A lack of activity on my side somewhat diminished the achievements of the day and thus the score versus Friday.
It was a good day today, don’t get me wrong. I started the day by making a sourdough predough with my 1857 sourdough. I am rather obsessively testing, measuring, testing and measuring in preparation for my baking session at The Clink. Whereas I can afford to mess around and not really measure much, adjusting as I go, I cannot expect a bunch of people who have never baked to take to sourdough like a grain of sand to an oyster. So, it is measure, adjust try….today there are two lovely loaves as a result with exact measurments to go along with them. Tick. One for the session in a couple of weeks time.
Then I had two meetings which made the deluge of the morning rather more bearable. The first with Cathy, a lovel Australian transported to London who has a background in event management, food, cooking and demonstrations and who would like to help out with virtuousbread.com for the next few months while she decides on her clear direction. She can cook, is willing to try baking again (having been scared off it at Leith’s), and wants to do more teaching/demonstrating. I cannot wait to have her on board. The second was with Jini Reddy, a fellow Canadian transplanted to Wimbledon and free lance journalist who would like to pitch (and sell – great with me) an article to one of the major dailies. You go girl. She loves food, bread, giving, and community and was recovering from over dosing on Diwali sweets. My kind of friend!
The afternoon was rather wiled away: a bit of baking, a bit of swimming, a fantastic phone call from Jill the Cheese of the Real Cheese Shop in Barnes asking if I would help her and her partner Valentina cater a Christmas event with bread-related goodies (yes please!). However, no admin, no paying bills, no doing the e mails that I really have to do…especially after I promised Guri from Unltd that I would put the virtuousbread.com business plan together (four charitable activities, four revenue generating activities: watch this space) now that they have been kind enough to grant me £5 000.00. Somehow that did not get it together. But I did have a lovely meal at the Anglesea Arms in Chelsea with some old friends who now live in Canada and I do have some rye sourdough on the go for tomorrow morning’s bake. A 7/10. Entirely my responsibility. Tomorrow I have no excuse. I think I will have to go into a friend’s office and shut myself away with no distractions to get through my chores…Then I will feel WORTHY. What a North German I am.