reclaiming my bread baking chops...

I am baking bread today. I gave it a shot yesterday, too but the second rising did not work out. They were tasty, but more like cement than the staff of life. I'll be adding adequate unbleached flour today and giving the rising as much time as it needs. This is, after all, an exercise in patience and beauty, right?

When I was five, I loved spending time with my Grandma Nick making fresh yeasted rolls. There was nothing better than preparing the dough standing by her side on a stool, swapping stories during the baking, smelling the goodness just before they popped out of the oven. And then, slathering them with butter, we laughed like holy fools and devoured as many as we shared. For a few golden years, we were kitchen conspirators of earthly delights. 

One of my favorite bread books, One Loaf by Joy Mead, contains this poem:

Because bread won't be hurfied
we have to learn to let it be,
to do nothing, to be patient,
to wait for the proving.
Because bread won't be hurried
and is a life and death process,
we find out in its making
that time in not a line
but a cycle of ends and beginnings
rhythms and seasons,
growth and death,
celebration and mourning,
work and rest,
eating and fasting,
because bread won't be hurried.

In a pyramid in Egypt
a few grains of wheat
lay surrounded by death 
- dormant for thousands of years.
They waited quietly
until the time was right,
until the life impulse
was awakened by the good earth,
warmed by the sun
and ready to dance
in the bread of tomorrow.

There's no way my bread could be as heavenly as hers. Last night I realized that I have not given much time to baking in 30+ years. There was a time when my daughters were small that baking became a family ritual - all types of fresh bread - from yeasted whole wheat loaves to Irish Soda Bread or Navajo fry bread. As St. Joni used to sing, "there's something's lost but something's gained in living every day" and my bread was lost as other blessings arrived. But now I want to get back my bread baking chops. Mostly because I am smitten by the smell, but also because bread is something I can share with those I love. 

Another treasure from my shrinking personal library, Feasting with God by Holly W. Whitcomb, puts it like this:

Through the ritual of a shared meal, hospitality is extended and acquaintances become friends and companions. The word companion comes from the Latin: cum, meaning "with,"and panis, meaning "bread." Our companions are those with whom we share meals... and break bread... In his book, Sacramental Magic in a Small Town Cafe, Brother Peter Reinhart reminds us that 'each of us unknowingly years for a communion experience every time we eat." The word sacrament itself is derived from root words means "mystery" and "sacred feast." Sharing food is one of life's most primal and bonding experiences - and eating together creates community.

Besides making music, playing with my grandchildren, walking in the woods with Di, and celebrating Eucharist, it is the sharing of fresh bread at family meals that brings me the deepest joy and hope for the journey. "Because bread is the very opposite of fast food," writes Donna Sinclair in The Spirituality of Bread, " it demands peace."

You cannot grow grain in a battlefield. Bread also demands justice; cheap bread that results from the loss of the family farm is too bitter to eat... Nothing is easy... in a postmodern age when we question all our assumptions and struggle with climate change and belligerent politicians, the commonwealth of peace seems far away. But making bread gives us meaning. And that, above all, is why bread baking is a spiritual task. It helps us trust that the world will survive, that we are loved, and that the kitchen where we work is holy ground.

I have started rereading these three treasured books (and also a biography of Rumi, too.) I am returning to my bread-baking roots. And I am recommitting my heart to the practice of gathering simple, wholesome ingredients, combining them in time-tested and traditional ways, and trusting that the waiting will bring a small measure of joy. (The sponge is now rising - and I couldn't resist adding this tune to the mix.)