There are two kinds of baking - the precise kind where you 'play as written,' you follow the directions, every jot and tittle, and you get an exact result. That's how I make pie crusts. I use Chez Panisse's precise recipe and when I do, I can be confident. The crusts are always outstanding.
Then there's the other kind of baking, the kind I am doing today. Because today is bread-baking day. Today's looking through the kitchen to see what grains are in the bins and checking the honey supplies, choosing either buckwheat or the orange blossom. I'm feeling like oats today so they'll be in the mix, but I think I'll leave out the molasses-- too dark for oat bread. The things I choose will affect the bread but so will other factors like this exceptionally cold dry air. I am pretty confident the bread will be splendid - because I have been doing this for decades -- but that still leaves room for flukey failure. Maybe there's a factor I am not registering. Maybe my attention will slip and I'll add the salt too soon. Unlikely but not impossible, because I am still learning bread-baking. Forty years into it and still learning.
Just this last year I discovered the "do-nothing" stage in the process. Mid-mixing - when the most of the flour was in, but the dough was still sticky and raw, I was called away from the kitchen. The boys from next door were in the yard wanting to share their current exploits - catching bugs and doing well in school and growing taller. By the time they were done with their stories I'd been away from the dough for maybe 20 minutes. And while I was gone ---
something great happened. I reconstructed what that probably was, after the fact. While I was not pounding that dough, while it just sat there, while I did nothing, the flour did something. It absorbed more of the liquid ingredients, becoming less sticky. As a result I needed to add less flour to get a dough I could knead easily. Less flour meant more air in the dough as it rose, meant a lighter loaf. I liked it. In my bread baking practice the "do nothing stage" became important. Walk away. Put on an old Crosby Stills and Nash record, dust the stairs, check out one of the zillion art books we have accumulated over the years. Meditate. Whatever I do with those twenty minutes, I get a better loaf.
Right now I need the "do nothing" stage for a couple things in my life. The Book has been prominent in every day and most nights of my life since it went up on Amazon. I have researched what I should do to "get more sales." I have ridden the high of Amazon rankings and despaired as it slid down the list of most purchased. I have tried to figure out if it fits a niche - and if so - which one. I have felt like a success and a failure and I have tried to work very hard, very fast to learn things I could not possibly already know. Some people think a new cover would enhance the book. There are a zillion ideas. Who do I listen to? What's the "next step?" It's exhausting. And the opposite of creative. Today I am embracing the do-nothing stage in this process. I'm walking away and picking up my uke and going to yoga and doing some laundry. We will see if anything happens.
Then there's the other kind of baking, the kind I am doing today. Because today is bread-baking day. Today's looking through the kitchen to see what grains are in the bins and checking the honey supplies, choosing either buckwheat or the orange blossom. I'm feeling like oats today so they'll be in the mix, but I think I'll leave out the molasses-- too dark for oat bread. The things I choose will affect the bread but so will other factors like this exceptionally cold dry air. I am pretty confident the bread will be splendid - because I have been doing this for decades -- but that still leaves room for flukey failure. Maybe there's a factor I am not registering. Maybe my attention will slip and I'll add the salt too soon. Unlikely but not impossible, because I am still learning bread-baking. Forty years into it and still learning.
Just this last year I discovered the "do-nothing" stage in the process. Mid-mixing - when the most of the flour was in, but the dough was still sticky and raw, I was called away from the kitchen. The boys from next door were in the yard wanting to share their current exploits - catching bugs and doing well in school and growing taller. By the time they were done with their stories I'd been away from the dough for maybe 20 minutes. And while I was gone ---
something great happened. I reconstructed what that probably was, after the fact. While I was not pounding that dough, while it just sat there, while I did nothing, the flour did something. It absorbed more of the liquid ingredients, becoming less sticky. As a result I needed to add less flour to get a dough I could knead easily. Less flour meant more air in the dough as it rose, meant a lighter loaf. I liked it. In my bread baking practice the "do nothing stage" became important. Walk away. Put on an old Crosby Stills and Nash record, dust the stairs, check out one of the zillion art books we have accumulated over the years. Meditate. Whatever I do with those twenty minutes, I get a better loaf.
Right now I need the "do nothing" stage for a couple things in my life. The Book has been prominent in every day and most nights of my life since it went up on Amazon. I have researched what I should do to "get more sales." I have ridden the high of Amazon rankings and despaired as it slid down the list of most purchased. I have tried to figure out if it fits a niche - and if so - which one. I have felt like a success and a failure and I have tried to work very hard, very fast to learn things I could not possibly already know. Some people think a new cover would enhance the book. There are a zillion ideas. Who do I listen to? What's the "next step?" It's exhausting. And the opposite of creative. Today I am embracing the do-nothing stage in this process. I'm walking away and picking up my uke and going to yoga and doing some laundry. We will see if anything happens.