The other day in my Yoga class, we were talking about lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance. After hearing the sad stories of my friends who suffer from either (or in one case, both) of these dietary ailments, I must admit I am SO GRATEFUL that I can eat both dairy and bread.
But really, more the bread, to tell the truth. Bread. BRRREEEAAAAAD…
I so love bread. White, brown, pumpernickel, multigrain, flax, cinnamon-raisin, crusty, pita – you name a kind of bread, and I'm guaranteed to not only like but looooove it. I buy at least three different kinds of bread each week while grocery shopping, and I often bake my own bread, experimenting with different flours, grains and other ingredients.
I don't have a breadmaker (gave it away a few years ago) because I relish the feeling of the warm, soft, elastic dough in my hands. I once read in an old cookbook of my Mom's (I think it was Edna Staebler's Food That Really Schmecks) that kneading bread dough is therapeutic – and it really is. The more you knead, punch and pound the dough, the better your bread will be. I think the daily breadmaking routine must be how our foremothers survived being essentially housebound in tiny, drafty log cabins and sod shacks back in pioneer times. They could take out all their frustrations on the bread dough – the pain and fear and heartache of bearing and raising 11 children (and losing some of them), waking up before dawn to milk cows and goats, feeding chickens, darning, mending, knitting and generally slaving away in the cold.
But even in my warm, secure life full of modern conveniences and text messages and email and google, I still have my fears and insecurities and sadness and frustration (I am a mother, after all). And baking bread (warm, yeasty, glutinous bread) is like a balm to my soul.
Soul food. Daily Bread. Mmmmmm…
I can’t say that I have a love of baking bread but eating it, especially with some fine cheese, is my therapy 😉