A Season of Bread
Saving myself one loaf at a time
It’s February, the month of gloom. The raw and wretched winter of the soul that eats your dearest wishes for breakfast and spits them out like black ice just before bed. My birthday is in February, as is Saint Valentine’s Day, but none of that helps. Birthdays are always a disappointment and Valentine’s Day just makes me think of massacres and Al Capone. There’s something in my chest. It’s sadness, maybe, or bronchitis. I’m not sure, but there it sits, day after day, like some cranky crouched creature, a burr on the inside. It demands my attention and slows me down.
Much has been made of the therapeutic benefits of bread making. I’ve used the kitchen to quiet the demons—sweet tarts and custards, garlicky things roasting in the oven, steaming pots on the stove. Once, I made a grand chocolate layered cake with a silky ganache late at night because it quite simply felt like the only way I might make it to sunrise. I survived and the cake was delicious, so I support kitchen therapy.
Bread, however, is largely uncharted territory for me. I know my way around the easy stuff — corn bread, lemon loaves and cranberry breads, blueberry-studded muffins and currant-flecked scones. It’s that magic equation of yeast, time, temperature, and muscle that intimidates me. Aside from the odd pizza crust, I am a babe in the real…
