Tipping Point

This was a big week for Sierra and I. We made fresh bread, by hand, from scratch - and it came out good.

Baking bread is one of those things I've been meaning to do for a long time, but I always managed to talk myself out of. I convinced myself it was going to be too much of a project; too long, too messy. When I finally made a decision to go for it, the significance of the occasion registered from the beginning: If my first experience was a good one, it would undoubtedly lead to a lifetime of homemade bread making. On the other hand, if this first experience went terribly, it could mean we were doomed to, primarily, the take-and-bake and industrially baked supermarket options - nothing to get excited about.

When I started to combine the ingredients for "the sponge", which is basically the foundation of the bread (in this case; water, yeast, honey, and a little flour), I made 3 of them. In other words, I was hedging myself, fully expecting things to go wrong. And at first I was right: The yeast was supposed to get frothy but the first two didn't. Luckily the 3rd try was salvageable.

I won't go into all the details of the process, but I will say this: The smell of baking bread is enough to make the time and effort worthwhile. And the fact that the first try actually tasted like bread too; it was a nice moment. It felt like the tipping point for me. I'll be surprised if I ever eat another slice of Wonderbread again.