January 2004

I had been eyeing an interesting looking recipe in the weekly paper / advertising rag from Coop, one of the two big supermarket chains in Switzerland, for several days. The recipe was for a lentil loaf, with potatoes, leek, dried mushrooms, cheese and cream, held together with eggs. Since I have been on a sort of sort of lentil kick recently, it was something I really wanted to try.

Sometimes making a particular dish takes a long time, involving several steps, but if you follow the directions carefully enough it's fairly easy. On the other hand there are things that only take a few minutes to prepare, but may take years to really get right.

One such item is a classic plain omelette.

The window of a boulanger (bakery) in Beaune, France

I have to admit, that a lot of the baking I do is quite time consuming - such as the desem bread. For me, baking bread is sort of a hobby, not something I just do for the sake of making bread, but it's not practical to bake things that require long kneading and hours of rising time frequently. But not all bread doughs like that. This dough, which can be used for pizza, foccaciaa, calzone, and the like, is very simple to make, especially if you have a food processor.