Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh with students
It’s been a while since I made bread and this showstopper looks like a doozy. That means “something outstanding or unique of its kind” btw. Old language but effective. 
I recently went to a fundraising event with Victor Rodger, the playwright and scriptwriter as guest speaker, with the aim of promoting and supporting the Writers in Schools programme run by the New Zealand Book Council. The objective is to get New Zealanders to read more and to spread the joy of reading and writing. “Telling our stories enriches all of our lives,” and as Victor said after reading his story, “that’s a piece that really resonates with the youth and I love that it does.” It’s such important work promoting reading and writing, with so many stories to tell and so many stories locked away in words in books. Our youth need to know the benefit of this easily accessible art form, and not have it lost to technology, Instagram and Netflix. My daughter is currently reading and enjoying “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A hard read but undeniably funny. Classics will never go away, but books have to be picked up to be enjoyed and that is what this program promotes and tries to facilitate. 
Just like bread, reading takes time, but the whole process is enjoyable and the end result is well worth the effort. Here’s the link to the book council if you are interested in following their programmes or supporting their efforts to inspire students to develop a love of reading and storytelling. http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz
As for me, it’s back to the bread, which I have to say wasn’t uninspired by some of the food at this said event; devils on horseback (prunes with bacon on a toothpick!), and dates filled with blue cheese and wrapped in prosciutto, not to mention the ubiquitous and undeniably popular asparagus roll!! Whoever came up with these classics was a genius. My bake got underway with the purchase of copious quantities of blue cheese and walnuts, not a bad start as they are some of my favourite foods. I measured out the white flour, the rye flour and
added salt and yeast to the electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, ( I do love that machine). 🙂
I slowly poured in the water to combine and form a soft dough. 
I then chopped up all the walnuts. It felt like there was a mountain of them and I couldn’t figure out how this bread was going to facilitate them all, but it did. I added them to the machine and let it do the work of combining the nuts. 
Then I set this aside in a bowl to rise for 1-2 hours. All good things take time, like reading! Once it was risen, I punched it down and divided it into four equal portions which I flattened into 12 x 7cm rectangles of dough. 
I loaded each rectangle with a log of Roquefort and rolled it up, then kept rolling until the length of dough was about 25cm long. 
I shaped the four lengths into spirals in a 20cm spring form tin 
and left this to rise again for an hour on the bench. 
The risen bread baked in a hot oven after brushing with egg wash. The smell seeped throughout the house as it was baking, the smell of Roquefort strong but delicious. 
I guess if you don’t like blue cheese you could use another type, but just the thought of it, with the combination of walnuts sends my taste buds into a frenzy.
I have been eating this meticulously with salad for every second meal ever since it came out of the oven! So good. 🙂
