Fear No Bread

It’s pretty obvious it’s been a long time since I’ve said anything here. In that time I watched imagination skip away with that youth and vigor and all those things old people reminisce and write about. Yep. Maybe it doesn’t leave with age but just needs to be actively pursued which I have neglected to do. Whatever the deal, in my mature mind, I have decided a new outlet that involves creativity and a lot of patience and maybe I’ll learn something too.
My mid-year's resolution is to do things I’m afraid of doing or think I am incapable of doing. The idea sprang from my mental block on baking bread. I don’t bake. I can cook pretty well, but I can’t even mix Jiffy to make cornbread. It’s hereditary; my mom rarely bakes and when she does its cake breads, which doesn't count. My sisters can’t bake either; they're excellent cooks, which is another story. They’ll deny they can’t bake bread but in my book using a Bread Machine doesn’t count. I’m talking about those crazy three day rise, cook in a wood fire using elvish cedar, bread. I’m not entirely sure of what I am talking about at the moment but I hope to figure this all out.

This evening I began my journey to Fear no bread.

To my astonishment basic bread only consists of five ingredients. Water, flour, sugar, salt and yeast the last being that magical object to me. Yeast is the most mysterious of all cooking chemistries. Not that I don’t understand its biological function, it’s just that it works for everyone but me. Rather than go into my failures of bread making, which I think was only one instance in Home Ech class in Jr. High, it was hard as a rock hard, “this is boring”, *poof* bread ambitions gone, bread. So, it’s pretty obvious now that most of my fear of bread is in my head, no worries, some people have a fear of sharks, I’ve got it easy so far.

This evening I started to make bread. I walked to the store to pick up some yeast. The shopping started off pretty rough. I had to call my husband to ask him where the supermarket kept their yeast. I wasn’t discouraged, though pretty funny, this is the first phase, I thought to myself, “make yeast work” IN flour. So I’m going to listen to my Cat Stevens and bake bread for a while and I’ll write about my triumphs and failures.

…Several hours later.

I read on a website that you can use that plastic blade in my food processor to mix and knead the dough. I tried it. At this very moment I am waiting for my bread to rise! It’s in the oven. I thought it would be a good spot since Mike is making spaghetti sauce, comfy warm. It’s totally rising… I shouldn’t jinx it; I mean it has so much more to do! So I won’t mention it.
...more hours later the bread did rise and I punched it and it felt gooood.
I'm making french bread now, remember before I was making yeast work. Low and behold Pavarotti is on the television during the roll out. I start to think this is a good sign because I started thinking about my grandma, which always helps the cooking, and it always makes me cry when I hear Tosca, and there was the dough all rested on a dusting of flour and Pavarotti belting it out and suddenly things felt okay to be making bread. The wine bottle isn't a as cheesy as it looks, it's our rolling pin.
..an other half our later. the bread is in the oven. 'm feeling pretty good about this now, because I've managed to make the dough rise three times, or two depending on if you count the resting at the beginning. One of my inspirations for this was A Year in Bread I haven't read the whole blog, and who needs to when there's all that free bread porn. (the kitchen is starting to smell good) Mike and I have some really beautiful LeCreuset that I'll use for my next bread. No knead bread And then. My friend has a sourdough starter her and her neighbor have been tending to which she said she'd get me into.

Just to mention the other fears and mental blocks, and stuff I’ll be doing besides bread.
Microcontrollers/electronic programming
Scuba diving
Sky diving
Chin-ups/ aka Pull Ups
And things I am “trying”
Telemark Skiing
sewing
running