Everybody Has A Story: Bread-baking foray binds family together

My first bread-baking attempt turned out so spectacular I earned the honor to lecture at La Boulangerie, a French bakery. In my dreams, that is.

Like a cruel clich?, my first home-baked loaves of bread resembled patio paving stones that even dog slobber couldn’t soften. I decided that if I could pass organic chemistry, I could master bread-baking — and tackled it like a science project.

Basic ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar or honey, oil.

Directions: mix, knead, shape, raise, bake.

My goal: serve fashion-perfect, delectable loaves of bread to the family.

Virtuosity doesn’t come from part-time practice. I announced to the family that for the coming year I would make every bread product we ate. With hot bread coming from the oven, consumption increased, especially when friends realized we shared the bounty with whomever visited. Bread-baking became a five-days-a-week obligation.

I found a soothing rhythm to kneading dough, the fragrance earthy like fresh-dug root vegetables and farm-pressed apple juice. With a wheat grinder, I ground grain like the Little Red Hen.

Our seven children clamored for lumps of dough to make their own mini-loaves each time. A visitor stood slack-jawed seeing the vigorous process a 6-year-old employed to shape his loaf, which involved his elbows as well as his hands.

From wheat, I branched out to other grains: oats, rye, triticale, spelt, barley. I attempted to grow an “original” sourdough start. I read that an open bowl containing flour and water could attract passing yeast particles. After a few days, my bowl held growth! The contents of the bowl weren’t creamy white and bubbly with a pleasant aroma, but green and foul-smelling.

I added more flour and remained hopeful. I ended up with a vat of foul froth. I flushed it down, labeling it “septic tank conditioner.”

With practice, my bread turned edible, even tasty. Appearance-wise, the bread achieved less success. Lumpy loaves looked as though they’d survived a drive-by mugging.

The time commitment for mixing, rising and baking could prove challenging. “Children cannot live by bread alone.” In summer, they needed bandages after they fell off their bikes. I had to investigate when they bounded into the house announcing that they’d discovered the perfect clubhouse in the woods with seating for two: a two-seater outhouse. And the surefire distraction — the bookmobile was in town!

After these forays, I’d return to the kitchen and find bread dough spilling over the top of a bowl, creeping across the counter and oozing into the silverware drawer. Bread in the oven wore a black crust not relished by guests but celebrated by barnyard chickens.

One afternoon, I lifted the “perfect” loaf from the oven — so perfect no one wanted to slice it up. I thought about applying varnish and hanging it on the wall as decoration. In time, the loaf turned stale and I made it into stuffing.

After the year ended, the family gave a sigh — no longer honor-bound to eat only what I baked. But I continued the quest to explore bread. I visited wheat fields where deep, green spikes reached skyward, paled, then turned golden. But with possible floods and droughts, late-summer rains laced with hail and the risk of disease and infestation — I marveled that any wheat crop survived.

At a grain elevator, I drove my car into line with semi-trucks and purchased a 50-pound sack of wheat. The back end of the car sagged when the clerk dumped it into my trunk. I visited a flour mill where sacks of flour were shrink-wrapped, piled on pallets and loaded on railroad cars. The flour master explained that Durum wheat from Montana made noodles, soft spring wheat made cakes and cookies, and hard red winter wheat turned out fine breads.

I never did develop a scientific formula for the finest home-baked bread or an artistic gift for the consistently appealing loaf. I do have “dough-sensitive” fingers and a sense of proportion that can turn out an edible loaf. But more than the science of bread-making came the art of family living.

This week I’m assembling ingredients for Grandma’s Cooking Club. When the grandchildren visit, they join me in “cooking adventures” and we take turns choosing a theme. The last gathering centered on homemade pasta, which we turned into lasagna, spaghetti, ravioli and egg noodles. This week it will be bread and we have a list: butter-topped white, seven-grain wheat, Scandinavian rye with orange zest, calzones with a pizza-flavor filling, sourdough cinnamon buns.

Sometimes our lists are too ambitious and we bake brownies instead.

Bon Appétit!

Everybody has a Story welcomes nonfiction contributions, 1,000 words maximum, and relevant photographs. Email is the best way to send materials so we don’t have to retype your words or borrow original photos. Send to: neighbors@columbian.com or P.O. Box 180, Vancouver WA, 98666. Call “Everybody Has an Editor” Scott Hewitt, 360-735-4525, with questions.