Saturday Bread

Today happens to be a great day to bake bread, so I have two loaves of semolina bread in the oven (thanks to this recipe) and two loaves of sourdough doing their final rise. Semolina bread is one of my favorite breads and after I FINALLY found a local source for the flour I bake it on a regular basis. I make it into sandwich loaves and it makes primo toast. The crust is tender and the crumb has a beautiful pale yellow color, thanks to the flour. Our local Walmart now carries semolina flour in 20# bags ( Golden Temple brand) and the price is 30-plus bucks. I get the same thing at a small Indian market for around 20 bucks. I stumbled across the market one day when my car was almost on empty and I was in an unfamiliar part of town. I stopped at a quick-stop and once inside I noticed Indian groceries on the shelves. Eureka!! I had been searching online for semolina flour (this is NOT the same thing as the bags of "semolina" that one finds in health-food stores, etc.). As I plunked my bag of flour on the counter the Indian proprietor quizzed me as to my intentions with that much atta flour. No, I am not making chappattis- I am making yeast bread. I don't suppose he gets too many 6' blondes shopping in his market. Now I am a familair face... The same thing happened when I began shopping in a local Oriental market- Hong Son's- chock full of exotic ( to me) ingredients. I like to "window shop," picking up jars, cans, and packages of unfamiliar items and wondering 'what in the heck?' Again, I am usually the only Caucasian lady in the store, towering over both the men and the women. I haven't had the courage to try the durian yet, and I bet I never do...
So the semolina bread is out of the oven and I have cranked up the temperature to 450 and loaded 6 unglazed quarry tiles onto the bottom rack. The sourdough is still not perfected but thanks to starter that I bought from King Arthur Flour I am getting there. I have learned that sourdough bread has a mind of its own- on any given day it either will submit to rising or it won't. You cannot rush it- it has its own timetable. I am used to yeast baking- I know when and how it will be ready to bake, sort of. Time to slash the tops and slide in onto the tiles and see what happens! More later....