Andrew! Great post...You must be a mind reader....I am traveling in Portugal currently and came across a bread unlike anything I had before...darker, almost rye-like, but sweeter than rye and pretty dense. I asked our server what kind of flour they used and she says "Broa". I had never heard of it, so of course googled it and it's essentially a Portuguese corn flour. I found some recipes for "Broa de Milho" which I would like to try. I am excited to buy some and bring it home to experiment with it...and then you teased about the sourdough cornbread....your timing could not be better!! Obrigada!!
I’m going to nickname this “Monday Teaser Trailers”, haha! Don’t want to make your life even more complicated, but relating to the question of how to make this more of a community feel, I would love a way to have a discussion board that we can post pics and create threads, like the fresh loaf or other breadhead forums. Although I’ve never actually participated in that specific one, I’ve benefited a lot from the publicly available info on some of those threads. If we could have a private one that only Wordloaf subscribers could access, like maybe one of those other community-building platforms (discord? Private Reddit?). Mostly key thing in my mind would be ability for anyone to start a thread/topic so you don’t have to actively manage it, and be able to keep individual topics separate so there’s continuity on the same subject that is easily searchable/discoverable. Anyway, just an idea!
Liang - I've thought about this, and might give it a try (Discord, I think), but I wonder how many people would actually participate, or how many we'd need to make it worthwhile. I wish that Substack had that sort of functionality built-in already. Maybe I'll do a poll at some point soon to find out.
I know, I think the discussion under individual recipes is already pretty good/appropriately placed, and it sucks that we can’t just also put in pics into a comment on substack. I’ve never used Discord, but I am happy to commit to give it a go and to contribute regularly!! Also if there’s a live chat function that could be super fun too, maybe you could do like an “office hour” once a month and answer questions in real time! Let me know if there’s anything I could do to help.
Andrew, I just noticed that Substack rolled out a separate chat function called Threads. (I think they have been reading this conversation ;) ) I can’t tell very well how exactly it works from the limited article they posted (seems like it’s in beta testing anyway). I think you’d still have to start threads, BUT based on the released images, maybe maybe we might be able to post pics in the thread function?! In which case might be a big step in the right direction.
I love all this extra info. Thanks!
Super excited for the banh mi recipes! I've looked at banh mi bread recipes before and always found them quite intimidating.
I love Andrea's work, so I'd love to see what she'd say in a guest column. For other vegetarians, I've made her mushroom pate (https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2017/08/mushroom-pate-recipe.html), which paired with some pan fried tofu to make an excellent a veggie banh mi!
Andrew! Great post...You must be a mind reader....I am traveling in Portugal currently and came across a bread unlike anything I had before...darker, almost rye-like, but sweeter than rye and pretty dense. I asked our server what kind of flour they used and she says "Broa". I had never heard of it, so of course googled it and it's essentially a Portuguese corn flour. I found some recipes for "Broa de Milho" which I would like to try. I am excited to buy some and bring it home to experiment with it...and then you teased about the sourdough cornbread....your timing could not be better!! Obrigada!!
Heather - The Brazilians also have their own version of Broa de Milho - it is just amazing: soft and flavorful. I wonder how they compare.
ooh, interesting! I'm doing some research on another Portuguese bread for Wordloaf now, so keep me posted on what you learn!
I’m going to nickname this “Monday Teaser Trailers”, haha! Don’t want to make your life even more complicated, but relating to the question of how to make this more of a community feel, I would love a way to have a discussion board that we can post pics and create threads, like the fresh loaf or other breadhead forums. Although I’ve never actually participated in that specific one, I’ve benefited a lot from the publicly available info on some of those threads. If we could have a private one that only Wordloaf subscribers could access, like maybe one of those other community-building platforms (discord? Private Reddit?). Mostly key thing in my mind would be ability for anyone to start a thread/topic so you don’t have to actively manage it, and be able to keep individual topics separate so there’s continuity on the same subject that is easily searchable/discoverable. Anyway, just an idea!
Liang - I've thought about this, and might give it a try (Discord, I think), but I wonder how many people would actually participate, or how many we'd need to make it worthwhile. I wish that Substack had that sort of functionality built-in already. Maybe I'll do a poll at some point soon to find out.
I know, I think the discussion under individual recipes is already pretty good/appropriately placed, and it sucks that we can’t just also put in pics into a comment on substack. I’ve never used Discord, but I am happy to commit to give it a go and to contribute regularly!! Also if there’s a live chat function that could be super fun too, maybe you could do like an “office hour” once a month and answer questions in real time! Let me know if there’s anything I could do to help.
Polling would be a good idea. I am wondering whether there might be a generational correlation with level of engagement with that sort of application.
Andrew, I just noticed that Substack rolled out a separate chat function called Threads. (I think they have been reading this conversation ;) ) I can’t tell very well how exactly it works from the limited article they posted (seems like it’s in beta testing anyway). I think you’d still have to start threads, BUT based on the released images, maybe maybe we might be able to post pics in the thread function?! In which case might be a big step in the right direction.
Liang, alas I think only the owner can publish images, people cannot reply with them AFAIK
Darn! Foiled 😂 thanks for clarifying. I’ll go submit some feedback on this to the powers that be on substack.
I’m waiting for that banh mi bread recipe.