Staff Of Life

Bread is the staff of life  for those of us in certain parts of the world. Other parts choose rice or beans. These days of no gluten, no carbs, no whatever the latest allergy is, there is always bread flour that is friendly even to those needs. Nothing is so therapeutic as bread-making. It has all of the important things in life. It has seen sun and rain in the grain, and air in the drying. Bread making is so easy that I don't see why anyone buys it. Making it, is even easier if you have a mixer. The best investment, and it is expensive enough to be called that, is a good solid mixer with a reliable brand name. Since I got my mixer, not a processor, I think nothing of tossing in the ingredients for all sorts of kitchen goodies and watching the mixer do the work. Bread can be rising in only about twenty minutes. Jealously, however, I save the kneading of the bread dough for myself. My favorite dough is plain and made by putting in two cups of warm water, including a half cup of milk, a couple of big spoons each of butter and sugar, an egg, 2 packs of yeast, dash of salt and adding flour gradually as I watch it mix. Round and round she goes, until the dough no longer sticks to the side of the bowl and it begins making babies. Little rounds of dough form beside the big mama piece and then blend in when she calls them back. Usually the bowl likes about six cups of flour but I'd rather go by how the dough feels. It should be kind of shiny and won't stick to your fingers or the side of the bowl. You'll get to know. The dough will teach you. Dough made with yeast is a living thing. When you stop the mixer and put it in a bowl in a nice, evenly warm place, you'll see it rise.  Hey, you can grow things! If you want to get fancy, you can try different kinds of flour or add bits to it such as seeds, nuts or grains and certainly herbs or spices. These can go either into the mixer or during the kneading. It's the creative part. When the dough has grown to twice its size, the real fun is ahead. You have your pans or metal baking sheets ready to one side, and  the wooden or bamboo or marble boards flour-dusted. The dough blob goes on and you and the dough get to know each other. If you are a plastic bubble popper, you're going to enjoy hearing the pop of the air bubbles that you knead out. That's when memory and meditation begin. The smell of the dough, the feel of it, the kneading sends you to places you have long forgotten. I see my grandmother on the farm, mixing the rye bread in a huge tub.Never did she buy store bread or white sugar. Her freckled arms are buttered and glistening, her red waves bounce as she bends over the tub. She works harder than any woman I have ever known, and has shelves of canned garden produce to show for it.  She has eight children. She has no electricity or tap water but she knows that what she makes is the staff of life for her family -  and she smiles. When your bread bakes, the smell is life-giving magic. Bread. It's worth the making.