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"Sybil, do you remember when we were first...manacled together?  We used to laugh quite a lot, didn't we?"

"Yes, Basil, but not at the same time."

-- John Cleese and Prunella Scales in Fawlty Towers

The Setting:  Lloyd and Bakerina are in the kitchen.  Bakerina is turning on the oven and checking the progress of the bread.  Lloyd is making the afternoon coffee, which is lucky because he has just woken up from a quick catnap, which he takes every weekend but for some reason Bakerina is looking at today's catnap with resentful eyes.

Bakerina:  Look what we have!  (points at bread)

Lloyd:  It's lovely.

Bakerina:  And you're sure you're okay with more macaroni salad for dinner?

Lloyd:  Sure, I'm sure.

Bakerina:  I'm afraid I didn't get us any afters, though.

(Lloyd stares at her for a second, then assumes a look of solemnity and points a finger at Bakerina's face.)

Lloyd:  J'accuse.

We're entering the home stretch, dear friends, on the focaccia, at least, not the Blogathon. We have a ways to go before the home stretch on the Blogathon (although I do send a kiss in Kimberly's direction for pointing out at 3 p.m. (edt) that we were 1/4 of the way through). This is where all the measuring and the blending and the kneading and the weighing pay off. Now is when you actually get to decant the dough from bowl to pan. A slight *whoosh* of fragrance will rise from the dough as you pick it up, and the feeling of this dough under your oiled hands, yielding as you stretch it out in the pan, is the second greatest pleasure of this wondrous bread. (The first, of course, is in the eating.)

Having determined that the dough has risen to its desired length, get yourself a sheet pan. For the proportions I've given here, you should have a 10"x 15" sheet pan. If you don't have one that size, you can use a smaller pan for a thicker focaccia, or a smaller pan for a thinner one, but I've found when I try to stretch this out for a larger pan, the focaccia doesn't come out as nicely, although it's great if you want to use it for thin-crust Sicilian pizza dough. Come on, go to a nice kitchen shop and get yourself a couple of 10"x 15" sheet pans. They're not expensive, you won't find yourself struggling with the wrong-sized pan, plus you get to hang out in a kitchen shop for a few minutes. I really don't see the downside here.

So take that sheet pan and oil it well. Use the plastic wrap that you used to cover the bowl. With any luck, it will fit over the pan with the shaped focaccia in it, and then you won't need to use additional plastic wrap. We love it when that happens. Get some oil on your hands, too.

Pick up your dough. The easiest way to do this is to reach under with both hands and quickly transfer it to the pan. Try not to fold it over on itself. It's no biggie if you do; it's just that it will be a little easier to shape if there are no folds in the dough. Pat it gently into the pan, reaching all four corners, making sure it's of an even thickness. This might be easier said than done: This dough is both extensible and elastic, which is toffee-nosed baker talk for "it's easy to stretch out but it also springs back if you stretch it too much. If you find yourself unable to stretch it, let it go as far as it can, cover it up and walk away for 10 minutes. When you come back, it should stretch to the edges without fighting back. If not, give it another 10 minutes.

Once it's stretched out, stipple the dough with your fingertips (use more oil if you need to) until the entire surface looks a bit pockmarked. Cover it up with the oiled plastic and let it sit for its second rise. It will probably take about 45 minutes for it to be oven-ready, although depending on kitchen conditions and the amount of yeast you used, it may be ready in as little as 30 minutes, or as much as an hour. If it's a fast-rising dough, adjust an oven rack to the center of your oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit (or Gas Mark 7) as soon as you shape the dough. If it's a slow-rising dough, turn the oven on about 1/2 hour after you shape the dough.

To be continued...

It is a story told over and over by me, mainly told to Snowball, and yet, she hasn't once said "Oh, for the love of Mike Nelson, please stop telling this!"  Once upon a time, my mental health professional suggested delicately that my mood swings might have been sugar-related, and had I considered diet soda?  My response was that he didn't know from mood swings until he saw me on diet soda.  Aspartame is a very, very, very bad thing for me.  When I've had it, I can't think clearly, I get savagely depressed and irritatingly paranoid.  Given the choice between being fat and being insane, I go with the bodacious-cans look every time.

Today Lloyd came home with our sandwiches from the Sandwich Kings, along with a bottle of Manhattan Special espresso soda, which is the greatest soda in the world.  Mild fizz, not a lick of high fructose corn syrup, and it really is made from espresso.  Upon drinking it, we discovered that a bottle of diet had been mixed in with the regular, and that that was what Lloyd had picked up.  "Oh, I'm sorry!" he cried.  "Aw, heck," I said.  "One glass won't kill me, right?"

Dear friends, this was about 1/2 hour before I tried to post the dough-mixing pictures the first time.  Sometimes I am shocked by what an obvious creature my brain is.

It is time to check on the dough, to make sure everything is okay.  Then it might be time for me to break out the hardcore bath products.

What we're watching:  Slaves of the Cannibal God, a cheap-ass 1970's Italian horror movie set in the New Guinea.  When the largest credit during the titles reads "ALL MUSIC COPYRIGHT BY CLITUMNO," you know it's going to hurt.

What we just finished watching:  Fear of the Dark, a Canadian horror movie about a 12-year-old tormented by demons, and the 16-year-old brother who helps him fight them off.  The Sci-Fi Channel fans among you know what kind of pain is involved with Canadian horror movies.  Ow.

Why I love Lloyd:  He bought me a roast beef sandwich with Russian dressing from Sal, Kris and Charlie, the Sandwich Kings of Astoria.  He made the appropriate noises of consternation during the whole posting-the-focaccia-pictures mishegoss.  In between the John Zorn raucousness and the horrible Canadian movie, he put on one of our Goon Show cds.  It is impossible to get too grouchy in the company of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.