Almost every Wednesday (sometimes Thursdays) I pull ingredients from the kitchen cupboards, procure my baking stone and pizza peel from the closet pantry. And almost every Wednesday I get busy measuring, mixing, adding, mixing a bit more until what's in the bowl is ready for kneading.I didn't bake bread last week; our freezer was stocked with a couple loaves, and I was laid up with a week-long stomach virus. Coming off the gut-punched bug, I didn't feel like baking bread this week either...or doing much of anything actually--the bacterium expunged my innards along with my motivation to keep house.
By Monday our bread supply was depleted, so I was forced to uncurl myself from the couch and start baking. A churlish mood barraged my measuring and raided my mixing, but the blitzkrieg dissipated as I began to knead, folding my self-pity into the dough and allowing some perspective to illuminate the acrid haze.
Kneading was the perfect prescription to shake my funk; I've accomplished more in the last 2 days than all of last week combined. Perhaps I should move my bread-making task to Mondays.
Oh Orpah, a woman after my own heart. I love baking bread. It's a winter thing for me, and it's happened twice since I moved to Rock Island. My mum had a little cross stitch tapestry framed on top of her fridge that my Papa did for her (he took up stitchery in his retirement) It read:
ReplyDeleteMaking bread
Baking bread
Breaking bread
Being bread
I want it when she dies.
I like the title of your post!
ReplyDeleteI've come to appreciate the breaking of a real loaf of bread during communion each week. It's often challah or another soft bread. Sometimes our pastor has a tough time ripping off the right-size pieces. :)