Eat Arkansas

The foccacia looks divine, Max. As I'm sure you must know, baking is a deeply spiritual experience, I fact I never knew until one day at the Abbey, when the brother who did the baking had decided to leave monastic life and go back to his girlfriend in California, the Abbot appointed me the new baker. I was also to be responsible for baking the altar bread (not the fishfood kind, but real bread). I think the extent of my baking up to that time had been an occasional muffin-tin of Jiffy-Mix cornbread, and I was terrified.

Anyway, Br "A" took me through the recipes (they weren't written down), the processes, techniques and timing once before he left, and I took detailed notes.

After that, I had to get up once a week at 2 AM (we had to be in church at 4 AM, anyway) in order to have 9 hot, fresh loaves to serve at supper. "Fresh Bread Day", as we called it, was always a big hit with the monks and guests. It was also always a very spiritually satisfying experience for me.

My daddy cooked bacon, sausage and eggs. The best sunny side up eggs ever, esp with sausage grease, and buckwheat pancakes.

These are under appreciated I find, Mrs. Diogenes will not eat them the younger Diogenes only under duress and with insincere smiles.We shopped for sausage,etc at Kindervater and Sons butchers at 9th and Cumberland, a place where my great grand parents had shopped when they lived at 800 block of Scott, where they kept milk cow, chickens etc as well as houseful of relations. The Kindervaters knew how to use lots of garlic.

His son needed up a much better cook, but not a better man

Wow, Max...you'd better not put pics of your bread up or your new car might get broken into...

But how was the beer can chicken?

ARK. BLOG: Mighty good.