It’s said that if we tell our story over and over again, the story would have less power over us. And so I tell my story. I tell my story to friends. I tell my story to colleagues. And to neighbours.
I tell my story to bread.
Maybe it’s that I’m consumed by Lauren Berlant‘s writings and her thoughts on intimacy lately, but I knead my dough and face the contradictions of intimacy. “I didn’t think it would turn out this way.” This is the secret commemoration on intimacy. Berlant alludes to the history behind intimacy as a public mode of identification and self-development, and that the constant energy of public self-protectiveness can be sublimated into personal relations of passion, care, and good intention. There are good reasons for this aspiration Berlant says.
She says domestic privacy can feel like a controllable space of potential unconflictedness.
But intimacy only rarely makes sense of things. Intimacy is the zone where contradictions meet. I knead my dough. And I tell it my story.
I knead my dough and I tell it my story. Water, flour, and Salt. Making bread is more than just oven temperature and kneading. Making bread is about listening to your dough. It’s about poking it. Feeling its texture. It’s about letting it rest. Yeast, flour, water, and salt. Making bread is about moving with the rhythm of the dough. So I knead and I feel the dough under my hand. Smooth texture. That’s good. I knead and I tell this dough my story.
The bread at San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery sells out within an hour almost every day. Chad says that his strongest inspiration for being a baker came not from real bread but from images of bread. Images of a time and place when bread was the foundation of a meal and at the centre of daily life.
Thus he began his search for a certain loaf with an old soul. Bread is intimate. It’s also about managing fermentation. Chad starts our bread making journey with a basic country bread that uses active live yeast. Yes. A vigorous starter. We learn about managing wild yeasts and bacteria.
Developing a starter begins with making culture. I’ve attempted to make my own starter several times now. Each to no avail. First I broke the unspoken rule and named my starter before it had passed its maturation period. Then I failed at maintaining it consistently. Now I just look at it and wonder if it’s going to turn into some sort of monsterosity. I eye it cautiously and work it into the dough.
Yes, I knead my dough and I think about intimacy and I tell it my story. I was a heavy heart to carry. I reach for red lipstick. Well, red-lipsed you can face anything, no? I reached for red lipstick hoping this dough would rest and rise and make a loaf of bread filled with little wholes of intimacy. I reached for red lipstick but then grabbed One Bloody Thing After Another. Ann and her sister Margaret don’t have much of a choice but to feed their mother (she won’t eat anything that’s already dead). It’s not easy. But then it’s family. It’s not supposed to be easy.
I eye my yeast. It needs to be fed everyday too. I worry it’s not going to make it like the other starters I attempted. Red-lipsed or not, I worry that this living organism on my counter might actually turn into something more than I can handle. But then again, when it comes to matters of intimacy, it’s not supposed to be easy, right? I knead my dough.
One Bloody Thing After Another was heartwarming and beautiful. With a mixture of humour and horror, short and powerful sentences simply made me want to hug someone. That’s why I’ve put it on top of my Tartine Bread book.
I read One Bloody Thing After Another and I knew I was going to be okay. Just not today. Today I wear red lipstick and I knead dough.
I read One Bloody Thing After Another though and I think: if there ever was a feel good book, this just might be mine. Intimacy is a complicated thing. It shapes the narrative we want to have for our life and it disrupts that narrative just as easily. I let this dough rest on my counter. I try not to make eye contact with the starter. Even red-lipsed I can’t handle losing another starter again.
Even red-lipsed I can’t.
Photo credit: Flickr: Scrambldmeggs
To make starter
(recipe from Tartine Bread)
Mix 5 pounds of bread flour — half white and half whole wheat flour. Fill a small, clear bowl halfway with lukewarm water. Add a handful of the 50/50 flour blend to the water and mix with your hands to achieve the consistency of a thick batter with no lumps.
Use a dough spatula to clean the clumps off your hands and tidy the inside of the bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and place in a cool, shaded spot for 2 to 3 days.
Check to see if any bubbles have formed around the sides and on the surface.
To feed the culture, discard about 80 perfect of it, and replace with equal amounts of water and flour blend. Repeat this process everyday. The starter needs to be fed once a day. Everyday.
The book says that training your starter is a forgiving process. It says: don’t worry if you forget to feed the starter one day; just make sure to feed it the next. The only way to mess up a starter is to neglect it for too long or subject it to extreme temperatures. That’s what the book says.
I disagree.
I’ve messed up my starter every time I’ve attempted it. Where is that red lipstick? Or a glass of scotch? Single Malt. I need to tend to this starter. Oh god, I hope it doesn’t die.
Side note:
I’ve told my story over and over again. I’ve told my story to friends. And I’ve told my story to bread.
I make bread and I eye my starter. I think about One Bloody Thing After Another and I hope my starter won’t become a monster. I also realize that I’m going to be okay. Sometimes you got to lose love to find love.
I’m happy I’ve found bread.
