tank and pumping it back atop its solids.




When JP sits down with the oenologist, he has already removed samples from every vat in his cellar. They go through every wine, tasting, smelling, and noting what next to do with that particular wine. All these samples will then be off to the lab, who will efficiently get the results back to JP that same evening so he can get to work immediately on the next appointed task. This is a period in the year when the words Saturday and Sunday have little meaning! The wines need attending to.



So, I helped him immediately get to work removing the cooling insert from the grenache, adjusting the tubes and pumps to do the délestage, which can resemble the traditional technique of pigeage, slightly differing from a remontage. As I've just learned, the first lightens the vat: you remove all the liquid, allowing the solids to fall completely to the bottom of the vat, then you send the liquid back atop, breaking the solids, and fully mixing them in. Pigeage is that great technique (be it with your feet or a wooden tool) where you crush grapes to release their juice. And remontage is a continuous process of removing liquid from the bottom of the tank and sending it back in on top, yet keeping the quantity in the tank at the same level throughout.



We went up and down rickety ladders (a new stairwell is to be built to facilitate this, but at the moment, the building of such is in the stage of proposals from various ironworkers). We carried buckets. I cleaned tubes and overflowing tanks. We hosed down and scrubbed, double-checked temperatures, and removed the heating element from the Carignan. The clairette will need to be nudged towards finishing its alcoholic fermentation pronto as the volatile elements that the malic acide transformation creates will potentially cause problems.



There's always something to do.

Back at the Goat Farm

Sorry, no pictures today. I forgot my camera! Will do better next week!! Some elegant goat portraits would be nice, no? maybe some textured hair, miss-shapen horns, bales of hay? I'll see what I can do. Wouldn't want my posts to bore you!

Well, a week later, with my kids in school and the weekly program slowly coming into shape, I was able to bop off to the goat farm (an hour's drive) to milk goats, make cheese and lunch with my dear friends, Isabelle and Paul Pierre. My plan is to spend every Thursday there, and during vacations, a few days in a row.

I arrived this morning just shortly after Aurelie and went right to work. Monday she shifted the goats from a twice daily milking to once daily. This meant being far more conscientious about truly emptying (to the best of our abilities) each teat. It also had caused a bit of congestion in the teats of a few of the goats. So some were letting down their milk more slowly then others and needed more attention, massaging, and general coaxing to get their teats empty.

One goat, Bonne Belle, had particularly congested teats ever since she'd first milked. Apparently, she'd given birth to twins and was nursing them fine (Isabelle and Paul Pierre always left the kids with the goats for the colostrum) and so had the production for two kids. But, one day she rejected one, continuing to nurse only the remaining one. With milk for two, she fed one, and thus begat her history of congested teats. To each goat her own particular history...

Another goat, Attia, is susceptible to infected mammaries, and so Aurelie had done some homeopathic preventive medicine. She had an herbal mixture that she injected via a syringe into the teat -- very very carefully. It was strong smelling, and for the next 48 hours she hand milked this teat and passed the milk to the dogs. Strange flavored goat cheese doesn't sell well... However, Filou happily lapped it up.

With the switch from twice daily milking to once, the quantity has actually not been significantly reduced. She was getting 7 not too full containers of milk, and now she gets 5 very full containers.

Once the milk had passed through the strainers and filter, the rennit and whey from the day before were added (to the still warm milk). We flipped the 150 or so cheeses from yesterday back into their molds -- with a different technique than I'd been using last week. I took note! And I flipped out the cheeses from the day before yesterday onto the grills to be put into the drying room. Aurelie turned over the cheeses in the drying room, and switched the racks around, putting yesterday's below, making room for todays, and taking earlier ones out and into the aging room, cave d'affinage.

We then switched to ladling out of the three day curd into the molds which was pretty quickly done. While this was all going on, I kept up with the washing up, disinfecting, etc.: The milking pumps needed rinsing, washing and filling with water before they were hung in their storage spot till tomorrow. The tanks needed rinsing, washing and rinsing. The molds from the day before needed rinsing and washing (these go in the 5 minute machine). The floor needed squeegeeing where I'd spilled some milk (yes, it happens!). And the stainless cheese trays from the day before needed rinsing, scrubbing and hosing down before passing the squeegee to remove excess water.

The cheese lab is unorthodox with its terra cotta tiles on the floor and white washed plaster walls, but it is very easy to clean and to keep clean. Half way up the walls and all around the sinks are close fitting white tiles. These too scrub down easily and rinse well. It shows that thoughtful architects, not young folk blindly following the European Union Hygiene police, built this lab. Though it does not conform to code, it has often been cited as an example by those with actual authority amongst the inspectors. This laboratory has never had a serious incident. Well-conceived and easy to clean, it breathes.

What is interesting to me is that Aurelie is now accustomed to making her cheeses here. But, the plan is to build a different lab over on her father's land. Will she follow the same principles? And, will she be able to transfer over her cheeses to the new lab by simply bringing over her whey? I'm not sure. The walls of this lab are her partners in making her cheese. They bear the imprint of years of successful cheeses in the form of layers of spores from past years -- good spores, good bacteria, good mold. This is what helps cheese take and age as it should. A brand new lab won't have these...

We'll wait and see. For more information about goats do take a look at the site All Things Goat

Goats in the Morning

Yes I can, when necessary, be a morning person. And how lovely it can be.

Amongst the many benefits beyond beautiful misty landscapes are a chance to chat quietly with Paul Pierre and Isabelle about the many variations and ways of personalizing a person's goat cheese making. For instance, they use rather little rennit compared to the standard practice. And, they don't necessarily chill the milk first before putting in the rennit and the whey. They leave it 72 hours rather than just 24 in their 20C/70F room, and the texture of their curdle is quite a bit softer than that of other colleagues.



There are also variations possible depending on how long the cheese is left on the racks in the 20C/70F room, before being put in the dehumidifier. And, it can stay longer in the dehumidifier, if a drier, firmer cheese is preferred. Likewise, the cave d'affinage can be set at 11C or at 14C, depending on the preference of the cheese maker.



Working with live enzymes: the art of fermenting. Temperature, humidity, and so much more play a part. Each cheese maker finds the method that pleases he or she. Trial and error, reading and learning, watching and following, and then off on your own path.

Day Two making cheese

The milking part is pleasant, warm, clean and easy -- or relatively so. Goats are clean and intelligent animals. From what I've seen of cow dairies, there is no comparison. To put it simply, tales of being shat upon, or filthy teets at a cow dairy are not exagerations. Plus they are large and stubborn animals, cows. Sheep, I'm told are quite stupid. Should your lands flood, goats will find the high land, climb a stair well or a tree, what-have-you. But sheep will simply baaaa and drown. So, here I am amidst a range of goats of different ages and races, and what a pleasure it is. They leap quickly into place for their feed and milking. They make room for you to put the suction cups on their teets. No kicking, relatively minimal farting, and perfectly at ease with the handling and manipulation of our hands upon them. The milk flows quickly and smoothly -- numerous hygienic measures are followed sensibly and not onerously -- and a short hour later, we've milked all 36 and are ready to head to the dairy.



Just a note. Before milking, the goats are given some fresh hay to pump them up a bit. Then they munch away on their grain while they are milked, and afterwards they can head out to the pasture, or eat more hay in the manger. Salt licks are on the walls in the barn. And, should you try to milk them dry, it is nearly impossible. We milk till the teets are softened and supple, but even then, if we hand-milked there would be more. So, you stop when there is far less.




Today I helped flip and return to the molds the cheeses poured into their molds yesterday morning, and already flipped once yesterday evening. I didn't maul them too badly, and after a hundred or so, the gesture began coming naturally. As with any repetitive gesture, be relaxed. Tension makes everything worse.

We then moved onto the tiny cheeses -- much appreciated by restaurants and makers of toasted goat cheese salads. Again, we had a metal guide for 90 molds. However, we had to place these 90 molds on the stainless tray before placing the guide on top. Getting the spacing right is an art, and in each instance a bit of fiddling and putting back in order necessary. With these guides, you can practically dump your curdle on top and simple smooth it around into the molds. I tried to do it a bit more elegantly than this, but truly...

Then our clean up, prepping cheeses in paper for selling to Aurelie's various clients, and back out the door. Tonight, we'll turn the tiny little cheeses I filled today. As there are 580 or so, I should get some good practice with that flipping wrist action, don't you agree?

Meantime, Filou got a nasty little weed in his paw -- what the locals call espégao, or la folle avoine -- resembling a tiny shaft of wheat. It is pointy and akin to an arrow, it wants to go in, further and further, and is terribly difficult to remove. He has had these twice in the past years in his ears, but this time it is between his toes. Shepherds are good people to bring sick dogs to. Aurelie helped me remove a bit of the points of this nasty thing, and to disinfect the wound. But, 24 hours later, he is still limping and the wound is weeping. The verdict is to keep disinfecting, and let the wound abscess to push out what is clearly still inside. If we've not accomplished this by tomorrow, I do have a veterinarian beside my home in Avignon and will see if he can help.

Mon brave chien accompanies me nearly everywhere, lying so calmly at my feet (or at the feet of the head of the household). He enjoys the goat barn and has made friends with the resident mama cat who's a master huntress of rats, rabbits, mice and more. However, when I disappear into the dairy for an hour or more, he wines at the door, not accustomed to my abandoning him in this manner. Perhaps he'll get accustomed to this just like his mistress?

Day One making cheese

I arrived early this morning to be able to spend a bit of time with Isabelle and Paul Pierre and their family before joining Aurelie (their former intern, now the resident goat-cheese maker) for the morning milking, la traite. Isabelle has just finished five days of chemo, and is clearly exhausted and much affected by this most recent round of treatments. I’d thought she was on more paliative care now, but, I suppose it is difficult for an oncologist to not wish to do the utmost with his arsenal at hand. I hope she’ll be better when I visit next week. Her weariness is deeply visible in her eyes, and in the hesitancy with which she approaches breakfast: coffee or chocolate, bread or no, jam, and which flavor. In each case her husband encourages, suggests, does for. He waits a bit, but sees that if she’s not nudged towards a choice, she’ll simply shut down and stop. She’s mentally in and out, almost mini-naps with her eyes open. As she puts it her head is dans la pâté.

And yet amidst this moment of sickness and family intimacy, I've been welcomed to share, to learn, to participate. I tell little stories, but keep them short. I'm attentive to her level of energy, and seek a smile or two, but go no further. It is more aptly a time for quiet and simply being together.

When the sound of Aurelie’s arrival reaches the kitchen, I clean my coffee cup and walk the short trip from the kitchen to the barn to watch and most importantly, to do. Aurelie is relaxed with me, at ease and pleased that I'm eager to get in and mettre mes mains à la pâtee" as we say here ("get your hands dirty" is the closest equivalent in English). I’ve watched so many times, but had never laid my hands upon the milking machines, nor the teets aka mammary glands aka breasts, called mammelles here.



The first gesture of the morning is to prepare the small mangers with yummy feed. Today it is organic corn, but normally, there is a blend of soaked corn and soaked and sprouted barley. ¾ of a coffee tin is put into each manger. Then the goats are allowed to come up to feed. They are all waiting, in their pecking order. As with many animals there is a world of hierarchy amongst the goats. The first goes up the ramp, all the way to the furthest manger (the only one open to her) and puts her head down to eat, triggering the mechanism that locks her in. The next follows suit, and the next, etc.,

The next movement is to do a quick squirt of the premier jet, putting it into a bowl that the dogs will enjoy. Then, the clean and prepped milking suction cups are attached to the teets. There is space for 12 goats at a time to feed, and 4 sets of suction cups. To each her turn. Aurelie massages the warm, firm teets to help the goats with let down. The younger goats often release their milk slowly, whereas some of the older seemed to have double the milk. Teets come in all shapes and sizes, but those of these goats were all-in-all pretty easy to place into the cups. I had memories (doesn’t every mother?) of massaging my painfully full breasts to send milk flowing into Jonas’ mouth when he was a newborn – he was a particularly bad nurser. In any case, touching and handling these goat teets felt normal and quite pleasant. Beyond helping in the milking, the goat cheese maker/shepherd also does this to better know his/her goats, with all their individual quirks. For instance, spotting a cyst requires knowing what the normal teet felt like before the cyst appeared. It is good to learn to distinguish the firmness that is a sign of full milk ducts, or simply lumpy bumps, or something to worry about etc.,

Aurelie is using the system and structure designed by Paul Pierre and Isabelle when they set up their business here twenty two years’ ago. With their design and architectural backgrounds, Isabelle and Paul Pierre were creative and originals, yet observant of known-methods. The plumbing, the flow from barn to milking station to barn, a system for soaking and subsequently straining the barley. This all takes place in the barn.



The fresh milk is then transferred to the dairy on a small trolley where it is put through a strainer into 15 litre bins. These are placed on shelves made of 1 ½ in PVC (rows of 2). Into the full bins of fresh goats' milk -- that she did not cool down -- Aurelie puts an eye dropper of rennit (6-7 drops per litre), and a ladel-full of whey from an earlier batch.



The dairy is kept at 20C (70F) and the now treated milk will sit for three days and ferment gently till the curdle is nicely taken. When ‘ready’ the curdle will be a solid mass amidst a clear liquid, with a fuzzy white skim on the surface.



My next job is to remove day-old cheeses from their molds and place them on stainless steel racks – as neatly as I can, leaving a minimum of thumb prints, rubbing off a minimum of cheese, and--as my skill-level permits--place them in neatly staggered rows. I did my best,... and gratefully, Aurelie is a very patient teacher.

While I was handling these more solid of cheeses, Aurelie was flipping out and returning to the molds the far softer and more humid cheeses from the evening before. (Goats are most often milked twice daily, and so the cheese-making can occur twice daily).

I moved my firmer cheeses to the de-humidifying room, and the molds to their large baskets to be first doused in a bath of acide de soude, and then into the dishwasher. We then hosed down and cleaned off the two meter by one meter stainless tilted trays upon which we put the cheese molds. These drain directly into open plumbing, and down the drain. In some farms, the whey and small milk solids collected in this manner are fed to pigs – a source of protein-rich liquid for their feed. Yet another example of the intelligence and non-waste possible on small, multi-animal family farms. However here, there are no pigs, and thus the whey is treated as gray water, dispersed through the septic system.

Once our sliding trays are cleaned (there are 6, but this being August, we’re nearly at the end of the season, and are using only 4), we set up the cleaned molds (those that have chilled) in rows of 5 x 6. Upon these we place the stainless grid that permits to fill many molds at once. Aurelie takes a large quart/litre sized cup and uses it to ladel the curd from the bin into the molds. However first, she has gently poured out and brushed off the excess whey and the white fuzz atop. Her cheeses will be milder in flavor if she does not include the last. With a squeegee, we finish filling through the grid – filling the molds to nearly over-flow. A couple minutes’ wait is required as the curd descends, the whey already escaping through the holds of the molds, and then we transfer the grid to the next batch of 30 molds. And so on.



This morning, August 23, we milked 36 goats and made 130 cheeses with the three-day-old curd. We filled three 15 litre bins fully, and a fourth perhaps 7/8 or 5/6 full of fresh milk. Yesterday’s milk, alongside (but distinctly placed apart) the milk from the day before yesterday are quietly fermenting away.

Immediately after the milking we cleaned and rinsed the suction cups and tubes, followed by the molds, bins, etc., A last gesture is to spray down and squeegee the terra cotta tile floor. Aurelie has prepared her packets of cheese that she distributes Monday in weekly crates of fresh vegetables and more organized by a local AMAP (farmers’ coop).

There were three of us, and two hours later, we’re free to be off to other projects. Not so bad, eh?

Recipe Trials - Bread, Wine, Fermentation

Unless otherwise noted, all materials on this blog are (c) 2009 by Madeleine Vedel

I tried re-working that poultry recipe with fresh goat cheese the other day. Sophie's was fun, but ever so complicated. So this time, I blended chopped garlic and fresh rosemary with the cheese and put in the cavity, along with some white wine. I then simply sprinkled some salt and olive oil on the chicken, (a nice firm organic one with good flavor), put potatoes and more rosemary sprigs, onions and garlic in its sleeve in the baking pan and put it in the oven. I did a bit of basting to keep it moist, but otherwise kept it simple.

It was good, but not spectacular. It's an interesting thing putting fresh cheese with chicken. I wonder, having lived in Provence for so long, and with a chef who never but never used crème fraîche, maybe I'm just not really up for appreciating dairy and poultry as a combination? I've become accustomed to the cleaner flavors of simply a bit of herbs, salt and olive oil, with often just a touch of water, not even wine, on my poultry.

It's a strange and challenging act to come up with interesting and alternative chicken recipes! And, how can I not include a use of goat's cheese that the goat cheese lady uses all the time?

Here at the winery, I've also been making my bread, but, it's not the same bread as I make at my house. The starter I have in Avignon is refreshed weekly, and kept in a relatively new and well chilled fridge between uses. My starter here at the winery doesn't get refreshed half often enough (i.e. only a couple of days before I have need of it, which might be then only once in a month or even more rarely), and is kept by the vegetables in the bottom of an old fridge. It's perfectly active and bubbles away. My bread rises well, and looks good, but it is far less tender and sweet than my bread in Avignon. Just as the whey starter for the goat cheese at Isabelle and Paul Pierre's has shifted, so has my starter here. These lively yeast are quite persnickety. Temperature, humidity, the air we breathe. For a non-scientist like myself, it can be frustrating, or humbling as the case may be.

This is one of the reasons JP uses prepared and carefully selected yeasts to start the fermentation in his wines. Many who make organic/bio-dynamic/and natural wines prefer using the indigenous yeast of their grapes, claiming that these are more authentic and give a taste of the terroir. However, JP has had the experience of the indigenous yeast going off. One year (quite some time ago) I found his basic AOC Costières de Nîmes completely undrinkable. The farmy barnyard flavor was just too strong. From his oenologists he learned that in many cases, if you let the indigenous yeasts be your fermenting agents, not only do you loose control, but the stronger will kill off the weaker. The end results can be good, or not. To permit his grapes-- healthy, well-tended throughout the season, hand-picked--to show their true flavors, better to control the start of the fermentation by controlling the yeast that does the work. So now, he starts as clean as possible, disinfecting the tanks before putting in the new grapes, and then adds the yeast, and does his best to control the temperatures over the following weeks.

The art of Fermentation in its many forms. It's like having a dance partner with a mind of his own, or taking photos with natural light when many clouds are passing overhead. You just have to adapt.

Baking Bread

Unless otherwise noted, all materials on this site are (c) 2009 by Madeleine Vedel.



My weekly bread making has become a firm ritual.  I bring it as a gift to the homes of friends when I'm invited for a meal. One loaf goes with me every weekend to my vintner's home. And, whatever else they eat throughout the week, I know that with my multi-grain long-rising bread, my boys are well-nourished.  It was a hit at the bed and breakfast, and during the cooking classes -- much more fun than putting baguettes on the table. Even my mother -- who's made her own bread since I was little -- awaits anxiously my arrival in Michigan in the summer, hoping I'll take over the bread baking there too.  

It's a combination of experimenting and reading matter that have brought me to my current recipe.  I devoured On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, learning about glutens. Then I spent a year or so reading Cookwise by Shirley Corriher every night, learning more about citric acid, spices, liquid content and temperature. Then I read the chapters on making your own starter in Peter Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I went through the entire book of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions soon after receiving it from my cooking colleague one summer.  She inspired me to pursue long and natural fermentation. My local bakers kept repeating the mantra of temperature -- the ideal rising temperature is between 26-27C (78F), which you obtain after vigorous kneading.  And then, along came Mark Bittman's column in the New York Times on no-knead bread. And I was converted.

However, I had a past history in bread baking that could not be ignored, and, I've rarely followed a recipe to the letter (my brother will attest to this at times frustrating quality).

Thus, my recipe has evolved into the following:

my own starter which I began a few years' back at this point.  It is quite simple to do.  Take one cup of organic whole wheat flour and one cup of water.  Blend, leave in a bowl with a cloth on top. The next day, add another cup of flour and more water.  Blend and leave in the bowl with a cloth on top.  Repeat all week, increasing the quantities of the flour and water to double the mixture in your bowl.  If the quantity becomes cumbersome, you can pour some of it into your compost or garbage, or down the sink as the case may be. when the mixture starts to bubble you have your own home-made sourdough starter made with the ambient yeasts floating about your home.

Depending on the yeasts in your home, the starter will be more or less acidic, more or less sweet.  I've been able to make a surprisingly mild yet active one here in Provence.  But when I've made one in Traverse City Michigan, it has come out rather acidic -- akin to the San Francisco sourdough.  

Voila, once I've my starter, I can continue the process.  I measure haphazardly, but, this style of bread baking is thankfully very forgiving.  I have a large mixing bowl -- I'm always making at least 3 loaves at a time, remember, I've a household of 5 growing kids to feed, and my bread is one of the staples, along with pasta and raw milk from a farm by their school.  My mixing bowl is 5 quarts (or liters, as I purchased it here in France). I begin by putting all my starter (I've generally 2 cups of it in the fridge in a glass jar just waiting for me) into the bowl, I add 3 or more cups of organic wheat flour, sufficient water to blend it with a wooden spoon -- not soupy, but not too stiff either.  I put 2 cups back into my glass jar and back into the fridge.  Now, what's in my bowl is the beginning of this week's bread.  I pour in my 9 grain flour (in Provence we've a wonderful organic flour supplier called Moulin Pichard which makes a very flavorful blend), at least 10 cups or till it fills 2/3 of my bowl.  I then sprinkle on a handful of sel de Guérande (the gray sea salt from Brittany), a 1/2 cup of good local honey, preferably a wild flower from the Garrigues, or Provence hills. I then pour in sufficient filtered water to be able to stir this mixture together -- not soupy, but not so hard that my wooden spoon snaps.  Far thicker than pancake batter, but still stirrable.  This is not a recipe where my Kitchen Aid gets a work-out.

I then put a cloth over the bowl and forget about it till the next day.  Here is where temperature comes in.  I don't put in warm water -- not necessary at all.  However, this dough reacts very differently as the seasons change.  Now in the winter, in my minimally heated home, it bubbles and rises in about 24 hours. However in the summer, the heat pushes it to bubble much faster, and ideally, if I can, I put it into a cooler place so the fermenting stays slow.

The next day, I put flour on my kneading surface -- a couple cups at least. This might be more of my 9 grain, or some whole wheat or spelt or some such.  I arm one hand with a pastry scraper, and I then pour my dough (which has nicely doubled) out onto the surface, catching it as it tries to slide away. I work it gently, bringing the new flour into it.  I use one hand free, and the other keeps the pastry scraper, helping me lift it off the surface each time this super moist dough sticks.  I don't want to add too much flour, just enough to give the dough a bit more body.

Once it all comes together -- relatively light for its quantity. I prepare my baking dishes. I line them with parchment paper to make life simple, and put a nicely worked lump of dough, approximately a third the size of the dish, in each.  I sprinkle with flour and wait.  This winter, the second rising time has been at least 3 hours, if not more.  I want to let the dough rise and rise, till it is completely filling its baking dish.  FYI, I've rarely had problems with over-rising this dough, perhaps simply because it goes slowly, so whereas for traditional bread, a 30 minute delay can be a problem, for this one, it is not.  Then I heat my oven to 450F/225C.  When the oven is hot, I put my bread in (I use a convection oven), and not owning a spritzer, I take a small cup of water and I throw it on the bottom of the oven (no doubt not a great idea, but so far, I've not broken the oven, so I'll keep it up). The steam from the cup of water helps give a lovely top color to the bread, and I believe improves the oven rise.

I turn the oven down a bit, to 400/200 after about 15 minutes, and I bake for at least 30 minutes, if not a bit more.  I keep an eye on the color of the bread, wanting to bake till it is nicely browned.

If the kids are walking through the door at this moment, a loaf disappears before you can say boo.