So I'm just about finished with my first week at the bakery. As of this week, the bakery has a name: Zume Artisan Breads and Pastries. That's pronounced zoo-may, and for all you linguists out there, it's the Greek word for yeast. Although there's a skateboard shop in the mall called Zumies. We've been getting calls asking if we make blank decks and Venture trucks. Go figure. So anyway, this ain't no slip shod country bakery. The guys who are opening the operation are doing it up right. I get the name brands I want, we got the nice equipment, and the place is really spiffy. For those of you familiar with Moscow, the bakery is on friendship square in downtown where the GTE phone store used to be.

I'm working on having five regular breads right now: Challah, Panitone, Paen Seigle, Sourdough Raisin, and Cracked-whole wheat. There will also be a few 'occasional' varieties that will make their way on to our shelves like a dark and light rye and perhaps my inadvertent pana-challah. The powers have also asked me to come up with some kind of 'health bar'. I made my first attempt at it yesterday, and I was pleased with the result. It was a whole-wheat with raisins, cranberries, almonds, walnuts, and pecans. So that's where I score my creativity points this week. In other news, my sourdough was a complete flop. There was no life in that dough at all. And then once it got in the oven it just messed all over itself. I wanted to just leave them in the oven until they were gone, but the oven vent isn't completely functional yet and I didn't want any attention drawn to it. The Paen Seigle, a light rye-sourdough, was brilliant though. I don't even know how. And check this out: turns out whatever temperature it says in the formula book, always do 25 degrees less. Yeah, well guess who nobody bothered to tell? So I've been doing pretty good baking everything 25 degrees hotter than it should be. Brilliant.

So there's my life. As a bread baker, I have a special job of feeding and caring for my sourdough starter. He's really cute. He bubbles when he's hungry. He's from a french town on the coast of the Mediterranean called Beauleau Mar Sur. Which I've been told means 'Beautiful Eyes By the Sea' by one person and 'Fungus Toes' by another. The biggest problem is that I have no name for my beloved starter. For a while I was considering some obscure saint names, then Bible names, and now maybe I'll just call him Zume and I'll claim they named the bakery after my starter. But I don't know. If you have any suggestions let me know. Lucy said I should offer some kind of reward to anyone who could help me name him. So yeah, maybe I'll do that.