knitting a life

I guess everyone has to do some kind of Julia Child homage sometime.  I haven’t seen the movie Julie and Julia yet but I have read Julie Powell’s book by the same name (I liked it) as well as My Life in France, the book Julia wrote with Alex Prud’homme about learning to cook and living in France (which I loved).

S and I own (and have watched) the complete collection (on DVD) of The French Chef; we also own copies of both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  With all of that, though, my most-used Julia Child cookbook has to be Baking with Julia, the volume that accompanied the PBS television series of the same name.

My copy is tattered and a little floury, and opens readily to the two recipes I use most often: the  Challah recipe Julia baked with Lauren Groveman and the Buttermilk scone recipe she made with Marion Cunningham.  Both make regular appearances on our table.

Today, though, I needed crackers to go with the cheese we were planning to serve some friends.  After a little bit of research in other baking books (I have quite a collection of those, too) I turned (wondering why I hadn’t started there) to Baking with Julia and found this recipe for Savory Wheat Crackers

contributed by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

I got to work and after a quick whirl in my food processor and only three ingredients (whole wheat flour, salt and water) produced a smooth, supple cracker dough.

Thirty minutes later (the dough had to rest) I began rolling, cutting, sprinkling and baking the crackers.

The crackers needed watching, but when done they were crisp, toasty and had just the right amount of salty seeds on the top.

Thanks Julia, they were a big hit.  I’ll make these again.