My Junk is You! You! You!

Well 'My junk' is mainly baking and musical theatre as regular readers will testify. This weekend heralded the much longed for, slightly feared (in case it was ruined) first preview of the UK production of Spring Awakening.

As much as I was excited about Friday night's performance I was also insanely trepidatious about what it held in store, I have a lot of admiration, respect and love for the Original Broadway Cast of Spring and was loathed to believe, or even entertain the notion that they could be bettered. I was wrong, there was something that made the production feel like it had come home from the moment Charlotte Wakefield stepped on her chair in her chemise, to that final glorious a cappella crescendo in The Song of Purple Summer (don't look for it on the CD; it's an orchestration that was added after that was recorded. Yes I'm a nerd, judge me if you will). The Lyric Hammersmith is a theatre I've been fond of for many years, having fainted there during a performance when I was in the sixth form. Seriously though I love the fact that as a theatre it's not afraid to stage really cutting edge performances be they dance, physical theatre, comedy, or as we see here musicals. Spring Awakening held little by way of a surprise for me (although some new additions and changes were pure delight) but the cast were stunning, Aneurin Barnard is an intense and sorrowful Melchior, a steadfast friend to Moritz and a young man denied the joy of falling in love for the first time. I had the undeniable pleasure of seeing Richard Southgate the understudy for Moritz whose less desperate character made him undeniably sympathetic and gentle in his lost, angsty self. Charlotte Wakefield was for me a revelation as Wendla, because as much as I had always adored Melchior, Wendla had always seemed well, a bit wet and whiny for my taste. This young woman knew what she wanted and screamed back at Melchior, pushed him, dared him to hurt her, yet could only touch as a mother touches her child, stroking his tears away. Without knowing it her Wendla was already stepping into the maternal shoes she was destined for.

To talk about the three leads is not to deny the other characters their glory, Evelyn Hoskins should win awards for making the easily overlookable Thea spunky and full of life, when she grabs Anna's hands whilst rocking out to Totally F****d you see a woman full of life. Natasha Barnes and Hayley Gallivan as Anna and Martha respectively have stunning voices and (like their OBC counterparts) bring pathos and sensitivity to these girls. The most powerful line in the whole piece (to my mind at least) has always been...

"When I have children I'll let them be free, and they'll grow strong and tall"

...and Natasha as Anna gave those words their verity. Like the girls the boys showed the shades to their characters, Jamie Blackley and Harry McEntire stealing the vineyard scene with their bubbling passion.

For me the adults are so often overlooked, I think because of the audience that talks about, obsesses over, adulates this show the adults can seem one dimesional, as in part their portrayal by the same two people is intended to convey. It doesn't matter whether you are a teacher, a mother, father or doctor; the fact is that you hold power and the children don't. However the amount of skill and depth of ability to portray so many distinct characters with sometimes no more than walking around a chair to signify a change astounds me, and I have to say that Sian Thomas and Richard Cordery have that quite simply nailed.

I could enthuse for pages, but I shan't inflict that on those of you who couldn't give a fig about musical theatre in general and teenage angsty musicals in specific. I will move on to talking about pizza - along with Spring Awakening the yeast obsession continues...

The boyfriend and I made pizza this weekend, he made up the dough (apparently, and I quote "you need big strong arms"), quite simply from 00 flour, extra virgin olive oil, salt and some of our fresh yeast (yes snaps still going out to Sainsburys, 16p for our fresh yeast supply!) He kneaded the living daylights out of it while I had a much needed rest, and then once it had had an initial prove on the radiator, I knocked it back and rolled it out as thinly as humanly possible. You could practically see through it. We made three pizzas and topped them with a concentrated tomato sauce, mozzarella, olives, some hams and any other yumminess we could locate within the fridge.

Served simply with a glass of white wine each, they absolutely rocked. Now we never order takeaway, but if we did I would be swapping to home made now, these are definitely becoming Friday night dinner material. Easy to eat on our laps, in front of the telly, with a glass of wine while I try to talk him into going to see another musical and he expounds the virtues of guitar hero.

Now if anyone would like to buy me tickets to SA for my birthday that would be fabby ;-)

Let's start at the very beginning

It's a very good place to start...

Well in the last couple of months, I've got back into breadmaking in a big way, particularly by using a starter as opposed to my comfortable recipes asking for fast acting dried yeast. However, I did come up against one obstacle in the shape of fresh yeast. Last year when I read The Savvy Shopper by Rose Prince, I had no problems, as she suggested going to supermarket bakery counters and being given free yeast (special call out to Tescos staff here, who grew to recognise me and would often chat about what I was baking that week, its a little thing, but it made a huge difference to a shopping experience). So once again I hauled on my ugg boots, wrapped up warm and pottered off to my local supermarket - no longer Tescos, but Morrisons. Whereupon a delightfully truckulent member of staff refused to give or sell me any fresh yeast as he's "not allowed." A likely story, but when I had finished crossly rolling my eyes at the absurdity of the comment, I decided that it was time to dose myself up with painkillers and brave the bus to my local Sainsburys. Where the story was the same, we're "not allowed" to give you yeast. Well this time I was really annoyed, my back was hurting and I was beginning to doubt myself. I'm sure I had no problem with this previously, was it definitely in the book that if requested staff were supposed to give out fresh yeast? I checked and it was, however, on discussion with some friends who know more about supermarkets than this particular wannabee savvy shopper, the policy change is probably due to staffing and training restrictions, the bottom line being it's too expensive to train your staff to give or sell yeast! For the love of God! What I wanted was to move towards eating a more nutrient dense, healthy bread that tasted of something but it was seemingly moving out of reach because of a cut in training budgets? Oh sweet mother of God.

Eventually, a friend managed to cajole a member of Sainsbury's staff into selling him some fresh yeast, and Project Starter could begin. I consulted Andrew Whitely once again and put together a starter that was to live in our house for the next 8 weeks. A starter is basically a living thing, and needs to be fed and watered fairly regularly, although we were cheating slightly by using fresh yeast and not relying on naturally occuring yeasts (although this is a plan for another post - Sourdough bread here I come). I made this one (pictures to follow as they're on the other camera) with fresh yeast, wholewheat flour, warm water and a little salt and sugar. Instead of working to a recipe, I basically made the starter by touch, working in flour until I got a mixture that was similar to the first stage of breadmaking. You know just before you start to knead the dough. Half of this got used to make the first loaf of bread, and another half cup of flour, pinch of salt and sugar and warm water were added to the starter to give it some extra 'food' before we next wanted to use it. Stored in the fridge, the starter kept going for about 8 weeks (the last two weeks being over the Christmas period meant that I overlooked feeding and watering duties in favour of Winter Pimms and carols. Yes I killed my starter by neglect *weeps*) Each time I made a loaf of bread, pizza base or batch of rolls, I'd add between a quarter and a half of the starter in the bowl, top that up with some extra food, and then add flour, warm water, salt and sugar to the starter that was going to become this loaf of bread.

As a rule for every quarter of the mixing bowl worth of starter I was using, I would add about 300g of flour (the type varied), a cupfull of warm water and probably half a teaspoon of salt and sugar. Again, I worked largely by touch, relying on how the dough felt as to what I added. This was very different for me, being largely recipe dependent to be confident. What was interesting was that as time progressed I got to know what the bread needed without thinking about a recipe, just by working with it.

Today, I'm back on the breadmaker and fast acting yeast again - I know I'll be able to tell the difference, but can't go to get more fresh yeast today or the rest of the week owing to pain levels, doctors appointments and meetings to try and organise a return to work. I do however have a weekend at home so plan to Start at the very beginning once again... lets see if I can beat 8 weeks!

Future plans for bread include:

• As mentioned, a sourdough loaf that uses entirely naturally occuring yeasts
• Amish friendship bread (because I like the sentiment, and when you're on long-term sick leave , and reliant on painkillers to move; 10 days is a good period of time to work on a project)
• Doing more with the starter - I pretty much stuck with loaves of half and half or wholewheat bread, or rolls, but I would like to use my starter to try sweetened breads and buns, or even flavoured ones.