A cousin form California whom I see too seldom came for dinner.

• Linda’s retro chip dip ❧ peppers stuffed with goat cheese ❧ aviations
• carrot ginger soup ❧ sprouted wheat bread (Pullman)
• salmon with lentils several sauces
• roast beef ❧ posole ❧ Yorkshire pudding
• Meyer lemon jelly ❧ blood orange sorbet

Most of this is familiar and went as predicted. The Yorkshire puddings came out OK, but were not nearly as tasty as the ones I had in London. Predictable, I suppose.

“Don’t doctor recipes. More is less, and sugar will only get you so far.”–Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector

The bread turned out really well. This was another experiment, a doctored version of Ruhlman’s 5:3 focaccia.

• 25 oz flour (20 bread, 5 sprouted wheat)
• 17.5oz water (6 buttermilk, 11 water)
• 2t salt, sprig rosemary
• 1t yeast

Refrigerated overnight, top slashed and brushed with egg, baked in a buttered Pullman loaf pan at 425°F.

My breads all tend to be dense, so I tried cheating a bit by adding extra liquid. The rising went very slowly, perhaps because the kitchen was cold. I’m not sure whether the extra liquid helped.