This is a recipe for olive bread that I like. Mix 300ml of warm water (like 40C when the weather is cold, it can be room temperature if the weather is hot, bread responds to the world around it) with some yeast (I like to sprinkle it on the surface - yeast on water will spread out like it wishes for personal space, each ball different from each other. If you then mix it up immediately they'll cling to one another as if in fear of the water. If you leave it a little to soak and then mix it in they'll all dissolve. I don't know what this means but it feels like it should mean something). Some people leave this to stand or mix in flour and let it bubble, but I don't do that and this is how I make my bread. I chuck on 500g of flour, 250g of type 65 French flour, which is nice and extensible, and 250g of Canadian strong white flour, which is very elastic. The mix of the two make a very nice dough that's able to hold it's shape while small, but not be too tight or have too close a crumb. I sort of stumbled on the combination with intention but the ratio working was accidental. Then I knead it in a KitchenAid for a bit, while I weigh out salt. Recipes call for 1.8% of flour weight generally but that's too high for my family, and probably not healthy for blood pressure or kidneys, so I do about 0.8% ish normally around 3g. Often less though. I grind it in a wooden pestle and mortar and chuck it in while the machine goes. Then I weigh out about 80-90g of black kalamari pitted olives, and tear them apart with my fingers. Each olive gets torn into two or three pieces. It'd be quicker to use a knife or do some other method but I like to check for stones, the bread takes time to be kneaded anyway. I think it's nicer too for the flavour, the olive gets crushed a little as it gets squeezed, I think that helps to release a little of the flavour more. The shape seems better to. There's a joy in doing a simple task the slow and careful way. Then when they're all torn up, I check the dough. Often it will be ready straight away sometimes it isn't and kneads a little longer. I'll nearly always knead it a little on the bench (it's a wooden unvarnished worktop, I think wood gets on with dough better than other surfaces do, maybe they're made of similar stuff) to make it a bit more smooth. Then I'll chuck in the olives and some glugs of olive oil, and work the olives in a little bit. I'll cover it and come back every 10 minutes or so if I remember to try to work the olives in a bit more, either by rolling the dough or folding it. Then I'll leave it to do it's main rise for a while. This can take a few hours sometimes, extra time never seems to hurt it really. When it's risen, and I can tell by the fact that if I move it slightly it starts to collapse, the whole dough crumbles down except for a few big bubbles that reach upwards. It's quite delicate really, even the gentlest movement of the bowl can do it sometimes. Once it begins it isn't stopped either. After that I turn it out onto the wooden bench. The dough is oily still which stops it sticking. I divide it in half roughly, and shape each half of dough flat, fold by thirds over on itself like a letter. I then roll up the length of the letter, first by folding half over and then rolling the rest trying to get it tight but not tearing the dough. It's sort of my invention this recipe, and sort of taken from the olive bread recipe from when I worked in a bakery. I don't really know what counts as making something yourself. It feels like most ideas are copied from other people, or inspired from other people. Have I made something new if I've mixed together two existing things? I feel like the answer could be yes. It doesn't feel right to call it my invention though. It is a new thing which I've made but it isn't mine. I don't know what it means to have ownership over something, when does a thing become mine? Is a thing mine if only it is me? I don't know what I am if not a list of things that don't quite feel mine. I put the bread onto a tray that's dusted with semolina, it's good at keeping it from sticking, although I suspect it isn't really necessary, but I don't want to find out if it isn't. I do the same with the other loaf, and then cover them with a plastic bag and leave to rise for around 40 mins. I don't like using plastic really, it feels wrong and out of place. But it does a very efficient job, it doesn't stick as much as a wet tea towel and is lighter by far, so doesn't weigh the bread down as much. The leftover oil gets rubbed into the wooden counter, often with a paper towel. It keeps the surface shining nicely, and the wood looks much happier because of it. It's a very pleasing harmony to help the wood which helps me. The oven at some point in this process gets heated to 230C or sometimes more or less. When the bread has risen up, and doesn't spring back much when touched gently, it goes into the oven. Generally it will increase up in size before it comes out. This phenomenom is called oven spring, as though springing up in the oven. I think in lots of things there is a tendacy to rise up upon meeting hardship. The bread will dry out and cook and form a hard crust, which stops further expansion. The same heat that caused it to grow also stops it from growing further. Sometimes if the bread goes this way, it will rise more, and crack itself open trying to increase in size. It sometimes seems wonderous and impressive, but to me now it feels a little like a desperate act of self harm in an attempt to escape. I'm feeling sad while writing this, if you couldn't tell. I wonder what the recipe would be if I were happy when I wrote it. After 25 minutes, when the top has browned handsomely I take it out the oven, and check the bottom, I tend to tap on it to make sure, although I don't know if I'm actually able to hear the difference, since it always sounds done. When the bread cools, which is really the end of the cooking process, there's still steam inside even though it is out of the heat, the last bit of hot steam and heat will cook it the rest of the way, people seem to miss this a lot, it will contract and sometimes crackle. I have a nice cookbook by the name of Breadsong, which is what the author (Kitie something I think, I've forgotten her name) calls this sound. It's a happy joyous sound sometimes, very quite, very gentle, easy to miss. I don't see it as joyous now although I wish I could. That's how I make my olive bread, other people like it, although I don't know if it's any good. It freezes well at least.