I’ll admit it: my kitchen obsessions aren’t hip. If they were, I’d have a cleaver slung on my hip, bacon smoking in the backyard, a burr grinder and Hario pour-over kettle on the counter for brewing my home-roasted coffee beans, kimchee fermenting stinkily on the porch next to a carboy of triple-hopped homemade ale. Meat, salt, booze, caffeine, and above all, funky slow rot: such is DIY hipness, 2012 style.

But the thing is, I’m a nice Jewish girl unmoved by bacon’s siren call. Beer is not my drink, madly bitter beer even less so. My nerves are easily unhinged by San Francisco’s high-octane third-wave coffee; what I need in the morning is not a tepid single mug brewed at tai-chi speed but a tall French press of good decaf poured three-to-one with hot milk. While I love fermented products in theory (and on my plate when I’m out of the house), uncontrolled bacterial action in my own kitchen unnerves me. I can taste mold at fifty paces; blue cheese and all its green-streaked brethren revolts me.

Instead, I have this thing for grain. For wheat, in particular, and how uncool is that, in this moment of all things gluten-free? I love windmills and grist mills run by water wheels. I’ll find any excuse to detour to a good bread bakery. Oven spring—when a previously sluggish loaf of dough suddenly leaps up to double its size during baking—strikes joy in my heart. I will never buy a bread machine, not so long as I have a bowl, my hands, and an oven.

It really does make a difference, getting fresh, good flour for your bread baking. Standard, brand-name paper-bagged whole wheat from the supermarket: fine, just fine. But fresh from the mill, especially if it’s from recently, locally grown grain: well, that’s going to make you some amazing bread.

I learned this first hand when I worked as an apprentice at the CASFS educational farm at UC Santa Cruz. We sowed a quarter-acre with three strains of heirloom wheat, chewed the milky kernels as they swelled, dried, and turned golden in the sun, scythed the stalks by hand then fed them into a noisy threshing machine. The result? Buckets of whole wheat berries, ground into flour and baked into the most alive bread I’ve ever made.

This fondness for mills started in childhood, with summertime visits to the Old Mill on Nantucket, whose sweeping sails dominated the low-slung island's horizon from any direction. In Minneapolis, I toured the excellent Mill City Museum, on the site of a formerly dilapidated flour mill, then brought home bags of heirloom wheat berries and freshly ground flour and polenta from the Mill City Farmers' Market. In Arkansas, I made dozens of biscuits from cornmeal ground at the War Eagle Grist Mill, a historic water-wheel mill that still produces dozens of flours (the mystique may have been upped by getting to drive there in a purple Lotus with the mill's current owner, now in her 70s). Through the Lee Brothers’ Boiled Peanuts catalog, I’ve special-ordered Guilford Mills’ remarkable grits, which are stone-ground in a North Carolina grist mill dating back to the 18th century.

And here, we are lucky enough to have the Bale Grist Mill, right next to the lovely, hike-worthy Bothe Napa State Park, tucked among the vineyards, oaks, and manzanitas, right off Highway 29 between Calistoga and St. Helena. The mill was fully restored a few years ago, and is open for milling tours most weekends, three dollars well spent.

If you were the kid (or grownup) who pored over David Macauley’s The New Way Things Work, this is the tour for you. Milling with a water wheel makes basic physics come to rattling life, energy and motion transformed through simple engineering into productivity. It’s also a delight for grammar and etymology geeks: little did I know how many common words and phrases--“nose to the grindstone,” “cockeyed,” “fair to middling”--derive from milling. You put your nose to the grindstone to sniff for ozone, the smell you get in the air after a lightning strike; the scent of it can mean that the two millstones have become unbalanced, knocking into each other and striking sparks from the friction. Fair to middling are the two central grades of flour to emerge from the bolter, bookended by fine and coarse; if you’re feeling “fair to middling,” you’re right in the middle, so-so.

But now is the time to get to this mill for a visit. As well-loved as the grist mill is, its future is uncertain, thanks to stringent cutbacks in California's parks budget. As detailed in a recent Napa Register article about local park closures, both Napa Bothe Park and the Bale Grist Mill could be closed to the public as early as February, unless two local park groups, the Napa County Regional Parks and Open Space District and the Napa Valley State Parks Association, get approval (and funding) to take over the parks from the state this spring. It's ironic, of course, that such a historical resource could shut down just as a groundswell of consumer interest in local grains and grain products is rising.

For the moment, the Bale Grist Mill sells polenta, cornmeal, spelt, buckwheat, rye, and whole-wheat flours, all ground in the mill. Although, for liability reasons, the flours are marked "not for human consumption," the millers are scrupulous about cleanliness and sanitation during the milling and storage process. Any grain or flour touched or spilled during the milling process goes into a big bag marked "sweeps." A local farmer picks all the sweeps once a week, a welcome addition to his pigs' daily mash. Using both raw wheat kernels (wheat berries) and the mill's coarse, bran-rich bread flour, I made a dense, almost scone-like whole grain loaf inspired by the recipe for "Holly's Whole Wheat Bread" in Romney Steele's book My Nepenthe.

Wheat Berry Bread with Fruit and Nuts
Adjust the combination of dried fruit, seeds, and nuts depending on what's in your pantry, and what you like best. Dried persimmons, often available at Bay Area farmers' markets at this time of year, add bright color and a pleasant sweet chewiness to the finished bread.

Yield: 2 loaves
Prep Time: 90 minutes, plus 3 hours' rising time
Cook Time: 45 to 60 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 15 to 30 minutes, plus 3 hours' rising time

Ingredients:
1/2 cup whole raw wheat or spelt berries
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup honey
1 package (2 1/2 tsp) active dry yeast, or 1 oz fresh (cake) yeast
5 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, plus more for the work surface
2 tbsp ground flax seed (optional)
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dried apricots or persimmons, soaked in hot water to cover for 10 minutes if very dry or wizened
1/4 cup unsalted sunflower or pumpkin seeds, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling, lightly toasted
1/2 cup hazelnuts, pecans, or walnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

Preparation:
1. Cover wheat berries with 3 cups water in a medium saucepan. Over medium heat, bring to simmer. Reduce heat, cover, and cook gently for 1 hour, until berries have softened and are tender to the bite but not mushy. They will absorb most of the water; drain any excess in a colander. (Step 1 can be done up to 4 days before you make your bread; store cooked and drained wheat berries in the refrigerator until needed.)

2. In a medium saucepan, heat milk until just beginning to bubble around the edges. Add butter, honey, and salt. Stir to dissolve, then let cool until tepid.

3. In a large bowl, sprinkle or crumble yeast over 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Let stand for a few minutes, then whisk vigorously to dissolve any remaining yeast. Beat in the milk mixture and 5 cups of the flour, mixing to form a soft dough. Stir in wheat berries, raisins or other dried fruit, 1/4 cup of sunflower or pumpkin seeds, and nuts.

4. Sprinkle flour over your counter or work table. Scoop the dough onto the work surface and knead for about 6 minutes, adding more flour (up to an additional 1/2 cup) in increments to keep dough from getting too sticky. Various errant mix-ins will try to push their way to freedom by popping out of the dough as you knead. Don’t let them get away with this; push them back into the dough and continue kneading until dough feels elastic and smooth.

5. Wash and butter your large bowl. Put the dough back into it, turning it over to coat with butter. Cover with a clean damp kitchen towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or in a cool place for 3 hours.

6. Deflate the dough by sinking a fist into it. Divide in half and shape into two loaves. Grease two 8"-by-5" loaf pans. Put shaped dough into pans, cover with damp towel, and let rise again for another 45 to 60 minutes, until loaves have doubled in bulk.

7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Brush the top of each loaf with milk and sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Bake loaves for 45 to 50 minutes, until well-browned. Let cool in pans for 15 minutes, then remove from pans and continue cooling on a rack.

You're probably already familiar with Michael Ruhlman. He's written many popular food-related books, and is a regular guest on a host of television cooking shows. Media-wise, he's everywhere.

It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that Ruhlman has also made been actively porting his brand over to the mobile app space. His first iPhone/iPad app, Ratio, is a digital followup to his book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. The Ratio app helps you calculate the amount of ingredients necessary to create a series of fundamental culinary preparations. The rational behind both the book and the app is that when you know a culinary ratio, you don’t need a recipe. Instead, you have thousands of possibilities at your fingertips -- no cookbook required.

Michael's second mobile app, Bread Baking for iPhone/iPad, takes it a step further and focuses on one particular topic: baking bread. The app provides users with a primer on home bread baking, offering clear descriptions of the tools and techniques you need for successful results. The Bread Baking Basics app measures all the ingredients, calculates the amounts, and gives you step-by-step instructions for making great bread based on what you want.

Please welcome Michael Ruhlman as he tells us more about his new app, and shares his overall love of bread baking.

Can you give us an overview of Bread Baking Basics, in your own words?

Bread Baking Basics is an app that describes the fundamentals of baking bread. It automatically calculates ingredient amounts according to how much bread you want to make and gives you techniques for all kinds of breads, from sourdough to rye to multigrain.

What made you decide to develop an app that teaches people how to bake bread? What was your inspiration?

My initial inclination, along with my partner in these products, was to develop a series of cooking apps for the iPad and iPhone, but especially the tablet, which presents images so well.  Bread was first because bread baking, completely reliant on ratios, so readily lent itself to tablets and smart phones and what they are capable of doing that books, television and the internet can't do: create recipes designed specifically for each user.

Do you measure in ounces or grams? The app adjusts to your preference. Do you have a stand mixer or are you mixing by hand? The app changes instructions and images based on your equipment. Do you want to make one pizza dough or four? Bread Baking Basics calculates how much flour, water, yeast and salt you will need depending on what you tell it. It also allows us to include many, many images for each recipe step (I'm very lucky to be married to a photographer who can shoot high quality pix).

One of the coolest things about apps is that they're organic -- they can change.  I'll be adding a no-knead ratio and a gluten-free ratio soon, which will automatically update to anyone who has already purchased the original app.

Next up, we're planning a sausage making basics app, followed by a pickling app.

Can you tell us a little about the process of developing the app? Was it like developing a cookbook?

For me, it was very much like developing a book.  Writing text, taking shots of what the food should really look like in your kitchen, writing and then testing recipes. Will Turnage takes care of all the coding, debugging, beta testing, and uploading to the apple store.

What can a user expect to learn from your Bread Baking Basics app?

Users will learn the primary steps of making satisfying bread, but more, I hope, they will gain the confidence and excitement to engage in this ancient, fundamental, and deeply satisfying craft.

Entitled "Bread Baking Basics," it sounds like the app is geared towards those just starting out baking bread. Will it appeal to intermediate and advanced bakers as well? How so?

If a beginner reads the text and follows the recipes, the app will give them the ability to make good bread at home. For intermediate bakers it will introduce them to different bread doughs, such as multigrains and ryes and wild yeast doughs. The app is not intended for the advanced baker (most of whom could teach me more than I can teach them), but it does provide them a handy bread calculator based on standard bakers percentages.  And it's a great resource for professional cooks who may need to come up with some bread recipes on the fly.

Photo credit: Donna Ruhlman

How is Bread Baking Basics different from the bread baking portion of the Ratio app?

That just gives one ratio for a basic bread dough, white bread; the Bread Baking Basics app adds multiple doughs, multiple shapes, a great deal more written information, with lots of images.

If someone wanted to continue their bread baking education after they've made it through all of the recipes and tutorials in your app, what would you recommend as the next step?

Read and practice.  Professional bread bakers spend their whole lives focused on the various combinations of just four fundamental ingredients.  It's inexhaustible and infinitely complex.

What other bread baking resources, book, etc, would you recommend to readers?

I like thefreshloaf blog, and we give a list of recommended bread books for further reading.

Other related posts you might enjoy on Ruhlman.com:

• Update: Bouchon Bakery Cookbook
• Veal Stock and Guinness Bread
• No-Knead Bread: A Convert’s Story
• What makes a great cooking app?

2010 Interview:
Food Blogger Spotlight: Michael Ruhlman

QUEST Science on the SPOT Feature produced by Jenny Oh

Eduardo Morrell monitors the internal temperature of the bread to gauge its readiness. Photo: Jenny Oh.

Since the Gold Rush days when prospectors baked loaves in their encampments, sourdough bread has been a beloved favorite of the Bay Area. But what is true sourdough bread? It's more than just the tangy flavor. Science on the SPOT visits with Maria Marco of UC Davis and baker Eduardo Morrell to learn more about the secret science of sourdough.

Producer's Notes: Secrets of Sourdough
Learn more about the history of Morrell's Bread and check out a slideshow of Eduardo Morrell's typical 16-hour workday.

Kim Severson, Chad Robertson, Sue Conley

Somebody get Kim Severson a TV gig stat.

Seriously, The New York Times staff writer, currently the Atlanta bureau chief, is friendly and funny -- she reminds me a little of Ellen DeGeneres -- and a top-notch interviewer to boot.

And Severson knows food: She covers the beat for the Times and before that for the San Francisco Chronicle. Last year she authored Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life, where she sings the praises of a group of female food icons, including Alice Waters and Ruth Reichl, who have played an important role in her personal and professional life. In an increasingly overcrowded genre (food memoir) Spoon Fed stands out for both its authenticity and candor.

Severson was in conversation last night as part of the City Arts & Lectures series with cheese maker Sue Conley, the co-founder of the celebrated Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, and master baker Chad Robertson, co-owner with wife and pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt of Tartine Bakery and Bar Tartine in the Mission, where long lines can be found for the store's over-the-top baked goods, desserts, and Robertson's coveted rustic bread.

The baker's new book, Tartine Bread (Chronicle Books, $40), is a step-by-step guide to making his signature loaves -- complete with 29-page instructions for his Basic Country Bread. Queuing to buy may not seem as daunting as tackling his trademark crust. (Read a recent review of Tartine Bread on BAB by Megan Gordon.)

The topic for the evening? "On Artisan Food," which seemed fitting for two food purveyors known for their singular obsessions, turning out small batches of award-winning, high-quality products using premium ingredients. What could be a more fundamental food than bread and cheese? And yet these two craftspeople have elevated their chosen culinary pursuit to cult-like status.

Am I alone in thinking the Herbst Theatre -- with its bright lights, high-backed, stiff-looking chairs, Persian rug, and formal backdrop -- is not the warmest or coziest of places to curl up for a chat in front of an audience numbering in the hundreds?

Here's where Severson showed her craft. From the get-go she loosened up the crowd and her interview subjects with one well-placed quip after another. There was the nod to the news with a Charlie Sheen reference and the jokey asides; when Conley confessed that her adventures with cheese began when she fell for a Marin County park ranger Severson sighed: "Ah, that's where it always start." She asked the probing questions in a soft-peddled way, with queries like: "Is there a point in every small producers life where you just want to see your products on the shelves at Costco?" which played for good-natured laughs.

Another thing I admired: Severson didn't use the stage as an opportunity to flack her own book, which is just plain tacky. Trust me, though, I've been to enough of these kinds of evenings to witness such bad behavior. At a recent book event the interviewer in question used his allotted time with the audience to talk up his own tome as often as possible, and while he promised to ask the author sitting next to him about his own work it never happened. Cringe worthy.

Severson teased out interesting tidbits that engaged both her fellow stage members and the audience. Who knew Robertson's wife is gluten-intolerant and can't eat wheat? Or that Cowgirl Creamery stopped selling its popular quark (a spreadable, creamy cheese) because it didn't pass muster with a then 80-something taste tester searching for the soft cheese of his German youth.

There was plenty of talk about cheese rinds, bread starts, and what it means to be a food artisan too. Also discussed: Conley's self-described epic fails and Robertson's new-found fascination with ancient whole grains. And there was Severson's running gag about resenting waiting in line for "100 hours" for Robertson's bread ("I'm not bitter."). The entire program is scheduled for broadcast on KQED on Sunday, May 1 at 1 p.m. Take note: Robertson offers frustrated food lovers a tip about how to avoid the crowds at Tartine too.

To see Severson's schtick in person, stop by Omnivore Books tonight at 6 p.m., where she'll be reading from and signing copies of Spoon Fed.

Photo Credits: Chad Robertson (Tartine Bakery), Sue Conley (Cowgirl Creamery), Kim Severson (kimseverson.com)

Why bake bread when you live in Bay Area? Acme, Della Fattoria, Grace, Brickmaiden, Thorough Bread, and Tartine (to name just a few favorites) all ply their trade around here, kneading and rising and selling their wares at storefront bakeries and supermarkets, gourmet stores and farmers' markets. Just as you can usually pick up a decent bottle of wine or a six-pack of microbrew at even a dumpy corner bodega here, so you don't have to go far to score a pretty excellent loaf of bread.

So, yes, I'm grateful to all the dedicated professional bakers out there. But sometimes I don't want the hard-crusted, rip-and-tug Euro-styled country loaf that has become our city's default daily bread. Sometimes, my jam and I want a slice that's a little more dense and mellow, something without gaping jelly-dripping holes, something whose crumb is worth chewing. A bread that holds up to slicing and toasting. A butter-and-honey bread, a bread for peanut butter and banana sandwiches, in short, a bread that you can only have if you make it yourself.

Of course, there are perfectly nice, widely available loaf breads out there. Vital Vittles makes a bunch, as does Alvarado Street Bakery. But somehow, pre-sliced bread twist-tied in a plastic bag always feels a little soulless to me, no matter how many wheat berries and sunflower seeds are found within.

There is nothing like the smell of homemade bread to perfume your house on a winter's day, and nothing like the taste of it, either. And any invitation—to dinner, to teatime, to dinner that you hope will be followed by breakfast—is sweetened by the nonchalant appearance of bread baked by your very own hands.

But before you laugh hollowly, contemplating your overscheduled life with no room for rising in it, I say, the cool, slow, low-yeast rise is your friend, my busy pal. Most bread recipes call for way too much yeast and heat. Why? Because a dough loaded up with yeast, like a Long Island Iced Tea or a turbo-charged vibrator, gets the job done faster. But the point here is the product, not how fast you can get there. A bread that rises slowly is a bread that tastes of grain, not yeast.

In fact, slowing down the time it takes for your bread to go from dough to loaf frees you up. A long, cool rise is actually much easier to manage, because you can leave the house for hours at a time and get all manner of things done while your dough is slowly inching up in the bowl. Plus, you have a lot more wiggle room. Since the rise goes slowly, it takes a lot longer to get to the threat-of-collapse stage.

Given that the average drafty Victorian is fairly cool, even with the hallway heater on, a bowl of dough left on the kitchen counter will probably take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours to double in size. And if things (playdates, the line at the DMV, prime makeout opportunities) get away from you, you can always punch it down and let it go for a second rise before shaping it into loaves.

In general, it's pretty hard to screw this bread up. Once you make it a few times, you won't even need to measure; as long as the proportions are roughly the same, precision isn't necessary.

The one bread-killer is overheating the yeast; yeast dies outright at 140 degrees F, and doesn't much like temps over 120 degrees. So, make sure to dissolve your yeast in tepid water (drip some on your wrist; it should feel just about skin temperature, neither hot nor cold) and make sure that the cereal goop has cooled to barely lukewarm before you stir in the flour and yeast. (Stir the mix thoroughly to make sure there are no pockets of heat remaining before you add the yeast.)

Again, because I like a slow rise, I use ordinary active dry yeast, not rapid-rise or instant yeast. And speaking of yeast, it seems a lot of people worry about the viability of their yeast. Unless you bought it 10 years ago or have kept it stashed right over the stove, it's fine. Most jars or foil-sealed packets of yeast are good for a year or more at room temperature, even more if stored in the freezer or fridge. In decades of bread baking, the only bad yeast experience I've ever had has been with Rize Organic Yeast. In the 2 or 3 times I've tried this brand, it has never risen for me, leaving me with leaden lumps of useless dough. With the readily available Red Star and Fleischmann's brands, no problems.

Finally, this bread is the best use I know for that multi-grain, steel-cut hot cereal mix you find in the bulk bins at Rainbow Grocery or Berkeley Bowl. The texture depends on the nubbly chunkiness of the mix, so don't substitute powdery instant or quick-cooking cereal.

Easy Multi-Grain Bread

You could also make a vegan version by substituting vegetable oil or Earth Balance (the kind that comes in sticks, not in a tub) for the butter, and agave, maple, or brown-rice syrup for the honey. Molasses works too, although it will add a more prominent flavor to the finished loaf.

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients
1 cup multi-grain hot cereal blend (not instant)
1/2 cup dry polenta
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 packet active dry yeast (2 tsp)
1 cup rye flour
3 to 3 1/2 cups white flour (or a mix of whole wheat and white flour)

Preparation
1. In a large bowl, combine cereal, polenta, butter, salt, and honey. Pour in boiling water and stir to combine. Set aside to cool, which will probably take about 30 minutes.

2. When mixture has cooled to lukewarm, it's time to get your yeast ready. Sprinkle yeast over 3 tablespoons of tepid water in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes, then stir to dissolve.

3. Beat rye flour into cereal mixture. Stir in yeast, then add white and/or whole wheat flour, 1 cup at a time. Dough should be soft and sticky, but not so goopy that your hands turn into big gooey dough-paws when you try to knead it. Every batch will be different, depending on the humidity of the air and the moisture in your flour, but start with 3 cups, and save the remaining half-cup to sprinkle in as necessary while you knead.

4. If you can, let dough rest for 10 minutes before kneading. This helps the flour begin absorbing the liquid in the dough, so you won't have to add so much extra flour to make it manageable.

5. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Push the dough away from you with the heels of your hands. Fold it over towards you. Turn it a quarter turn to the right, and repeat. Push, fold, turn, for about 10 minutes, adding small sprinkles of flour as needed to keep it from getting unbearably sticky. When well-kneaded, it should feel like a relaxed inner thigh, or a lady's un-Pilatized stomach. (If naked ladies aren't your frame of reference, a man's torso will do just fine, but imagine more bear than buff.)

6. Drop the dough back in the bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let rise, preferably at around 70-75 degrees, for 3 to 5 hours, until doubled in bulk.

7. Press down gently to get all the air out. Divide in half and shape into two round loaves. Set on a lightly greased or parchment-covered baking sheet and let rise until doubled in size, anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, possibly more.

8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until crust is well-browned. To avoid gumminess, let cool on a rack for at least an hour before you tear into it.

Ardent fans of homemade corn tortillas, papusas and pleasantly plump gorditas know that arepas belong in Latin America's reigning family of corn-based flatbreads. A staple in Venezuela and Colombia, arepas fill the workaday cook's most important need: foods that are easy to make and easy to use and never boring.

Early recipes required only cornmeal and water. Most cooks now season with a bit of salt, while some lean toward richer versions with milk, lard or butter in the dough. In Venezuela, arepas tend to be split and filled like sandwiches, while the thinner, leaner versions typical of Colombia are often topped with minimalist fillings for breakfast.

Both make perfect handfuls of snackalicious treats when filled with scrambled eggs, cheese, black beans, shredded or sliced meats, avocado, chorizo, spicy cole slaw or whatever leftovers you have hanging out in your fridge. You can dip them into soup or stews. You can even, if you have a pot of tea or coffee at the ready, split them in two, toast them with butter and then spread liberally with homemade jam for a treat every bit as satisfying, if not as proper, as well-made scones or biscuits.

If you're Venezuelan, you might have a Tosty Arepa on your kitchen counter. Or you might just walk down the street and grab one from any number of street vendors or eateries selling freshly made arepas around the clock. Fortunately for us up north, they're incredibly simple to make.

Unlike many other flatbreads from Mexico, generally made from nixtamalized maize (an ancient, lime-based technology used to loosen the hard hull of corn kernels), arepas depend on untreated corn that has been precooked then ground finely. Head to your nearest Mexican or South American market and browse right next to the masa harina for the precooked corn meal ground especially for arepas. The most popular brand of masarepa or arepaharina, Harina P.A.N., comes in a bright, yellow package that's graced with a smiling woman in a polka-dotted head scarf. Don't even think about making this with regular cornmeal. Some recipes use masa harina, but purists will insist that you track down the real deal. Once you have the precooked cornmeal, all you need is a sprinkle of salt, some water and an oiled skillet or griddle. If you're feeling fancy, you can stir butter or olive oil into the dough.

Arepa dough is super kid-friendly. The youngest ones will love its very moldable texture, so parents may want to make extra. For adults who like to play in the kitchen, consider arepas the first step to learning how to hand-pat thinner, more difficult corn tortillas. Keep a small bowl of water nearby; a small amount wiped on your palms will keep the dough from sticking as you roll and pat. Less dextrous cooks, young and old, can simply shape rounds against a flat surface rather than between two palms.

Some like to form hefty rounds and then later remove the interior to make space for savory fillings. I usually make mine thin and crispy, but fluffier versions are great for soaking up sauces. Many recipes for thick arepas, resembling English muffins or hamburger buns, now call for browning on both sides in a pan and then finishing in the oven, right on the rack, for 20 to 25 minutes until they're puffed and cooked through. Traditionally, though, they were cooked completely on a comal or griddle.

One of my favorites ways to enjoy an arepa -- hot from my biggest, heaviest cast-iron pan -- is to fill it with a single, thin layer of nabulsi cheese, an early experiment with leftovers that became a surprisingly good pairing. Nabulsi, a brined, boiled cheese from the Mediterranean, has a dense, smooth texture and a lovely flavor derived from caraway or nigella seeds and ground cherry pits. Slipped into the still steaming arepa and left for a minute to melt gently, the cheese complements perfectly the tender corn of the bread. Roast chicken and guacamole make another excellent filling for an arepa.

If the night-time hunger pangs hit while you happen to be in New York, generally in the vicinity of Queens and specifically near the intersection of Roosevelt and 78th, then -- lucky you! -- you can stop by the Arepa Lady's cart to taste the essence of soul-satisfying street food: sweet arepas filled with soft, fresh cheese.

If, back here in San Francisco, you're strolling through the Mission District, swing by the 24th Street BART station and try one at Mr. Pollo. They offer sweet and savory versions, and all I can say is: save room for both.

Mr. Pollo
2823 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 374-5546
Map

Arepas

Makes: 6 rounds

The technique of sprinkling the cornmeal into the water, rather than pouring water over a pile of cornmeal, helps prevent lumps.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups tepid water
1 teaspoon salt
About 2 cups masarepa (precooked white cornmeal)
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, butter or rendered lard

Preparation:
1. Stir together the water and salt in a large bowl. Slowly sprinkle in the cornmeal and stir to incorporate. The dough will look very wet, but after a few seconds the cornmeal should soak up the water completely.

2. Knead the dough in the bowl for 5 minutes. If the dough sticks to your hands, sprinkle in a little more cornmeal. If the dough cracks at the edges and does not form a ball easily, then add water, drizzling in a tablespoon at a time and kneading well to incorporate after each addition.

3. Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. Moisten hands, then roll each into a smooth ball. Pat with your palms, pressing gently and evenly, to make rounds about 1/2-inch thick.

4. Heat a heavy skillet or smooth griddle over medium. Add a small amount of oil and cook the arepa until golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes on each side. The interior will remain very moist. Transfer to a rack or paper towels and let cool slightly. Split with a sharp knife into two thin halves and fill as desired.

Eduardo Morrell

It's muddy, it's rainy, it's cold...so what better way to come together on a wet winter weekend than in celebration of a big wood-burning oven? The Headlands Center for the Arts is hosting Brick Oven Lovin' Again, a night of dinner and music on Saturday, February 21st, at 6pm. All donations go towards recouping the costs of renovating the center's massive wood-burning brick oven.

The benefit is the brainchild of Eduardo Morrell of Morrell Breads, who bakes all his naturally leavened hearth breads in the center's oven. For the last 8 years, Morrell has been baking breads for both the center and the Berkeley Farmers' Market, using the oven created by master oven-builder Alan Scott. While a separate memorial is planned for March, the benefit will also honor the life's work of Scott, who passed away in his native Australia on Jan. 26, 2009, at the age of 72. It will be a locavore's delight, with a focus on the produce & meats donated by Morrell’s fellow Berkeley market vendors, including Happy Boy Farms, Pomo Tierra Orchards, Happy Girl, Highland Hills Meats, Full Belly Farm, Riverdog Farm, and more.

Photo by Christina Z. Libertini

Served family-style in the arts center's dining room will be caramelized-onion and margherita pizzas, grass-fed beef stew, wheat-berry pilaf (made from Full Belly wheat), squash and citrus salad, sauteed kale and miso, green salad with goat cheese and apples, breads, pickles, spreads, and more, followed by apple crisp and chocolate ganache tart. In the kitchen will be alums from both Millennium Restaurant and the Headlands kitchen, including Morrell, Vince Peterson, Stephanie Hibbert and Ari Derfel. Playing jazz after dinner will be John Ingle (sax), Lisa Mezzacappa (bass), and Kjell Nordeson (drums).

Photo by Christina Z. Libertini

But what's so special about this oven? Built 17 years ago, the oven was part of Scott's first generation of quality ovens. It worked, but it wasn't perfect, something Scott freely admitted as he became the Bay Area's foremost authority on hand-built, wood-burning brick ovens. So, last year, under Morrell's supervision, the oven got a full revamp, preserving the decorative elements created by Scott along with the concrete foundation but installing all new insulation and firebrick. Scott's own apprentice, Quill Chase did the work. Now, says Morrell, it's much more efficient, using less wood, heating evenly, and holding temperature throughout hours of baking. It's an oven that honors Scott's work as it continues to feed another generation of artists and Bay Area bread lovers.

Headlands Center for the Arts, 944 Fort Barry, Sausalito, CA 94965. Saturday, February 21st. Dinner at 6:30pm, music at 8:30pm. A donation of $50/per person is requested for dinner and concert (children 7-13 $10 each; under 7 free); $15 donation for concert only. [ Map ]

Attendees are asked to RSVP online for the dinner. For directions and additional information, go to Headlands Center for the Arts.

Life's little intersections can reveal deep connections, and sharing a meal is one of the most common ways that happens. A friend visiting from the east coast, John "Taiko Man" Ko introduced me to his drumming friend who invited us to dinner and then, the next thing, I'm learning all about my local community's history and eating amazing food.

Hideaki Nishikura, a baker at Wild Flour Bread, took our intrepid New Yorker and me, along with a doting grandmother and a giggling son, on a personal tour of his hometown, Sebastopol. I feel privileged to have this insider's peek into a little known community and hope to inspire a few of you to take the trek north to visit the town during this time when autumn's colors and flavors are at their peak.

Sebastopol was named after a battle site in Ukraine, during a time when our young nation sympathized a bit more with the Russians than the English. From the mid-19th to mid-20th century, the surrounding farms and orchards depended on the town for all their needs, and to this day, the area is known as the leading producer of the world's supply of Gravenstein apples. Tourism and art play increasingly important roles as small towns learn to survive in the big-box era, but fortunately, a strong sense of place and community make Sebastopol a wonderful place to live for young families.

First, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch in one of the generously curved yet warmly enfolding wooden booths in Peter Lowell's back patio. My favorites were the sweet-salty pizza pera with Point Reyes blue cheese and Asian pears from Gabriel Farms and the toothsome orecchiette with mushrooms and bright kernels of corn.

Established by a native son, Lowell Peter Sheldon, it's a casual, comfortable gathering spot in a busy stretch of town. In one corner, an older gentleman reads a thick tome, while out back, kids run up and down, up and down, up and down the see-though stairs and dip their hands into the gentle fountains. Parents relax over pizza, pasta and wine. Friends and neighbors chat by the bar. Dedicated to sustainable food and wine, highly aware of the need to foster a thriving community as well as a successful business, Peter Lowell's is part of a new wave of restaurants serving modern dishes in a fully sustainable (note LEED-certified building and locally sourced menu) yet friendly and accessible way.

During the afternoon, we stopped by Wild Flour Bread. The well-tended garden in back is open to the public. While Hideaki's son munched on a candied ginger and almond biscotti and introduced our amazed New Yorker to the origins of food -- "Is that how berries grow?! Is that how tall sunflowers are?!" -- I learned about wood-burning ovens and sourdough starters.

The bakery is open four days a week. Their master baker lives in a one-room log cabin in the woods. Their breads rise only with the power of 100% organic sourdough starter. Their address, on Bohemian Highway, might give away some of their cultural and political sensibilities.

And the simple truth? Their breads are phenomenal.

Anyone visiting the area, say on your way to sip wines in the Russian River Valley, must absolutely stop at this bakery to smell, touch and eat.

If you missed the recent weekends of open studios, there's another upcoming event to inspire you to visit Sebastopol. Wild Flour Bread will be laying down a dance floor and, with the help of Freestone Samba, celebrating the bakery's 10th birthday with lots of music, dance, food and fun. Mark your calendars for the big bash on Saturday, November 22.

It's a tough time for restaurants and other small food businesses -- as it is now for all of us -- so I encourage you to support, whenever you can, the places that help make our neighborhoods, our towns, and our communities so richly meaningful.

Peter Lowell's
7385 Healdsburg Ave.
Sebastopol, CA 94572
(707) 829-1077

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Wild Flour Bread
140 Bohemian Highway
Freestone, CA 95472
(707) 874-2938

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This New Year's Eve, as with many New Year's Eves past, I spent several days with my best friend's family in Sea Ranch, about 150 miles north of San Francisco. A few days ago, I hopped in my Zip Car and headed out on the windy road that would take me to this pristine area of California with its fantastic views and relaxing atmosphere.

One of the highlights of the drive is a stop in Freestone -- a teeny tiny town west of Sebastopol -- to join the throngs of customers at Wild Flour Bakery. Wild Flour is popular among food lovers throughout the area for its delicious organic savory and sweet breads.

Wild Flour is open Friday through Monday each week, and they bake 900 loaves of bread a day that are sold only from their bakery.

I dream about Wild Flour's fougasse -- a bread that changes ingredients slightly throughout the year but that typically contains 1-3 cheeses, potatoes, herbs and sometimes sweet peppers and onions. It's a delicious, dense bread that I can make a meal from.

Also popular are Wild Flour's sweet Bohemian bread and their sticky buns which are large enough to fill a plate and share with several friends.

Wild Flour is popular among bloggers -- here are just a few reports:

Becks & Posh loved their bread with a bowl of steaming soup.
The Fresh Loaf found their fougasse to be worthy.
Fork & Bottle calls their biscotti "awesome."
Sweet Napa declares "it's like eating perfection."

You can read even more about Wild Flour Bakery:
San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area Backroads

Wild Flour Bakery
140 Bohemian Hwy
Freestone
(707) 874-2938

Open 8:30 - 6:00, Friday through Monday

One of my favorite parts of cooking school was our time in the bread kitchen. There is something so tactile, immediate and rewarding about making bread. All your senses are activated alerting you that you are about to consume something so simple yet so profound. Alice Waters visited the French Culinary Institute and I was fortunate enough to abscond with a few minutes of her time. My one question to her was simply: "What am I going to do with my life?" She said, "What do you want to do?" "I want to go to France!" "Well then go to France!" So I did.... but first I asked her to recommend restaurants where I should work. I shared with her my love of bread baking in cooking school and she recommended contacting Poilane Bakery here on the Left Bank. So I did.... When Alice Waters give you culinary advice, take it, whether it's moving to another country or visiting a bakery!

I immediately wrote to Poilane, asking for an internship and received the most gracious rejection letter ever, which I will frame should I ever have an office again, saying they were unable to accommodate interns but invited me for a tour. A few months later I spent a glorious, flour-showered morning in their 17th century bread kitchen, formerly a convent, on rue Cherche-Midi in the heart of the Left Bank mesmerized by the baker and his methodical yet maternal handling of the dough. I can picture him now gently pressing his hand on top of each loaf, just before he slid the perfectly shaped dough cut with his signature "P" into the wood-burning oven. It is one of four original wood-burning ovens in all of Paris. I emerged 2 hours later coated in a thin layer of flour from head to toe.

A room of the small shop is covered floor to ceiling with paintings of bread. Mr. Poilane was a friend to the artists, many of whom lived in the neighborhood. When they couldn't afford bread, they would exchange a painting for a loaf or two of bread. The Poilane art collection now includes stunning works by Chagall, Picasso, Monet, Dali, etc. His friend Dali once asked him to bake a bedroom set for him, bed, dresser, lamp, et al. Rather than laughing it on, Poilane accepted this challenge and in honor of his accomplishment, they hand a bread chandelier in their store at all time. When it finally crumbles beyond repair, they bake another one!

While I was there, a book delivery arrived that caused great excitement amongst the staff. Mr. Poilane's daughter, Apollonia who is in her early 20s and is now running the enterprise (while juggling Harvard Business School) since the tragic death of her parents a few years ago, had just published a book, Supplique au Pape, of Mr. Poilane's writings on his quest to change the name of one of the seven deadly sins. It is a fascinating story that adds yet another layer of wonder to this man. As it goes, one of the seven deadly sins, gluttony, in French was translated as "gourmandise" and this very much upset Mr. Poilane. He discussed this with philosophers, doctors, scientists, chefs, priests, statesmen, writers, professors, business executives, and actresses and he wrote a very long letter to the Pope (Pape) asking for and explaining why the word should be changed from "gourmandise" to the true French word for gluttony which I believe translates to "glutton" pronounced glue-TON. So this book is his letter to the Pope, along with all his writings, notes and discussions on this subject. I wish I had better command of the language so that I could read it and truly appreciate his endeavor and his prose. Until then, i'll just keep eating his spectacular bread.

No fancy hi-tech equipment here, just good old-fashioned bread baking!

Feeding the beast - the oven in the basement of a former convent.

Rising...

And ready to eat!

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Poilane
8, rue Cherche-Midi
Paris 75005
www.poilane.fr/