Pullman and Pie

Bro. Mo. and I have vivid, fond memories of our time in Flagstaff. One of mine which still seems so surreal is when I did a "lab" for one of my classes in the restaurant kitchen attached to the campus hotel. I worked alongside the executive chef who had been there for many years. A slender, gray-haired man who periodically had to sneak out for his cigarette breaks. But the things I learned are tremendous, especially when it came to bread-making. When I would come in 2-3 days a week, my job was to make between 6 and 8 batches of dough for rolls. He would come by, feel the dough and tell me whether it was right ot not. Just one little touch and he could tell.
One thing I have been wanting to buy for myself ever since that time are Pullman Loaf pans. Of course then I would have to toy around with my bread recipes to get the right proportion. A Pullman pan is about twice as long a a bit narrower than your traditional loaf pan. But really, it would be mostly for fun. As with most things nowadays, it is not necessarily cheaper to "do it yourself." Dress-making? Unless you find a gonga deal on fabric, you are spending way more to make a dress than you would just buying one. And so it is with bread-making. The ingredients to make a pullman loaf would cost more than going out and buying the .99 loaf on sale at any grocery store. But you can't put a price on the smell of it in your home, so I guess it balances out. I had a visiting teaching partner in Flag who made bread 3 times weekly every week. She never bought store bread. Of course, she is the inspiration to my getting my own flour mill that year for Christmas.

And since I am on my favorite subject, I saw the neatest tip on Food Network last night. It was the annual Pie Challenge. I consider my apple pie to be my best overall. And since my Dad and I have a pie-baking marathon the night before Thanksgiving each year, I would know :) Everything from scratch, including our pureed pumpkin--never canned; yuck!--crusts and pudding for the banana creams. It makes for a very long night in the kitchen! So this tip might help, it might not. Crush unsalted saltines and press them into the bottom crust before putting the apples in the pie. That was the crackers absorb the extra moisture. Now I feel the need to go out and buy some granny smiths--so all my extended family are not the guinea pigs if it doesn't work. I am sure everyone has this problem--runny filling in their apple pie? Well, after a night to 24 hours of setting up mine doesn't, thanks to another tip I started doing a few years ago, (sorry, I'm not letting this tip fly

:( my secret:))but who wants to wait that long to eat it? Plus, some years the apple pies have to be baked in the morning instead of the night before, so they wouldn't have a lot of time to set.