A woman doesn’t “wah-lah” bake bread. There are steps. There are details. There is time, and a little wishful thinking, too. She trusts her fingers to know the water is the right warmth to resurrect the yeast; too cool and nothing happens, too hot and she kills it. She hopes it isn’t already dead, which it can be. She can’t tell from looking or smelling, only by giving it a try.
She adds sugar to feed the hungry wee-beasties and the bubbles rising tell her they are alive, so she proceeds to add salt to tame their exuberant reproduction. A little oil; no, not necessary, but most things are better with it.
At first the flour merely disappears into the wetness; a casual observer could mistake the mixture for Bisquick or cake batter. But this woman knows that no adding of flour to those mixtures would ever result in the magic she sees when from her coaxing of these simple ingredients there emerges form, announcing its “breadness.”
She forsakes the spoon, removes her rings, flours her hands, and plunges in, though carefully, respectfully. Measuring is pointless; she adds flour a little at a time. When just enough has been incorporated in so the dough is no longer sticky, she kneads in earnest, swiftly, boldly. The mass responds to hands that know, that have felt what needs to be felt. It grows, swells, is alive, yet complies even as it is punched and pulled and turned.
Then, she covers it, walks away. Like a farmer, she waits on time and weather and invisible processes. The dough rises as it will; sometimes slower than she wants; sometimes faster; possibly not at all. But she’s taken the steps, done the work and is on her way to filling her home with the aroma of a temporary goodness. The browned loaves are offered to her family, perhaps unknowingly, but not incidentally, as a metaphor for what we really need, all we really need for life.
