My adventure in the commissary has come to an end, and I have made it through unscathed, for the most part.  I awoke at the usual hour this morning but did not light the fires or mix the dough. Instead, I reflected on the past two weeks. I thought of the people I had met and the things I had accomplished. Although I fell somewhat short of my grandious dream of 1, 400 loaves, I did bake over 500. I had never baked a loaf in my life, and now I can do it proficiently in a wood fired brick oven that I built…not too bad.

I look foward to many more loaves of bread and many other delicious creations in those ovens that have had their baptism of fire by my hand and stood the test. After my discharge, I traveled to Gettysburg to have my likeness taken in the form of a tintype at Gibson’s studio. I hope you will see it on the Museum’s website.

Thank you to all the sponsors of In Their Footsteps and especially to those that have donated to the cause, which will go toward building a better Education Department here at the Museum and providing a wonderful experience for students that visit in person or via Skype. I hope to hear from all of you throughout the year and during our next adventure In Their Footsteps!

Knowing that today was going to be a busy day, I awoke and got started at five thirty, undoubtedly still considered sleeping in to most true bakers. After taking the first batch of pre-ferment out of the refridgerator to warm up, I lit the fire in the ovens and then chopped enough thin wood to keep the fires burning hot, but thin enough that they would burn down to ash quickly so I could rake them out fast when the dough was ready.

The day was a blur of mixing, kneading, proofing, forming and baking, but at the end of the day, I had reached my goal of one hundred and eight loaves of bread. I finished at seven in the evening, just before another heavy rain and lightening storm. The two weeks of baking was over, and I have just one more night to spend in my cabin quarters.

Rained last night, the cabin remained relatively dry, and I had moved plenty of wood under the protective cover of the tent. At the end of the day today, I prepared 6 batches of pre-ferment, which if everything goes well, will translate into one hundred and eight loaves of bread. Tonight the rain came early and very heavy; I barely made it to the cabin after the days work was complete to avoid a good soaking.

This morning at 3:00 while it was raining loudly on the cabin roof, I remembered that I had not brought any firewood into the tent to keep dry, so I got dressed and ventured out in the rain. I gathered armloads of wood, leaving them in the tent to dry for use in the oven chambers. At six, I was able to fire the ovens with little trouble. The tricky part is to mix the flour, raise the dough, form the loaves, proof the loaves and then bake the loaves, while at the same time ensuring that the oven chambers are at the correct tempature, the ashes raked out and the hearth swabed at the same time the dough is ready, but doing it four times with the batches overlapping each other.

Today I was pretty much on my own, except for Mike who would come in for a few hours in the afternoon. …I’m glad he did because I was running all over the place and needed someone to watch the fires. It all worked out and by late afternoon, 72 loaves of bread had been produced.

Up at six and fired ovens, then went into the museum kitchen to take the pre-ferment out of the refridgerator. Tom arrived shortly after seven and gave me a class on kneading dough. This turned out to be very helpful and has added to my growing confidence in the kitchen. I got the technique down, but am going to have to start working out more if I am going to wrestle dough like this for the rest of the week. I guess I should have thought about that a few weeks ago. After checking on the oven temps, Tom gave me a class on forming a round loaf of bread. For him, it was easy since he has years of experience. I, on the other hand, have very little experience, except for when I worked in a pizza shop in Vermont when I was a teenager. Lucky for me that forming a round loaf of bread is just like preparing pizza dough for making pizza shells. By the end of the day, I had baked fifty-two loaves of bread, all consistently brown and crusty. Mike Cherry came in this afternoon to help keep an eye on the ovens while I was in the kitchen. Later we prepared the pre-ferment for four batches of bread tomorrow, which will be turned into 72 loaves. This evening it rained heavily.

Awoke to a perfectly sunny day and got right to work. I fired up the oven and removed the dough prepared yesterday from the refridge so that it could warm up and be used in the first batch of the day. I was soon joined by Karl who was quickly busy at work mixing more dough and converting the recipe from measures to weights in order to process each batch of bread more quickly. Karl has given me much needed insight into the efficient operation of a kitchen, and have been more fortunate to have been joined by his friend Tom, from whom Karl has learned much about baking. The oven has been performing wonderfully and the bread is better with each run. It is hard not to notice Harrisburg’s skyline and the surrounding countryside from this vantage point. Despite her present troubles, Harrisburg is a wonderful city, and I have no doubt that her best years are yet to come! I have heard nothing but high praise about the museum from all the visitors that have stopped by to talk with me. I am especially pleased when a city resident tells me how much they enjoy a visit to the museum, because the museum is a reflection of the best the city has to offer and that is saying a lot. I’m done for the night; I have put a pot roast in the Dutch oven and am looking forward to that and a good night’s sleep in my quarters.

Got up at 6am and lit the ovens for the first baking of the day, still not a morning person, but do the best I can. Was met by Karl DePaulis, who has volunteered to assist me in my endeavor to bake edible bread and not embarass myself too much in the process; was also joined by a reporter from the Patriot News who remained with us throughout the morning to document the high drama unfolding in the daily life of this Curator/Soldier/Baker. The days’ baking went extremely well and I managed to pull 47 finely baked loaves of fresh bread from the oven. I never realized just how tiring it would be baking all day long from the wee hours til nearly dusk. I’m afraid that I have been a poor host to the 42nd Mississippi, encamped here for the weekend. Spraying the baking chambers with a mist from a spray bottle and covering the door plugs with soaking wet towels (facing the inside of the chamber) helped create steam that assists in the baking and gives the bread a nice brown color. The goal for tomorrow is 60 loaves. Wish me luck. I met many very nice and supportive people today who stopped by to see how the baking was going…my thanks to all of them. Also my thanks to the members of the 42nd Mississippi Company F, who have their encampment at the museum this weekend; they have been very interested and kind even though I am a Yankee!