Gonna hijack the Friday Bread Basket for a week to talk about myself instead for a change. Not to worry, it’ll be back next week, likely with extra links, since I have a backlog of bread bits I need to get out to you.

First of all, I wanted to announce the first of the online classes I mentioned earlier this month, which will take place on Saturday, March 27, at 1pm EST. I’m calling this one a Sourdough Crash Course, since I plan to cover the basics of sourdough baking for newbies and also to give those of you who have been at it awhile but want to refine things and see my process up close and personal. I’ll teach the simple no-knead recipe and process I use here all the time, along with a more traditional, faster bulk proof pain au levain recipe. And there will be plenty of time to ask questions both during the 90 minute class, and afterwards, where I’ll hold an extra 30 minutes of “office hour” time to discuss whatever is on your minds. (If you let me know your questions or problems ahead of time I’ll try to think about or research things for you.) I’ve capped the class at 50 students for now, but might consider expanding that if demand is high enough.

Keep in mind that if you don’t have a sourdough starter to use yet, there’s still plenty of time to find one and get it good and ready before then.

I’m using Airsubs to handle class scheduling and registration, so head over there to read more and sign up if you want to join in. While you are there, you can also get on the list for future classes, which I plan to hold once a month or so, including a pizza one in April that I will add soon.

-> Wordloaf classes at Airsubs

Secondly, I wanted to mention the few pieces I wrote for other venues that dropped recently. You may or may not know that alongside this newsletter I’ve been also quietly working on a long list of articles and recipes for other publications, and some of them are finally starting to see the light of day.

This past week saw the publication of a little love letter I wrote to my Danish dough whisk (a tool I’ve gushed about here before) for Serious Eats and my King Arthur Artisan Bread Initiative profile of Night Moves Bread, one of my favorite bakeries. And earlier this month, my recipe for vospov kofte, aka red lentil kofte, a vegetarian dish that is an Armenian Lenten favorite, came out in Cook’s Illustrated (the recipe is behind a paywall, alas, but you can read the story I wrote about it even if you aren’t a member).

-> Serious Eats: A love letter to the Danish Dough Whisk

-> King Arthur: Baking as art at Night Moves

-> Cook’s Illustrated: Armenia’s Greatest Vegetarian Dish

Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to talk about the new Wordloaf baguette header image I’m now using in my emails (along with the bread avatar I started using a few weeks back). These images—along with a bunch of super great “rejects” that I definitely plan to use too, like the pizza one above—were created for me by the amazing Edith Zimmerman, whom I first met when we were both selected as 2020 Substack Fellows.

She writes and draws the wonderful, must-subscribe newsletter Drawing Links, which is a comics diary of her day-to-day life, along with links to whatever related cool stuff she finds interesting or useful. It is always charming and though-provoking, and often hilarious. Among many other things, she writes for and illustrates The Small Bow, a site about addiction and recovery, and is the originator of the classic meme “Women Laughing Alone with Salad.”

I love Edith’s style of illustrations, and was so happy when she agreed to draw some things for Wordloaf. The experience was a dream, and everything came out better than I’d even imagined. If you need drawings for any reason, I cannot recommend Edith and her work more highly. Get on it before her much-too-reasonable rates go up!

-> Edith Zimmerman

See you all next week, have a peaceful, warm, and power-on weekend, wherever you are.

—Andrew