Casting Bread

           My mother used to make bread.  By hand.  What I mean is that there was a period of time when she did this.  I don’t remember a lot about it—a very large metal bowl, the bread rising, my mother kneading it.  The pictures in my head are hazy.  Except for the ones having to do with taking lunch to school.  Sandwiches made on my mom’s homemade bread lacked a certain civilized integrity. In other words, it could be embarrassing to eat them in public because you had to do it in chunks.

            So when I grew up and got married and had kids, I home schooled, thus, when the granola urge hit me, too, and I decided to start making my own bread, nobody’s self esteem was going to crumble.  I bought a big metal bowl.  I figured out the yeast, kneaded the spongy dough, formed the sticky loaves and set the pans in the oven to cook.  And my house smelled like heaven, too.

            When my brother came up here to go to school, he showed up at my house one day, announcing that some earnest young co-ed had brought him a loaf of homemade bread.  I gleefully tied an apron around that kid’s waist and announced that he was about to get a lesson in just how much of a gift that girl had given him.  He turned out to be a great kneader—better than I was, cause he was taller and could get a better angle on it.  To my grave disappointment, he really seemed to enjoy the process.

            After a while, like maybe when I had three kids under the age of four, I started to long for a nice, powerful Bosch bread maker.  And darned if my man didn’t get me one.  Remember O Henry?  Well, we used to have a nice cherry sunburst Les Paul.  Then we had a Bosch.

            Eventually, I gave up the bread business in favor of lots of kids and a studio and writing and things like that.  And for years we ate nothing but imitation cool bread (thank you Granny’s seven grain).

            Then one day, I was at a meeting of the Mormon Arts Foundation Retreat Committee (impressed?) at my friend, James’ house.  Château.  Bet you didn’t know they had Châteaus in Orem, did ya?  I couldn’t help but notice the seventeen foot dining room table he had sitting in his voluminous timbered living area, and he explained that they did not actually play hockey on it, but rather, that they loved to invite EVERYONE they know for Sunday dinner (kids, kids’ roommates, friends, romantic interests, cousins, whatever) and that he made soup and bread in the winter and barbecued things in the summer, and it sounded so idyllic when I reported this to G, that he swore he would do as James had done and always invite everybody and make bread and it would be wonderful.

            I have bargained it down to inviting the kids, and once in a while other people (if the house is cleaned up two weeks in advance and there are no small children involved.  Yeah.  That’s me.  Party down).  And the making of the bread?  That took  That really took.

And here is a loaf nestled amongst the bounty brought in by neighbors.  This is what we mean by “abundance.”

            It’s been years now, and we’ve been through several bread machines, looking for the right one (which at the moment is the Breadman Ultimate Plus, a horizontal loaf).  I made bread.  But when it takes you hours and hours of hard physical labor, it’s not like you’re going to get fancy with the spices.  Not when you’ve got a child clinging to each ankle and one on your back.

            But my husband, the artist, is a free man.  And our lazy Susan is overflowing with dough enhancers and grain combinations and I don’t know what all—not only is he creative, but scientific, and he’s always tweaking this or that bit, in search of the perfect darn loaf.

This shot came from the second round of photos—I’d finally figured out that I had to step down about half a stop on my exposures so that things would come out looking real instead of neon.

            He is now famous in the ward.  Wherever there is sickness or sorrow – if you are new and blinking or old and beloved – you will eventually end up with a loaf of G’s bread, wrapped in a professional bread sack (my Christmas gift to him – who knew they’d actually sell me some at Sam’s club?), tied up in hemp twine, and probably warm out of the oven.  This is even what we give the neighbors at Christmas, now.  Sometimes with a bottle of jam (purchased – my contribution).

The genius in his element.

            But we live in that kind of neighborhood. In the summer, we are gifted with tomatoes and cucumbers and grapes, at Christmas by breads and handmade candy – at all times by pumpkin bread or banana bread or cookies or cakes.  Yeah.  And why would we ever want to move?

Remember the HUGE tomato on the vine?  Well, it survived to fulfill the measure of its creation.  Yum.

            So here is G’s recipe for the so-far closest to perfect bread, for your pleasure and edification: