Baking into the New Year with the Great American Bakery Hunt

Although my lack of posts might have you thinking the Great American Bakery Hunt has slowed to a crawl, please cast aside your doubts-- the adventure continues! I've been keeping busy with new culinary undertakings: I recently tried Tartine's fruit galette recipe and came to the realization that I have a lot more learning to do. Mark Bittman's gingersnaps dough is currently chilling in my freezer. And I've taken to the habit of purposely letting my bananas ripen too much so "Oops, I suppose I'm forced to make banana bread."

But most of all, I'm hoping that 2009 will be the year I can really experiment with mastering breads and pastries: yes, all the great stuff. I realize that most people resolve to reduce carb consumption as a part of their desired New Year's transformations, but there's no place for that at The Great American Bakery Hunt. These hands are aching to take command of a rolling pin, a pastry blender, to learn challah, croissants, galettes, oh my! Luckily, it looks like Culver City's the New School of Cooking is offering a springtime Yeast Breads class that has my name on it. 2009 is going to be a great year.

And just when you thought that my tiny studio apartment kitchen might stop me, Mark Bittman, New York Times food writer and author of "The Bitten Blog" inspires me to go on!

Serious fat

Attention all bakers: In this recent article from the New York Times, butter is serious business.