Painstaking Peas (or pitas)

Some years ago Roz Chast had a cartoon in The New Yorker that poked fun at obsessive cooks who do things like arrange peas in a meticulous pattern on a plate (thus the title of the post); it’s become our shorthand phrase for going a little too far in search of the right recipe or taste sensation.  Some might say that our obsession with bagel-making falls into this category, although in my opinion, all bread-making comes with feelings of well-being and pride that far outweigh the difficulties.  In any case, yesterday while trying to whip up a boating picnic, I forgot to buy pita breads, so decided to make my own.  Jeff often makes his own pitas and I figured I would give it a try.  I used this recipe for Whole Wheat Pita Bread from Epicurious and was pretty happy with the results.  The only change I made was to throw in a tablespoon of the “vital wheat gluten” that we have sitting around and to cook them right on the pizza stone as suggested by some Epi reviewers.  It is really important to take out the upper oven racks as instructed. I didn’t do this which made getting the pitas in to the oven and flipping them a bit of a challenge. They didn’t puff up as much as expected, and I’m not sure how you make them into pockets, but the taste was great – fresh and wholesome, making the typical pre-packaged variety seem a little bit like cardboard. One reviewer mentioned that she shaped and stacked the loaves between wax paper, froze them, and was able to have fresh, warm pitas by baking them just a little longer than stated in the recipe.

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