Ivan Bonafe

Leigh Tate wrote:

Ivan Bonafe wrote:Then dough must rise, aprox. to 100% of its raw volume, in a warm not too hot area of your home, sheltered from air, once that volume is reached you make the traditional "balls" and let it rise once more, then place in fridge overnight, ideally between 24-36 hours of cold-storage rising/fermenting.

Ivan, very interesting post! You've got me curious though about the refrigeration of the dough. Is there a particular reason for this step? I mean, how does cold-storage affect the dough?

Hi Leigh! Your welcome.
The dough would ferment too much left at room temperature for more than 12 hours.
Generally light flours like 00 and Tapioca need little time to be raised.
I apply the:

wait until it reaches "double volume" in its bowl (aprox 3-4 hours)
than form "balls" and place them on a trail.
Cover them with a cloth or plastic film but without getting touched.

Let that second process also go for about 3-4 hours.
This means the dough was raised for 8 hours totally at warm temperature.

If you would keep them all night and another day out it will simply over-ferment and create too much live bacteria.
By storing it cold , in the fridge and allowing it to continue the fermentation process you get the best of both things:

a dough that has fermented in a slow way and created a unique bacteria, hence very easy to digest.
No issues with bad bacteria due to over fermentation.

Napoleatan Pizza is said to MUST ferment for at least 36 HOURS COLD before being served , hence 36 HOURS + 8 to prepare it first hand ...
I usually make pizza dough night before, then cook one batch the day after (24 hours cold raised) and one batch the 2nd day (usually i make bread/focaccia).
So the 2nd Batch is 48-72 hours COLD STORED and is always very elastic , light , airy and easy to DIGEST !!

For any questions feel free to shoot ! Cheers

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to throw in a few lines for a discussion, primarily to share my process of inquire and the observations i made into trying to materialise my permaculture dream.
I think many of you here will relate having come across the same conclusions and problems.

The experience is based mainly on the situation in Southern Europe (France, Italy, Portugal) as I think they have similar laws... or differ slightly.
I lived and worked in Oceania (NZ, Australia) but cannot relate to that environment, as laws seem to more relaxed or just different.

My conclusion and observation is personal and your experience / feedback very welcome.
I know however that many of us come across this issues when trying to make the big leap and get their own property started.

a) most of us have no or very limited knowledge about where and how to buy land + housing (you can't build on agricultural land yes some do but it's not my intention)
b) most of us want just to get GOOD, GOOD land and focus less on housing (tiny houses, a camper, a yurt, eventually a building) but this is subject to local regulation and laws (In Italy tiny houses are not allowed, neither composting toilets!!)
c) point b brings you to point c , which throws you in a dilemma between choosing an "average" land option and "mediocre" housing... you basically have to have a roof over your head and sewage system and land that is not overly degraded. Not the ideal solution, rather a compromise i think.  
d) once you have done the "compromised" choice you are left with lots of learning, repairing and hard, hard work, not ideal from a pc point of view!!

The criterias to buy land should be primarily focused on: ACCESS (roads) , WATER , STRUCTURAL POSITIONS, NOT OVERLY PENDENT (Hard work) etc.etc.

The paradox is as following:

Good permaculture land might be available but be agricultural land and you have no permit to build.
In permaculture you want to have your roof and housing around your productive system and live synergetically not "drive to farm" as conventional farmers often do.
So the real estate falls short in that because most people see farm as an extractive process, not a synergetic one.

This is the first dilemma in the real estate we all encounter, more or less - I think.  

Other points worth mentioning:

Land for building permit is not for permaculturist, but rather "I want my villa, pool and some herb garden" while working in the city. basically the focus is more on the House and barely on the surroundings and productivity etc.etc.
-> It makes little sense to buy a land with building permit if you have no good soil or general a lack of good design potential.
-> This land usually is very expensive too, because as mentioned, it is sold for other reasons than to grow regenerative systems.

So land with building permit falls out of OUR equation, as we are not interested in the lifestyle / and cost a priori.
Our priorities are ELSEWHERE, right.

What is left?

Traditional Farms, they are often huge monoculture degraded listings, and hard to convert for the average permie (unless your Joel Salatin LOL).
-> Most of us have not the monies to buy this huge farms let alone manage them with tractors and machineries we do not have. this could work in a cooperative fashion, or if you have farming background, but then again you really need to start from scratch unless your dad was as said a farmer and gifted you lots of tools and skills.

What remains is possibly the only but viable alternative.

You can get a fair amount of land in some remote areas with an old barn, abandoned small farmhouse, country house, and possibly the additional option of buying agricultural land (keep that in mind).
The detail of how land is divided (1 ha forest, 2 ha farmland, 3000m2 bulding) is very important, you don't want forests only, neither farmland. Ideally a mix of both.

This seems to me the best option for a permaculture project here in EUROPE, because:
you can live temporarily in some yurt, tent and even tiny house while renovating the house to its bare minimum while also getting the soil and water - plant systems back in place.

The pros are: for a relative good price you have already standing walls, maybe a roof, windows, or more to renovate (costy yes) but no time pressure! Ironic once you have a house with sewage system you can move in the land, declare to live there while housing in your alternative option (tiny house, container, yurt).  

After lots of thinking and research I decided to move in this direction , as the other options seem very difficult and a burden.
In an ideal scenario I would just focus primarily on GOOD GOOD LAND and live TINY for first YEARS while eventually expanding also House-wise.
BUT Good Land is mostly found in agricultural listings, while Land with building permit is too expensive and not destined for the goal as explained above.  

My next steps will be to

a) Get to know an area by living there for months and study the criterias of properties and regions very well (access, soil, structure, water, sun/shade, latitude, altitude, other key factors)
b) Choose a property on sale with min. of 2-3 ha farm and forest land and a old country house in need to renovate.
c) Once I make the purchase (wish me luck) start to work on the priorities of land regeneration and the housing aspect (i find both important)

The question I would like to throw here for people that have done this steps already:

-What are your greatest regrets once you have purchased property ...
- not enough ha of land?? you focused too much on the house or viceversa not enough on it?
- neighbours?
-How much ha are ideal for you, assuming you had at least purchased 1-2 ha of land ?
-What would you do differently !!

I'm in the process of establishing a project in Central Italy and had to go trough this brainstorming and analysis.
Happy to hear from you if you have valid input and feedback, of course also other global regions apply.

Cheers!

I worked in Southern Germany in a typical 'bädische Küche" restaurant and made Spätzle daily , what a messy and hard work doing it daily (muscles!), but beautiful too!
the ingredients were 1/1

30 eggs (M)
3kg flours
6-7 Tsp salt
1,2 lt water aprox.

(this is for about 20-25 even more portions)
no milk or butter added!

the trick when you roll em into the cooking water is as following:

use hot water on the utensils (soup ladle) and it won't stick as much on your as you get them on the spaetzle planer (spaetzle hobel)
add some oil in the cooking water to prevent them from sticking and use a fleischgabel, meat fork to stir it and separate them
of course water for cooking them must be salted
shock them in cold freezing water once they cooked.

I really liked the green wild garlic version (bärlauch) which needed a bit less eggs and the mix of wild garlic with some water (like a pesto you could say).
They store well up to 3-4 days in the fridge but taste best when fresh of course.

i'm an italian chef and worked in pizzerias... so I can say to have modestly knowledge on how to make pizza taste (almost) as in pizzeria.
the first point is dough, you must get it right and with correct ingredients.
Yeast solved in water and some sugar, the Water temperature must be at 35°C , then a mix of classic 00 flour and manitoba flour (in 70/30 relation, i use CAPUTO flour), salt in the rest of water.
For proper recipe hit me on and i'll pass you the detailed ingredients. Then dough must rise, aprox. to 100% of its raw volume, in a warm not too hot area of your home, sheltered from air, once that volume is reached you make the traditional "balls" and let it rise once more, then place in fridge overnight, ideally between 24-36 hours of cold-storage rising/fermenting.
Place pizza bread out of fridge and allow to reach room temperature (between 3-4 hours) before cooking!
When it comes to cooking most home-oven won't go above 250°C , so there's a few tricks you can learn

1) allow the tray to heat up as you heat up the oven to Maximum
2) once the oven heat is 250°C and the tray hot , make your pizza thin and use a bit of tomato sauce as topping , no cheese , don't add that yet nor other toppings. make sure also no excess of flour is on bottom or top of the dough. it will make pizza crunchy and burn
3) throw pizza on hot tray and in oven and allow about 10-12 minutes of baking.
4) when you notice that the pizza is about 3/4 trough , get it out and finish topping with fresh mozzarella (not the shredded one, use fiordilatte pizza and use not too much of it), add some parmesan cheese (grated) olive oil and whatever topping you want.
5) allow for another 4-5 minutes to bake

this are the principles for cooking great pizza at home.
traditionally a pizza can only bake for about 90-120 seconds in a professional oven, due to the high temperature it is possible, but at home with 250° impossible.
So you don't want to put all toppings straight away as they will burn while your dough is still raw. Tomato sauce has no issues, first cook with tomato sauce and 3/4 in its way finish the topping.