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03 May 2004 - The Knead to Be a Domestic Goddess One afternoon, not too long ago I was bragging to my mother (who undoubtedly lectured me many times on how it is not nice to brag) about how I'd made bread that weekend for S. and I. How I'd made it from "scratch" and how great it tasted and how wonderful it had been to have the smell of freshly baked bread wafting out of my kitchen on a Sunday afternoon as I sat and drank a cup of tea on the sofa. I patted myself on the back and felt myself the truest of true Domestic Goddesses as she nodded and smiled and congratulated me. After a few minutes of silence which signaled the completion of my rather immodest behaviour, my mother asked if I'd ever baked bread without a bread maker. She mused aloud about how it feels, rising against your hands and how it smells and tastes different when you proof the yeast yourself. She remembered how her own mother had baked bread in their kitchen oh-so-many-years-ago and how she, as a small child had marveled at how it somehow rose in the covered, magical bowl that rested in the warmest spot in the kitchen, next to the stove. She recalled how bread dough, rendered elastic via the process of kneading by hand tasted better, different, more "real" than dough that had been kneaded by a tiny turn-knob at the bottom of a dough pan in a bread machine. Pouting, I stammered some worthless excuses about how I didn't have the time, that I was always too tired, that my wrists were always too achy to knead dough. I spoke of the wonder of the bread machine and reminded her that she herself owned one and used it regularly. I even went so far as to claim that my bread tasted just as good because I don't ever cook it in the bread maker. At this she nodded. Yes, a bread maker is a time-, fatigue-and wrist-saver. Yes, she owns one and uses it. Yes, they are wonderful inventions...but, the question still remained unanswered: Had I baked bread without one? I changed the subject. She knew the answer anyway; why else would I have brought the bread maker home from the cottage at the end of last summer if I had? Why would I praise this invention if I had either the ability or the inclination to bake bread -- god forbid -- without it??? Yesterday I decided to do it. To put aside man-made technology, as wondrous as it might be, and bake bread. I opted for Bagels (yes, I've done them before -- but these were puffy, yeast-risen, deliciously yummy, hand-made, professional-bakery- tasting-and-yummy-looking bagels) and turned, oddly enough to Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess (of course I own it!) cookbook for inspiration. Fresh
and hot out of the oven, with some of S.'s mom's homemade labneh
(a Middle Eastern Yogurt preparation) spread on it, it was
as close to heaven as you can get on a very sleepy, lazy, chilly
Sunday afternoon.
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