If You Eat Hot Bread...

...you'll get a lump in your stomach. My father always preached this while my mother blithely cut the ends off freshly baked loaves and slathered them with butter. But, according to Chef Judy, it's true!!

She's serious and matter-of-fact, with a dazzling smile. She says she drinks milk out of the carton, much to the chagrin of her husband, Chef Robert, who also teaches at the Academy. She's worked all over the Bay Area, including at the much-loved Narsai's, back in the day, and at both locations of The Pasta Shop. She also taught at The Bread Project, an awesome not-for-profit that teaches disadvantaged adults the basic skills they need for entry-level food service jobs. She makes "celebration cakes" as a side business ("Everyone plans to do catering: that's how you make money.") and said that decorating a wedding cake with fresh flowers is the closest she gets to a religious experience.

Today, we made focaccia and got oriented in the baking kitchen. There's some different equipment: scales, both balance beam and digital; a four-level deck oven; proofing boxes; lots of 8-quart mixers; and a whole bin full of rolling pins. The first thing I learned: never use kosher salt in a baking recipe, unless the recipe specifically calls for it. Because of its flakiness, kosher salt is much lighter than table salt, so you'll always end up with an undersalted or "flat" product. Chef said she's spent a lot of time experimenting, in order find the right proportions in which to substitute kosher, but she finally made it a personal and class rule to always use (un-iodized) table salt.

Also: always dust your board with bread flour, regardless of the flour you're using in the recipe. Bread flour is "harder" than all purpose or cake, and does not clump up, so you won't have tiny lumps of flour on the board to interfere with the quality of your product.

And don't let waiters tell you that they work harder.

And "Yeast doesn't wait."

And "Anything that's labeled 'Raspberry Razzle Dazzle' and comes in a five gallon bucket is crap. We use real preserves."

The only things we're allowed to measure in a cup are water, eggs, and milk. Everything else will be measured by weight.

Chef also talked quite a bit about the realities of the kitchen vs. Health Department standards. For example, "every kitchen everywhere" keeps butter and eggs at room temperature, because "you always need soft butter and warm eggs, first thing in the morning." But it's a health department violation.

Four members of our fourteen member group were absent today, and rumor has it that Nadeen won't be rejoining us. We've also got a new classmate, just for baking and pastry: Jeff, who was sidelined by a car accident when he first took the class about four months ago.

Today, we worked in teams "of our own devising," and Tashana and I made our focaccia with minced rosemary and green onions. Everyone got full points for today's efforts. Ours was definitely not the most beauteous, not raising as high as some of the other breads. But hey, we had no control over that today: Chef Judy told us when it was time to move on to the next step. Anyway, it's delicious. I brought home a couple of pieces to have with tonight's minestrone. Another thing about Chef Judy — she said, "You pay a lot of money to make this stuff, and I know you're anxious to show it off." So we have permission to bring food home.