Pleasures of Life Dept.

All You Knead Is Love

Confessions of a novice baker

By Tom Allen

“Avoid those who don’t like bread and children,” a Swiss proverb says. I’ll second that.

Two years ago, after 10 years in health care and 30 years in local church ministry, I retired. “Whatcha gonna do?” folks asked. Some assumed my wife and I would travel (I thought I’d be underwhelmed by the Grand Canyon — I was wrong), continue writing columns (yep), and most of all, spend time with grandson Ellis, born in April 2022 (you bet).

A chilly, rainy winter marked the first weeks of retirement, perfect for sleeping in. Mid-mornings I poached, scrambled or fried a couple of eggs, Googling various methods to find the perfect recipe. After showering and (sometimes) shaving, I might water houseplants in the sunroom, go for a walk, piddle in the yard, watch Sports Center, or catch up on episodes of Grantchester and The Crown. Afternoons I decluttered the garage and attic, a task I thought would take, maybe, two weeks. Two years later, I’m still decluttering but have mastered the art of selling on Facebook Marketplace.

I came to embrace sleeping late as a gift. But, with wife Beverly still working, other early morning risings became welcomed occasions, silently sipping coffee and watching light pierce our darkened sunroom. And I simplified. After summers of brutal heat and pesky deer, I did away with raised beds, opting to fill our deck with pots of herbs and grape tomatoes, zinnias and cosmos. We emptied and let go of a storage unit and finally joined the legions who ditched cable for streaming. 

I embraced coloring outside the lines, literally, and began dabbling with watercolors. Then, drawing on my years as a hospital laboratory tech, I started to bake bread. My first major in college was medical technology. I loathed the math part but thrived in chemistry and biology labs, mostly because you got to mix this with that and produce something that changed color, fizzed, oozed or lit up.

This baker set his sights high, thinking I would join the sourdough social media craze. That lasted about one week. I loved being a granddad to Ellis, not a jar of starter. I decided to have a go at baking yeast bread. I wanted to get my hands in dough, form it into a squishy clump, watch it double in size, then after a few hours, fill our house with that comforting aroma.

Thanks to the same social media that fueled the sourdough frenzy, I discovered a plethora of no-knead bread recipes, most of them variations of Jim Lahey and Mark Bittman’s 2006 no-knead instructions published in The New York Times. The recipe became one of the most popular the Times ever published, mostly due to its simple ingredients — flour, yeast, salt and water — baked in a screaming hot Dutch oven.

Lahey and Bittman’s recipe takes about 24 hours. Most of that time is spent waiting for fermentation and rising. After several trial runs, I settled on a variation that takes fewer hours and produces a round, rustic-looking loaf, a boule in French, with a crackly crust and airy texture. Along with another online recipe that makes two rectangular loaves of honey wheat bread, the Times variation became a go-to, sometimes twice weekly endeavor — one to keep and one to give. I used to think baking bread (and giving it away) imparted an aura to the baker, similar to folks who run marathons or complete The New York Times Sunday crossword before Monday. I don’t know if that holds true for a novice. I do know handing a freshly baked loaf to a neighbor feels good.

I wouldn’t call bread-making a newfound obsession, like my love of Carolina Hurricanes hockey, but there’s something about making bread that’s also comforting and life-affirming. Maybe because yeast, a living organism, leavens and gives life to plain flour and water. Maybe because mixing dough, especially with your hands, and watching simple ingredients morph from a blob into what the 19th century Congregationalist minister John Bartlett called “the staff of life,” is not only short of magic, but likewise sacred. Biblical images abound, from the unleavened bread of Passover to the Last Supper.

From measuring the dry ingredients to mixing the wet, sticky dough with your hands, I wonder if studies have been done to quantify the release of dopamine, one of those feel-good chemicals our brains dole out when we do something challenging, pleasurable or rewarding. Bread-making surely makes the cut.

James Beard once said, “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods, and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.”

I’ll have a slice of that, along with a hug from Ellis.  PS

Tom Allen is a retired minister living in Whispering Pines.