I love the smell of baker's yeast. There is something so comforting, so welcoming about it; not to mention the fact that it's a harbinger of good eats to come soon. When I used to have a bit more time on my hands, my Sunday morning ritual was to bake a challah, and while the dough was rising, I would leisurely do various chores about the house, basking in the delicious scent that comes with that type of bread. Times change, of course, and though I know in my heart that I can squeeze the time in to bake a loaf or two every once in a while, I haven't for such a long time. I'm too busy, to tired, to stressed, it's too late.... The excuses come so easily, and my willpower slips away even easier. Now, my chores are done at a breakneck pace, twenty minutes every day, with more substantial time spent on saturday mornings, in between putting laundry into the machine and rushing off to do my weekly grocery trip as soon as the Trader Joe's opens, in order to beat the weekend crowds. Sure, I get more done when I'm not kneading dough, or endlessly peeking at my work in progress, wondering if it's time to punch it down, if it's time to put it in the oven, if it's going to burn on top, and perhaps should I put some foil on it.... I tell myself that if I wanted a loaf of bread, I am lucky to have quite a good bakery in town, where the loafs--made fresh every morning by an elderly Frenchman-- are much better than my own. No matter how good the bread is, however, it doesn't give my apartment that wonderful smell that can only come with lots of yeast, doing what it does best.
Tonight, I came home from a long day at the library, shaking my head at the fact that I am really quite lucky in having the opportunity to do what I do, and yet wondering if I was wasting my life by spending my Friday nights alone with my books. And I was exhausted; both physically and mentally drained. From what? I sat at a desk, putting together a reading list for one of my generals fields. I agonized over it: over what books to include, and what books to leave off. I agonized at the thought of having to meet with a professor later that day, wondering how I could presume to do this field, when I knew next to nothing about it. I met with the professor, and agonized at my attempts to make semi-intelligent conversation about this field, agonized over the obvious books I didn't know to include, and agonized at the thought of all the work that needed to be done before the semester ended. Then I went back to the library, and tracked down all of the books I needed for the field. A few trips down into the bowels of the building, weaving in and out of the stacks, and trotting up and down the stairs with my load of books. And then I read. And I read. And I read. And by the time night had properly fallen and I decided to call it a night, I was bone tired. Tired, when the most strenuous thing I did today was agonize. It's like my life is a Woody Allen movie, but it's not any of the good ones.
When I got home, all I wanted to do was loose myself in the comfort of the kneading, kneading, kneading that comes with making bread, but alas, it was too late to start on a loaf. And tomorrow-- well, there is laundry to be done, and the oil to be changed in the car, and taxes to be figured out, and groceries to be bought, and books to read, and papers to be written, and languages to be learned.
But I did start a loaf of no-knead bread. It's not nearly the same as a proper challah, but a pale echo of the real thing is better than nothing. And there will be bread tomorrow.
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