I’ve been cooking a lot of Serious Eats recipes lately and this one has been on my ‘to-make’ list for a very long time.  Over three years, in fact.  I was introduced to the site by a friend of mine in 2013 when he sent me a link to this pan pizza.  I love any […]

I did it! I made bread! You would think this should not be a notable achievement for someone who runs a bread blog, but this polenta and rosemary sourdough is the first loaf of bread I’ve made since we brought Maple home more than 7 weeks ago.  Oddly enough, I think it might also be the first […]

Surprise, surprise! I got my act together to do a Photoshop Phriday post! Irwin Uteritz attended Michigan in the early 1920s and from 1921-23 was the Wolverine’s quarterback under coach Fielding Yost.  As if balancing football and coursework weren’t enough, Uteritz was also an infielder for the Michigan baseball team (and a captain in 1923).  During […]

While I regrettably have not done much bread baking since we got Maple over one month ago, I know of many others who have.  In the past few weeks I’ve met up with four people in Ann Arbor to share some of my sourdough starter.  Each had been searching for a place in town to […]

Earlier this week Bakers & Best had its 4th birthday and naturally I celebrated by…not posting.  But here we are again for the 103rd edition of Photoshop Phriday.  Since beginning I’ve expanded the scope of this project from just Michigan football to other sports and I decided I no longer wanted to shortchange many of the other […]

I was all set to switch to spring and summer cooking this week but Michigan had other plans.  Over the weekend it cooled back down and even snowed a bit on Saturday.  But that was OK because it gave me an opportunity to make soup and bread to warm up the apartment.  I made tortilla […]

Jason Avant was a key part of Michigan’s formidable receiving corps in the mid-2000s.  Avant played at Michigan from 2002-05 but really stood out during his junior and senior seasons.  He saw little playing time during his freshman year and as a sophomore largely due to the presence of Braylon Edwards.  During his senior season Avant […]

Bialys are a traditional Polish roll filled and topped with diced onions, bread crumbs or sometimes poppy or sesame seeds.  They often seem to just be labeled as ‘bagels without a hole’ but both the dough and baking process are different.  Bialys are never boiled like bagels but instead bake quickly in the span of […]

It snowed almost a foot earlier in the week and the winter weather, something we’ve been lacking this winter, had me in the mood to bake some big hearth-style sourdough loaves this weekend.  But then just as soon as it had inspired me the weather declared it had other plans.  It was 50 degrees on […]

From 1998 to 2000 David Terrell was one of Michigan’s top wide receivers and a nightmare for opposing defenses. As if that weren’t enough, he played a few games on defense too.  Terrell saw game action plenty his freshman year but wasn’t as much a key figure in the offense; he really broke out during his […]