By Samuel Fromartz

I was leaving the gym when I checked my messages. Alice Waters' office at Chez Panisse was calling — yeah, right. Who was this really? 

When I called back, it turned out Waters was calling and looking for a baker for her charity dinner in Washington, to replace one who had dropped out. Barton Seaver, a friend and chef at Blue Ridge,  suggested me. "We hear you make the best baguette in DC," said Sarah Weiner, Waters' assistant. "Well, yeah, I won a contest," I stammered, "but I just bake at home. The most I've baked was for Thanksgiving dinner." 

They needed to feed 40 — at a $500 a plate dinner at Bob Woodward's house. Could it be done in my home ovens? I said I'd call back. I went home to figure out how much bread I needed to bake and realized I could probably do it — 5 big loaves and several baguettes. I then called Peter Reinhart — the renowned baker and author I've known for a couple of years — to see what he thought. "That's not a lot of bread," he said, and he encouraged me to give it a whirl.

So began my first gig as a professional baker — at an Alice Waters' dinner.

I quickly settled on breads I made time and again and eat at home — a pain au levain made with sourdough and a mix of white, whole wheat and rye flours; a pane casareccio di Genzano, an airy white big loaf crusted with wheat bran that I picked up from Dan Leader's Local Breads; and of course, my baguettes. 

I've never baked this much bread before, so I worked out a timeline — and good thing too, since I would need to begin Friday to have the breads ready on Sunday. I started by feeding 50 grams (about a quarter-cup) of sourdough starter Friday morning, building it to 150 grams. On Friday night, I fed it again to take it up to 450 grams. Saturday morning, I refreshed it a third time. By Saturday evening, when I needed the ripe starter to make my doughs, I had over 1500 grams (3.3 pounds) of the stuff. With that steady feeding every 8-12 hours, the starter was bubbling, itching to impregnate the dough. It's pictured at left, and below, in the big bin on the right.

I measured out the flours and began mixing the dough. I don't really knead or use a mixer. Rather, I combine the ingredients by hand until they come together. Then I let the shaggy mass rest so the flour slowly soaks in the water, then fold it over every hour or so to develop the gluten. By the end of the process, the dough glistens with moisture. If you pull away a small piece and stretch it, you should be almost able to see through it — the so-called windowpane test that shows when a dough is done. This folding technique is a cousin to the no-knead method, since you just fold over the dough and let time do its work. It works beautifully, especially since my home mixer couldn't handle the volume of dough I made. 

Now the magic began — the first rise, the source of all flavor — and luckily it was a chilly night. Why was that important? Because I let my sourdoughs rise in an unheated basement storage room that is about 55F. That's the perfect temperature for a languid fermentation, when the sugars in the bread develop. Bakers buy proofing cabinets that cost thousands of dollars to get this temperature with refrigeration. My solution was less precise, but it worked fine. The genzano and baguette doughs rose in the refrigerator, since they contained instant yeast as well as sourdough and I wanted a slower fermentation.

At 7 the next morning, I took the pain au levain dough out and let it warm up for about an hour. I then shaped three boules, letting them rise for 2-1/2 hours. In the meantime, I heated up the baking stones in my double-oven. Then I repeated this with the Genzano loaf, about an hour later, and then the baguette. 

The rise went well, full of oven spring. I attribute that to the levain, which you'll recall had built over a 52-hour period with successive refreshments, including the last one in the dough. (Pictured below are the pane casareccio di Genzano – Genzano Country Bread).

I finished baking at about 2 p.m. and let the breads cool, then delivered the loaves for the dinner. Jean-Pierre Moullé, the chef at Chez Panisse, was there to greet me. We talked briefly about the breads and I mentioned I was a home baker, not a professional.

"I know, but you did not bake these at home," he said.

"Yes, I did," I countered — and I noticed his eyebrow rise a bit.

Later that evening, at a party preceding the dinner, Alice Waters took me aside, bread lover that she is, and thanked me warmly. It was a nice moment.

For a home baker, there's always the moment of anticipation when the bread comes out of the oven and you wait for it to cool before tearing into it. Alas, with these loaves, I didn't get a chance to cut into them, to evaluate the flavor and aromas or assess the interior crumb or the density of the crust — all crucial to a decent loaf. But I trust they were fine. 

The thing is, I don't bake for a living. There is no daily pressure, no waking at 1 a.m. to get to the ovens, no staff, no orders. It's just me and the bread. And until yesterday, I've only given my breads away to friends. Now I've donated them for a worthwhile cause. Maybe I've just widened the circle of people who eat my bread. And that's just fine.

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On December 3, Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, published a disappointingly inaccurate and shortsighted piece on the development of offshore aquaculture.

The article, a stunner from the usually credible Ivy League university, was riddled with bias and incorrect statements such as, “Only a small number of truly offshore operations exist, a mix of experimental, academic, and business ventures that include farms in Hawaii, a University of New Hampshire test site, and a soon-to-start pilot project off the San Diego coast…” The farms in Hawaii are not “offshore,” but rather “near-shore,” in state waters (from zero to three miles from shore in most areas). The article itself elsewhere accurately explains offshore waters as between three and 200 miles off the coast (in most areas of the U.S.). The referenced farm off San Diego is the Hubbs-SeaWorld Offshore Aquaculture Demonstration project, and this project is not at all “soon-to-start.” In fact, the facility recently withdrew its application from the permitting process.

Worse than these basic factual errors is that the author completely overlooked many of the legitimate concerns associated with ocean aquaculture that could intensify if it is expanded offshore. For instance, due to strong currents and storms, interference from predators and even human error, ocean fish farms can allow escape of farmed fish into the wild; plus, increased production means that parasites and disease could be serious problems, further threatening wild fish and other marine life.

The tired assumption that dilution is the solution to pollution fails to consider any potential long-term or cumulative effects of expanded industry growth.  And pollutants do end up somewhere. The article ignores important reports that encourage the precautionary approach when it comes to offshore aquaculture, such as one by the Marine Aquaculture Taskforce, which states: “Little is known about the assimilative capacity of marine ecosystems for the wastes produced by aquaculture operations.”

The piece goes on to claim that, “Only a handful of scientific studies have been conducted on offshore fish farming, but they’ve been positive.” However, a study on a Hawaii farm found the facility had “grossly polluted” the seafloor and “severely depressed” certain types of sea life nearby. In this study’s conclusion, the researchers wondered whether the seafloor could ever return to normal.

The article does not discuss the most significant concerns with ocean fish farming: long-term economic welfare of coastal and fishing communities (both commercial and recreational), human and ecological health, and consumer access to safe and sustainable seafood.

The author mentions the challenge of producing enough protein for a growing world population, but later goes on to note that most of the fish preferred by farmers are high trophic level species. In other words, a farm often produces less fish than it consumes in small wild fish used as feed. In many parts of the world where nutrition is most scarce, people depend on small pelagic forage fish as a major protein source in their diets. These very same small fish are a critical food source for marine wildlife, and are the ones being caught en masse (the aquaculture sector consumed 23.8 million tonnes of forage fish in 2006) and processed to make fishmeal and oil to feed higher-value farmed fish. This is hardly a picture of efficiency. Offshore aquaculture may boost the distribution of fish to white-tablecloth restaurants, but it is unlikely to bring meals to those who lack food security.

Probably the most disturbing statement in this article is that, “For better or worse, [offshore aquaculture] is probably the future of seafood.” The true future of seafood should be determined by policymakers, scientists, businesses, NGOs and citizens based on sound science and global experience – both of which clearly show ocean fish farming could be more problematic than worthwhile. It is up to all of these stakeholders to determine what is “better,” and not allow the “for worse” to occur. For a more visionary option for seafood production, look to land-based, closed-containment, recirculating aquaculture systems(RAS).

– Justine Williams

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