[Mike Nolan]

We replaced the microwave in our kitchen a few years back , the keypad is wearing out on the new one, my guess is we'll have to replace it again in the next year or two. This one is a Panasonic from Best Buy.

[Mike Nolan]

They're based in New Zealand. Fisher and Paykel is the company that bought the assets of DCS when they ran into financial difficulties in the mid 90's, I don't think that's the only company they've acquired that way.

The F&P built-in wall ovens in my son's house work fairly well, but there are several cooking modes that I haven't used enough to understand. My wife got all confused trying to use them last Christmas, she managed to get the wrong oven turned on. Fortunately, there wasn't anything being stored in it.

The only other direct experience I've had with them was when I needed to order a new oven rack bracket for my big oven a few years ago. It took 6-8 weeks because I think it had to come from New Zealand, but at least they still had parts available for a 16 year old range.

I get the impression that they're aiming at the higher end of the market, but not quite as high end as Viking or Wolf.

The store locator on their website either doesn't work or they don't have any dealers outside of California. Neither of those are positives.

[Mike Nolan]

Visited both Lamar's locations today (the closer one was out of raised glazed), the Salvation Army folks were out collecting at both sites, and doing very well.

[Mike Nolan]

Another factor to consider, rye bread isn't supposed to be the star of the show in a deli sandwich. It needs to support or complement the rest of the ingredients, not overwhelm them.

I'm reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H with Robert Alda, father of Alan Alda. They're eating cheese while driving a truck to a new location. Robert Alda dunks the cheese in some mustard. Alan Alda says all he can taste now is the mustard. Robert Alda says, "But it's really great mustard, isn't it!".

[Mike Nolan]

When I vary a recipe, I notice differences as well, I'm just not a great judge of comparing how TODAY'S bread is compared to one I made and ate several days ago. Over the years I've probably done 8-10 side-by-side comparisons. I have to have an up-front plan for what to do with all that baked product, though.

[Mike Nolan]

The semolina bread recipe I've been tinkering with uses both a soaker and a sponge. If I let the soaker go more than 12 hours, it really needs more water than the recipe calls for. Not sure where the water goes, it may be a combination of evaporation and absorption.

[Mike Nolan]

A few years ago I made a baguette recipe and let it rise in 60-90 minute increments, followed by a punch down and short knead to degas the dough and move the yeast around a bit. After 6 rises, it was still going pretty strong. So I've never really bought into the 'running out of oomph' theory of yeast activity. Flour is about 80% starch, and starch is a polysaccharide (ie, made from sugars) waiting for enzyme activity to turn it into something yeast can digest.

I'm not sure that answers your question, the only way to know for sure which you prefer is probably to schedule doing a batch each way so that they both come out of the oven at around the same time. I've done that a few times when I was testing ideas.

In my experience if you let the entire dough batch rise for 12 hours or longer, it begins to take on some of the characteristics of a sourdough bread. Most of the time, that's probably a good thing.

I've learned the hard way that my family and my wife's office don't provide much feedback with comparison taste tests, though. My hunch is you might not be able to detect enough difference to declare a clear winner.

[Mike Nolan]

The best doughnuts in town these days are Lamar's. Winchell's is pretty good, too, but I think there are only satellite locations here, with the doughnuts themselves made up in Omaha. (Technically, the Lamar's we usually go to is a satellite location too, but they're made at their downtown Lincoln store. Both locations are usually sold out by lunchtime.)

I have no idea where the local Dunkin Donuts stores get their donuts from, perhaps Des Moines. (As I understand it, few, if any, Dunkin Donuts make donuts on site anymore.) Several of the grocery stores make donuts in-store, none of them are spectacularly yummy, though.

I've never understood the fascination with Krispy Kreme, the donuts are really only good when they're fresh, and then they're still too sweet for me. (And I'm a sugar hound.)

There are a couple of new bakeries that have opened up in the past year, but so far I haven't gotten to them early enough in the day to see what their best wares are like.

My wife like the raised glazed donuts, but I've always been more of a fan of 'cake doughnuts', the KAF donut muffins recipe is pretty good but makes way too many of them. I ought to see if it can be scaled it down to a quarter-batch some time.

A couple of years ago there was a vendor at the Sunday farmer's market close to us that had all sorts of interesting flavors, maple and bacon, for example. They haven't been there last season or this, maybe their in-store business is to the point where they don't need to go to the farmers markets.

[Mike Nolan]

His name is Michael.

[Mike Nolan]

8 ounces of nearly any kind of candy is going to be a lot of calories. Halva is basically nuts (sesame seeds) and honey, calories and more calories.

[Mike Nolan]

Some sources claim that after 24-48 hours (at room temperature presumably), the yeast will have used up most of the available sugars and that limits the amount of rise in the final proof and during baking.

I'm not sure if that's scientifically accurate, but I did notice when working with Peter Reinhart's baguette dough for the testing of his 'Artisan' book, where the dough was made and then cold-retarded for multiple days, that the bread was not quite as airy after day 2. It also had more of a sourdough texture and taste to it.

I think dough that doesn't rise quite as much is a good thing for pizza dough, where you want some density to the crust, so that it gets crunchy, I"m not so sure it's a good thing for a loaf of bread.

The usual rule of thumb is that a sponge should use no more than 40-50% of the total weight of flour in the final dough

[Mike Nolan]

28 grams of halva - 133 calories. 4.75 calories/gram

39 grams of Hersheys Chocolate - 214 calories. 5.49 calories/gram

Now, would I rather eat halva or a Hershey bar? Definitely the latter!

BTW, 15 grams of tahini has 89 calories, or 5.93 calories/gram. (But I'm not sure a low-calorie chocolate chip cookie makes any sense, or would taste good.)

[Mike Nolan]

I know how to do the math, but I think posting a recipe that calls for 3.56 ounces of flour in one place, 2.36 ounces of a different flour in another place and 2.11 ounces of a third flour in another place might not be one people would be willing to make.

If I adjust the recipe so everything is in 1/4 or perhaps 1/10 ounce increments, I will have to make it once or twice just to make sure that doesn't upset the flavor or texture balance.

I may just post it in grams.

[Mike Nolan]

Personally, I don't care for the taste of a corn starch glaze on bread, when I glaze rye bread I do it with egg, usually egg white, using whole egg or egg yolk darkens the loaf. (I don't care for the 'Dutch Crunch' glaze on Vienna bread, either.) YMMV.

If your seam isn't closing, you may need (more) slashes to control the expansion of the dough in the desired direction.

The semolina loaf I've been playing with uses a soaker that sits for at least 12 hours and a sponge that sits for about 90 minutes. As you can see from the picture I first posted about a week ago, the internal structure has lots of big holes in it, and the taste has some sourdough-like tang to it, too:

I will need to make this bread again in the next week, I've been tinkering with the flour ratios, which affects the amount of water needed, and I need to get final weights so I can post the recipe. I've been weighing this one in grams, converting it to ounces might involve resizing it a bit or using a lot of fractions.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't see a display panel, so it seems likely that the oven dial just has temperatures notches on it, like mine does. Mine has buttons to select things like broil, bake, convection, I don't see those, so there may be 2 knobs to control the oven, one to set the mode and one to set the temperature.

It looks like they've made a lot of changes in 20 years.

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