I finally got around to getting to the bookstore, where I haven't been pretty much ever since I started the whole Paperbackswap.com thing (which I still am completely loving, and if you say splatgirl when you register, I'll get a credit!). But I was jonesing for the new Peter Reinhart Whole Grain Breads cookbook, and the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book, which I am perhaps the last person on earth to get, so I had to bite the bullet and fork over the...um...dough.
Ahem.
Turns out the Artisan Bread in 5 book is really not worth it for me, as there's nothing particularly special about it once you get the whole make dough in bulk and give it a long retard in the fridge thing. But the Peter Reinhart book is great, complete with all of the obsessive but very useful detail and technique I was familar with from my first P.R. book, Bread Bakers Apprentice. And so I set right out to make something from it.
I chose the 100% rye bread recipe to start with because rye is Boy's favorite and he was so patient and polite about my fruit and nut bread experiments despite being not so much with the fruit and nut breads.
Anyway, I think it came out pretty darn awesome.

These loaves were dense and flavorful and the PERFECT vehicle for a little reuben dip action. Or a meals' worth of reuben dip action, actually. Sliced thin and toasted just a bit, it was like what you wish those stale little square cocktail rye breads would be but never are. It was cocktail rye done fabulously, deliciously right, and was amazing just toasted and slathered with butter and for a ham and cheese, too. Next time, I'm going to make sure to have some lox and cream cheese in the house, because that would have been even better.
Bake on, friends, bake on!