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Comment by lhl | Hacker News Reader

Here's a couple interviews from a few years back on what it was like to transition from basically an extremely dedicated hobbyist to a pro (Varasano opened his first restaurant in 2009):

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/jeff-varasano-...

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2014/04/the-slice-inte...

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this guy reminds me of Ken Forkish whose book "Flour Water Salt Yeast" is a James Beard award winner (like J Kenji's "The Food Lab") and is considered one of the bibles of bread making. he also owns a bakery in Portland that is supposed to be very good (never tried, can't say).

also reminds me of the microsoft solitaire guy who eventually left software and started an apple farm and a cider brewery.

i am personally quite into bread baking, which is apparently quite a curiousity among my friends. "oh, computer guys don't bake do they?" but i think i'm personally attracted to music or cooking or baking or programming in the same way because they all involve creating something new. The process of getting from nothing to something is miraculous. creating both bread and software gives me the same sense of satisfaction. maybe bread moreso because of how tactile the process is.

princeb, your comment filled me with happiness and put a smile on my face.

Outside of my family, I have four passions in my life: cooking (bread baking in particular), music (guitar and piano), and programming (I'm a hack, but always working at it). For years, I've said to others, "It's the creation of something new that is so fascinating and satisfying."

Thank you.

Do what I do and put all your formulas and methods into a spreadsheet. This a) gets back some of your geek cred, b) makes it trivial to scale the recipe up and down, and c) makes it easier to share recipes with friends if you use something like Google Sheets. I also make many different breads, and found that with a spreadsheet I was much better at putting notes for next time ("try with 15g less water next time"), updating my method ("a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven helped prevent scorching"), or adding links to a bread I want to try in the future.

I've already done that. what kind of geek do you think I am! ;)

baker's percentages are the easy part. I also log temperatures and fermentation times. analysing the effect of those two inputs on bread quality is much harder.

Are you the kind of geek that puts their dough bucket in a temperature-controlled waterbath maintained to 0.1 degrees C for proofing? Or the kind that uses a "drug dealer" scale accurate to 0.01g for measuring salt and yeast? Because I'm both of those, plus others :-)

no I don't use a waterbath, I measure temp of water when first mixed and also room temps randomly through the fermentation process. I also don't have a sub-gram scale, I improvise by marking out levels inside a measuring spoon... measure 5g, and approximate 10 equal portions for 0.5g. and then try to correlate those markings to how well the bread turned out.

I think part of the fun is that you don't necessarily have full control over the fermentation process. as you come close to the end of the fermentation you observe the size of the dough, the quality of the rise, and you adjust your baking schedule depending on how hot or cold the room has been. the dough is the master of you, and you can only try to tame it.

it's the same for the levain - the feedings can be exact, but the nature of the culture, the smell, the taste, the vigor... everybody has a different culture even if they follow the same recipe.

Ken has a bakery and a pizza place in Portland, Ken's artisan bakery, and Ken's artisan pizza, both amazing.

FYI - His location is in Concourse A in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport (ATL). I'll try it next time I've got a layover.

Fuck me, I was just there last week for the one and only time in my life thus far.

living here in Atlanta and this is the first time I have ever read about this place. so I got something to drive towards one weekend; about thirty miles in my case.

always on the lookout for a good pizza. far too many chains that are boring but consistent and too many local pop up stores seem to all serve the same doughy mess (always thick crust)

I haven't been in a few years but Varasano's is the best pizza I've ever had. Antico comes in a close second. If you're a fan of Neapolitan style pizza definitely don't miss this one.

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