bread

My mom was a bread baker.

So was my step-dad. His family owned a bakery.

So it is natural that I am a baker too.

Besides, I worked in a bakery when I was in high school.

“Life is too short to eat factory-baked bread.” Doris Janzen Longacre, author of “More with Less Cookbook” once offered. I didn’t know the lady, but I’ve always felt a close kinship.

Bread was once referred to as the “staff of life.” Not sure how long one would survive on a diet of “factory-baked” bread, but the real stuff is pretty good.

Mill the flour, mix the dough with just the tight amount of molasses, salt, yeast maybe some seeds or nuts, raisins or cinnamon. Formulas have huge differences, yet all include the basics.

Mix it, kneed it, proof it, divide it, proof it again and bake it. That is pretty much the way it has been done for hundreds of years.

Much of our married life I have made bread, sometimes in good sized batches. My step-dad would tell of making bread in their family bakery by hand, in 25 loaf batches. Now I make three loaves at a time, and use Miriam's trusty Kitchen Aid mixer for most of the hard work.

Even with the Kitchen Aid, I usually finish by hand kneading. Kneading bread gives one a special relationship with bread.

In my life, it really is the stuff of life.