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content/post/learning-to-become-a-baker.md

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+---
+title: Learning to become a baker
+bigimg: /img/baker.jpg
+date: '2013-10-13'
+subtitle: Why there are more and more industrial bakers who don’t care what they sell. 
+tags: ['braindump', learning', 'baking', 'bread' ]
+---
+
+Originally posted on [Medium](https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/learning-to-become-a-baker-99c0d2c3388a).
+
+Sometimes people tell me I’m obsessed with bread. That’s not entirely my fault. (I like to blame others, who doesn’t?) When I was little, my father always baked our own bread on sunday, every single sunday. I can’t remember anytime we actually bought bread, except on vacation. At a young age I had no idea how creating something out of nothing actually worked, but I knew it was intriguing — the addition of yeast which caused the dough to bubble up within a short period of time, wow!
+
+When I grew older, I lost my interest in food in general — I had other worries such as studying. (well, and girlfriends, but that’s a part of studying!) I have two sisters and we never cooked, our parents always did that. The only thing that remained whas the joy of eating a freshly baked slice of bread at sunday after all the breads have been cut and packaged — my father baked enough for the freezer to use throughout the week.
+When we ate pizza — with homemade dough of course — there was always some dough left over to create a “pizza bread” with. The dough was “special” because of the ingredients: a 100% white wheat bread with olive oil, extra sweet. We always fought to get the most slices, usually spread with an even sweeter Nutella. I think the tradition of eating chocolate spread on white bread started there.
+
+### Having to do it yourself
+
+Eating without cooking it yourself abruptly stopped when I rented an appartment. The interest in cooking and baking remained so I started experimenting myself. After a year, I received a bread baking machine for my birthday — you know, one of those little things where you need to simply weigh all the required ingredients, throw them in there and push “start”. 4 hours later, the irresistible smell of freshly baked bread would fill the kitchen. Great, I baked something! What should I do with it? Where’s my Nutella?
+
+It didn’t stop there, that was only the beginning. I started researching on the internet, gathering more and more recipes, experimenting with the bread baking machine on using different flours, mixing them with fruits and nuts. (using fresh kiwi’s was a failure, but hey, at least I tried, right?)
+After another year, I stumbled upon one of the many food blogs, “[Food wishes](http://foodwishes.blogspot.be/2008/03/follow-sourdough-day-1-can-you-say.html)” with chef John, where he explained the process of creating a “sourdough”. In Belgium, bakers don’t use sourdough, so I didn’t even know what that meant. It was so fascinating that I decided to try that myself.
+
+![Most people I bake for even complain about the “holes” — their chocolate spread drops thorugh them!](/img/brood1.jpg)
+_Most people I bake for even complain about the “holes” — their chocolate spread drops thorugh them!_
+
+Which of course worked with enough patience. As soon as my sourdough starter was active, I got really obsessed with baking bread.Not just bread, but **bread** — the real stuff, hand crafted, with (sometimes extremely) long fermentation times. I gave away my bread baking machine (and made someone else happy with their first baking experience) and started investing my time and money in artisan bread baking books like “Bread”. I had to order everything on the internet as I couldn’t find a single book on the topic locally which is very,_very_ sad.
+
+### Deciding to do it even better
+
+This week is week four in the three year long official baker course. I enrolled into the program with a clear vision on how I would open up a speciality bakery, only baking sourdough bread with long fermentation times and extreme taste and smell. My father doesn’t like sourdough. Actually, almost nobody I know does. Why is that? We grew up eating fastly fermented bread with high amounts of commercial yeast. The more yeast added (with chemical flour stabilizers of course) the quicker the baker can bake them, the more he can create and sell. $$$ (in our case €€€), dingding.
+I had some trouble finding bakeries in the area wich sell real bread. I found one in Brussels and one in Maastricht. There are others but it’s really sad, most bakers (or at least the assistents who sell the bread) don’t even know what sourdough is. (Yes I know this is completely different in countries like Germany or France, but we’re talking about Belgium here)
+
+So the more I learned about the sad state of bakeries, the more I was determined to do something about it. I created [Save Sourdough](http://www.redzuurdesem.be), a website to promote baking with sourdough yourself. I baked for colleagues and friends, but I still felt that was not enough. So I finally enrolled in a bakery course (you’re obligated to have that diploma if you want to start a bakery).
+
+![Sourdough, all bubbly and ready to roll.](/img/brood2.jpg)
+_Sourdough, all bubbly and ready to roll._
+
+I knew I should not expect too much, but if you know that after following the course for three years (without any prerequired knowledge), you can open up your own bakery, I’d expect it to be thorough.
+What a disappointment. We do learn to bake bread: white bread to start with, small round boules we call “pistolets”, fluffy sandwich bread, … But it’s all the industrial way. All the recipes contain stabilizers. You want pistolets? Okay, just add 4% “pistolet” stabilizer. Baking regular bread or sandwich bread? Use bread or sandwich stabilizer. Those things come in huge bags of 25kg in the class, just as the regular flour (industrial milled with added stabilizer out of the box… great) does. What do they actually contain?
+
+- lactose (What the fuck? That’s right, lactose intolerant or vegan people, stop buying bread from a “regular” bakery!)
+- Acids (vinegar-like stuff)
+- EXYZ numbers, usually coloring stuff, depending on the type
+
+When asked about why to actually use a stabilizer, the teacher explains:
+
+- it helps rise the dough more quickly ($$$/€€€, remember)
+- it helps keep the dough together when mixing quickly (see above)
+- it gives more color (if using bad/bland flour, see above)
+- it prolongs the shelf time (see above)
+
+Sourdough bread keeps for a week. Without any additives, because of the thousands of natural little micro-organisms present in the sour. Using lactose helps prolong the shelf time the same way, but it actually requires adding something I don’t even want to be present in my bread! You also need a chemical ingredient to make sure the gluten in the (usually wheat) dough don’t break when mixed on a high speed. Sourdough bread is not mixed, it is folded. Problem solved. Why don’t we do it like this? Requires time. Effort. Not needed, mix up that baby. $$$/€€€.
+
+What a disappointment. I see people jotting down everything the teacher says when answering that question, nodding quickly. I guess they just think “when I want to bake bread, I need stabilizers!”. You don’t. When you bake bread, you take your time. Or you do not bake bread at all.
+A bulk fermentation of 15 minutes? Come on, are you serious? When I bake sourdough at home, it’s at least 3 hours! Sometimes even up to 2 days in the fridge.
+
+I know I’ll still be learning a lot in this course, so I won’t quit (and I need the diploma). I already learned why there aren’t any real artisan bread bakers anymore. The teaching part is all messed up, so how can we expect or bakeries to actually deliver quality goods? The real learning still has to be done at home (or in another country) — provided that someone is willing to learn to do it another way. That last part plays a big role, as most people here don’t even like the sourdough taste, even mild bread. They are just used to junk, don’t blame them.
+
+### After all, we are creatures of habit, right?
+
+If that is what we want to be, than it shall be so.

content/post/on-finding-your-inner-zen-in-big-cities.md

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+---
+title: On finding your inner zen in big cities
+bigimg: /img/innerzenheader.jpg
+date: '2013-08-29'
+subtitle: Coping with crowded places when you’re used to peaceful villages
+tags: ['braindump', learning', 'zen' ]
+---
+
+Originally posted on [Medium](https://medium.com/@woutergroenev/on-finding-your-inner-zen-in-big-cities-c2be933114e3).
+
+There have been a lot of love letters to big cities here on Medium recently. I never really understood the love for those busy places, but that should not be a big surprise as we grew up in a relatively small village in Belgium. Our country must be one of the smallest in the world — you can drive from one edge to the other in less than 2 hours (excluding traffic jams of course).
+
+And yet Brussels, the capital city of Europe, lies within Belgium. When I worked there, I used to hate that city — but for the wrong reasons. I was one of the thousand usual daily train travellers, taking the same route to and from work every single day. When you pass the central station, you need to work your way through a relatively dirty street with beggars and a lot of puke pools (horray for late night city clubs). I actually did not know Brussels at all, until I started exploring the center on my own at noon.
+
+Every large city has it’s multicultural neighbourhoods which you might not want to pass at a certain time, but limiting yourself to only those areas narrows your vision of the city.
+So I found an organic bakery which only sells [sourdough bread](http://www.redzuurdesem.be) (an exception to the rule in Belgium). I discovered little tea shops or jummy places to eat. I actually started to enjoy strolling through the center.
+
+### Sensory input overload
+
+As much as I liked discovering special places in Brussels, I was also very glad I could go home at 17H PM, and enjoy the peace of the environment where we live. It’s not exactly easy to describe, but I sometimes have the feeling that visiting a large city drains me in some way. There is so much to see, there are so many people in such a small place, after a while it’s difficult to concentrate. It feels like I’m getting a sensor overload, and I need to retreat, to a silent hotel room or back to the office.
+And I’m not the only one feeling that way, as my girlfriend actually made me think about this while she explained there was “too much info coming at once”. That might sound reasonable as she grew up in the same neighbourhood as I did.
+
+![100 meters from our home, following a hiking trail.](/img/koe.jpg)
+_100 meters from our home, following a hiking trail._
+
+Curious. My sister currently lives in Australia and loves big cities and a skyscraper view. Her opinion on our local (little) town completely changed as she’s used to something much bigger now. When she visits us, she’s usually bored quite quickly — even if there’s enough to do locally. Of course everything has to be seen in perspective.
+
+I do admit living in a big city makes things a lot easier (and more difficult) but I’d miss the peace and quietness. As much as I like Steven Johnson’s concept of “liquid networks” from “[where good ideas come from](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8034188-where-good-ideas-come-from?from_search=true)”, I still think I wouldn’t be fit to live right in the middle of it.
+
+Maybe it’s my [introvert](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8520610-quiet?from_search=true) part speaking. Most people who know me well would say I’m an extravert who isn’t scared of saying what he thinks. I’ve been thinking about these personality stereotypes a lot lately, and a colleage gave me another piece of the puzzle. She suggested that I spend a lot of energy on my extravert part at work, and to regain that energy I need my quiet, peaceful time. I call it being “work sociable” — in my spare time I’m not social at all, it drains too much energy. I don’t have the feeling that I’m required to behave like that during the day, but maybe my work as teamcoach requires me to do so without me even noticing.
+
+So maybe I could conclude that the way I see big cities shifts as my job changes? Never thought about that. Thank you Medium!

content/post/vegetarians-do-not-eat-fish.md

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+---
+title: No, vegetarians do not eat fish!
+bigimg: /img/peppersheader.jpg
+date: '2013-09-06'
+subtitle: The sad state of knowledge in your typical restaurant
+tags: ['braindump', 'vegetarian' ]
+---
+
+Originally posted on [Medium](https://medium.com/this-happened-to-me/no-vegetarians-do-not-eat-fish-403bc03781ab).
+
+### The amateurs
+
+>“So, you do eat a juicy peace of grilled salmon, right?”<br/>
+“No, I already told you, I’m a vegetarian.” (*sigh*)<br/>
+Frowning. You can almost hear them thinking “that’s what I meant”.<br/>
+“If you’re a pescatarian, you eat seafood but not other animals”.<br/>
+“Oh, right right, sorry!”.
+
+It must have been the fourth conversation with somebody, where I have to explain what “being a vegetarian” actually means. Not that I get upset by that, it’s fine if somebody who doesn’t have a lot of knowledge on that matter asks about it. Two things can happen after that.
+
+One — the person accepts my choice and carries on.
+
+Two — the person starts misbehaving (I have written the word “dick” here but don’t really know what is appropriate to use).
+
+> “Stop trying to save the world dude, you simply can’t by yourself!”<br/>
+“But the spareribs are very good, try some, haha!”<br/>
+“Ohmygosh you’ll have a lot of problems with vitamins and stuff!”<br/>
+...
+
+Even most vegetarian cookbooks include a section about nutrition and diet, where it also gives the reader some advice on how to counter such silliness. That’s the main reason why I don’t even like simply saying that I’m a vegetarian — even people which you judged as fairly reasonable start acting stupid. And I’m not even a vegan.
+
+### The professionals
+
+It’s not that hard to see something like that coming — most people who eat to eat (Filling instead of Feeding) and who aren’t really interested in the subject of food in general will act like that.
+But people who work in the catering sector should know better. I expect every single restaurant to offer at least one vegetarian option (sorry vegans, you’re fucked, as always. Enjoy the sauce, wanna bet it contains milk? *sigh*). And most places I’ve visited luckily do. There are some really great vegetarian restaurants, but there are also very good steakhouses which offer a lot of decent vegetarian dishes.
+
+Last week, we went to an Italian restaurant for my birthday. It’s actually also an Hotel, quite posh, nicely decorated, you know what I’m talking about. And I thought “hey, it’s Italian” — surely they do offer some vegetarian dishes, right? Like… Pizza’s? Pasta’s? Sure.
+Well guess again. Nothing on the menu. Okay, so I ask a waiter.
+
+> “Well, we do have a pasta with scampi” — she looks at me and waits for my nod to quickly write the order down. I frown. She blinks and starts to get impatient.<br/>
+“I’m sorry but fish is not vegetarian. Is it possible to get the lasagne without ham?”<br/>
+She starts clicking with her pen. “No.”<br/>
+“What do you mean, no? Do you have a pasta with vegetables?”<br/>
+“No.”
+
+Urgh. I really, _really_ hate that. Especially because my grandparents came along and they don’t approve of my choice of being vegetarian — they simply don’t get it. So another discussion follows “why don’t you simply eat blahblah and I told you blahblah”. Thank you very much, Italian restaurant, just what I needed.
+
+In the end, I managed to get a simple boiled spaghetti with some baked vegetables and olive oil. For 15 EUR. Can’t be bad, I hear you thinking. It wasn’t, but it wasn’t good either. It was bland and I was upset.
+
+I expect people who serve other people dinner to know what it means to be a vegetarian or vegan or whatever you like or dislike, especially in a place like that. I can hardly believe I was the very first person in that place to ask something stupid like that.
+
+I know this story might sound weird if you live in an area where vegetarianism is more accepted — I thought it was here too. There’s still a lot of work to do on educating people and spreading the message that it’s okay to eat whatever the hell you want to, even if it’s not the same as what your parents or great-grandparents ate and even if it’s not according to tradition. I live my own life and decide myself what goes down my stomach, thank you very much.