Celebrity bread dreams

Last night, I dreamt I was trapped in a loaf of bread and could not get out. Not even Johnny Depp (he was the hero of my dreams) could cut me out of the hard-as-rock loaf of plain white pullman.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

I didn't need a dream analyst to interpret the dream.  I am fretting about my new adventure with Marty -- you've read about her here before right? My partner in Kitchen Grimes?

Well, we've decided to start a sandwich catering business, small scale of course. Miniscule actually, starting with some of our colleagues at work. Writers and designers: we eat a lot. Anyway, the idea is home made gourmet sandwiches for lunch every Monday. We offer three choices each Monday (customers have to pre-order) and everything -- from the bread to the spreads (no store bought Mayo, thank you very much) is home made.

Seeing as how I am an amateur bread maker, I am naturally nervous. What if my loaves fail? What if no one likes my bread? What if the loaf does not rise? What if ... what if... what if...

Hence the nightmare.

And that's how I ended up baking a loaf of bread at 11pm; finishing only at about 3am. I couldn't leave it to Sunday ... remember the list of "what ifs"? I made a black pepper pullman loaf for the Curried Tempeh sandwich: one of two vegetarian options on our first menu. The other is a Grilled Eggplant and Cottage Cheese on Foccacia and the non vegetarian option is a Roast Chicken and Thyme on Wholemeal.

For our first week (hopefully it won't be our last), Marty is making two sandwiches: the chicken as well as the  eggplant.  We have 23 orders in total and Marty's got two types of bread to bake and a chicken to roast. We've decided to assemble all the sandwiches together on Monday and pack them before delivering them to our colleagues. I hope we do well, because it's been a real ride so far: the planning, the experimenting on flavours and fillings, the bread making. A ride indeed.

And the name of our sandwich outfit? We're called Crazy Juliet, a name that harks back to the time when Marty and I first started working together -- more than a decade ago. Can't tell you more, but you can guess ;)

A little about the black pepper pullman. You have the usual suspects as ingredients:   active dry yeast, tepid water,  sugar,  high protein bread flour, unsalted butter,  coarse ground black pepper, salt and  milk. For the full recipe, click on the link below. Now, it's 4 am and it's time to sleep. Wonder if Mr Depp will re appear..

Black Pepper Sandwich Loaf