The French Baguette Dilemma

There is something incredibly satisfying about having a loaf of bread turn out well. Along the way you have a sense that it’s going well to turn out well based on how it rises and looks and feels, but you don’t really know until you pull it out of the oven and taste it. Our first bread book has been The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, and for the most part we’ve been really impressed by it. In many ways she is a purist when it comes to bread; the bread should be as close to the original as you can make in your home kitchen. This has produced some really fun breads for us that are impressive to look at and taste fantastic (see pictures - first one is Challah bread, second one is Walnut Fogasse). On the other hand there are recipes for certain breads that don’t turn out as well. The case in point is a French baguette. In case anyone was interested in how long it takes to make this, the answer would be about 24 hours from start to finish. Most of that is just waiting around time, but still, that’s a really long time. Our first two attempts turned out looking and tasting very much like authentic French bread with the obvious exception that they only raised a little bit and were only about 1 ½ -2 inches thick. You can imagine our frustration at spending all that time for a flat loaf. Our next attempt was using Baking Illustrated’s version of it and boy-howdy did it raise so much better and tasted pretty good, but more like an Italian loaf than a French baguette. So the real question of the day is would I rather keep trying a French baguette that looks and tastes more authentic to get it to raise, or a softer fluffier loaf that doesn’t seem very authentic. Life is full of tough choices. Ultimately I think that I’d prefer to keep on trying the authentic loaf, otherwise it just seems like I should just make white bread and shape it differently to call it different loaves.

Starting my rotations

I’m starting my rotations this coming Monday. I have to admit that I’m embarking on this new chapter with 90% excitement and 10% fear, or perhaps 90% fear and 10% excitement, it’s hard to tell. For those who don’t know how medical school works here’s a brief overview of how it works. Medical School is 4 years long with years 1 & 2 being almost exclusively class- and bookwork. Years 3 & 4 are clinical work in hospitals, doctors’ offices, etc. At the end of 4th year we need to apply for a residency position for 3-5 years of specialty training (pediatrics, family medicine, surgery, etc.).

I feel that college was very similar to the first 2 years of medical (only a much slower pace) and I pretty much knew to expect long boring lectures. July 1 I will have finished my 2nd year and will start my 3rd year knowing a lot of facts, not really knowing how to interpret many of the patients’ symptoms, and not really knowing when to order tests or interpret them, and yet I’m getting released upon the unsuspecting public. (July is when all new medical students and residents start. If you have a choice of when you get sick, do it in May or June and avoid getting sick in July).

I’m not as worried about the cerebral (though I’m still scared) nature of things as I am about learning to do the procedures. I need to learn to place IV lines in people veins, place catheters, and do rectal exams. My only hope for these patients is that they are sedated or in a coma and won’t feel my blundering first attempts