It is week 5 already!

I’ll be honest, I sort of thought that by this stage in the game I’d have nailed a good-looking, good-tasting bread with a method that worked every time. Well well well. That has not been the case.

Every week is an adventure in learning it seems. And I haven’t yet cracked the code of consistency. C’est la vie. This is the whole reason why I chose this challenge. And A- did kindly remind me that each of the loaves has tasted distinct, different and thus interesting. We have eaten every one, and saved the ends for croutons/bread crumbs. (I’ve got a bag stashed in the freezer now.)

We are at the beach this week, in Andalucia. It is glorious and warm and sunny. To fit a loaf into this week, I baked before we left, making a dough late last Wednesday, before shaping and baking on Thursday. I was book editing both days and getting up to turn and shape the dough was a welcome relief from being so heavily tied to my desk.

So I haven’t cracked the loaf code yet but what have I enjoyed so far?

I love watching the transformations of the dough as it goes from flour and water to shaggy mess to shape-able dough. When I use different flour, the dough feels different, and reacts differently against my hand as I pull, stretch, lengthen and then fold. I love watching the changing colours too – cream, grey, beige, ochre, eventually tinges of black on the edges of the baked loaf.

Most of all, I love making time for this process in my schedule. I know I am lucky because I have a flexible enough research job that allows me to work from home some of the time, but even making time on the weekend is satisfying. I am sure I will feel differently in a few weeks, when I am traveling again for work and weekends become a sacred and necessary time to do very little, but until then I am enjoying the routine of bread making.

This project is also making me think about bread, a lot. While I’ve been in Andalucia this week, I’ve been pondering the relationship between the people I’ve been with and bread. Bread is a key feature of each meal. If there is no bread on the table when we sit down, someone will cry pan! and leap up to retrieve the stash from the kitchen. But the bread all seems to be industrially produced – even if it comes from a small shop, it is that frozen and baked-on-site variety. It makes such a contrast to all the other carefully produced foods that we eat when we are here. I’ll have to ask more questions about this, and read some more to find out…