Baguette or French Stick

I think I like the basic definition of baguette as a long thin loaf with 
slashes and a crunchy crust.  That works for me.

The wiki says it came with the idea of steam in the 1920's and a time 
limit on work hours, also no mention of what kind of yeast leavens it, 
but the links provided 'do' include lots of talk of a pre-ferment stage 
or souring the dough and how to include it.

They also use molds for shaping them....  I don't...yet anyway.

I tried using 'viince's' mix of .5% commercial yeast in my mix today and 
it worked out really well.  My first rise took 1.5 hours and the second, 
in the loaf stage about an hour.  I 'did' knead this batch for about 8 
minutes until it felt right. (won't fold anymore and pushes back eh)

I got my oven up to 500 and put a pan of boiling water in the bottom for 
the first 15 minutes.  The loaves took about 30 minutes I think, but I 
forgot to look, I just took them out when they looked done and tapped 
hollow.

I don't think I need to modify this recipe for next time, but we will 
see what my 'market' has to say about it when they get home at midnight 
or so.

The photos are in the featured album here:
http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

Mike