On Baking Bread

Each week, usually on Fridays, I pull my sourdough starter from the refrigerator, and I feed it.

It's a starter my mom gave to me, handed down to her from someone else's mother. I have no idea how many generations this starter represents, but when I begin the age-old process of making bread, I like to think about them. I may not know their names or faces, but I join them in the process. At some point, they also stood at a kitchen counter, stirring starter someone else had begun.

A bit of flour, some sugar, water. I stir, and I set the mixture on the counter in a huge stainless steel bowl. It sits there all day long, the yeasty smell permeating the house.

Because, as it turns out, one of the main ingredients of homemade bread is patience. Baking bread requires a lot of waiting. You feed the starter—and you wait. You put the starter back in the refrigerator—save one cup or so that you mix with more flour, water, salt, oil and sugar to become bread—and you wait. When this mixture has risen, you knead it on a floured surface, joining the generations of bread makers before you in the familiar actions.

And then you place each loaf—my recipe makes three—in the loaf pans, and you wait.

And when the time is right, and the oven is perfectly warmed, you finally bake the bread. It's a two-day process full of waiting, but somehow, in the end, the final result is worth it. Freshly baked bread, carefully crafted in your own kitchen through a process that forces you to slow down, to breathe, to remember and to simply be in the moment.

I'm not someone who often chooses a word to focus on each year, but this year I did: present. I wanted a reminder to truly be present in the moments that would make up this year—and, if I'm being honest, I've failed in a lot of ways.

Sometimes, when I pray, I find my mind racing to a thousand different things: work, tasks I need to finish, what's next on the endless checklist in my brain. In a season of grief, I've often found myself wishing I could just get to the other side, forgetting that in grief, there is no other side. The shape of grief changes, like bread as I knead it, strengthening and reforming so that the pain becomes softer and easier to bear.

There are just a few weeks left in an already busy year. I covered for a coworker in maternity leave. I traveled for work. I self-published a book. I taught a college class. I cared for a beloved dog, and ultimately had to make the decision to let him go. I celebrated joys of my own and those of friends and family; I cried; I read a lot of books; and I tried to be present through it all.

But in the midst of all that, one of the things that fell by the wayside was regularly updating The Bookery. While others contribute from time to time, The Bookery is still very much a one-woman show—and sometimes life has gotten in the way of regular updates. I'm still trying to figure out what a sustainable schedule looks like, but I'm striving to be more present here in the remaining weeks of 2022.

In just a few weeks, we'll kick off the Advent season—and I personally can't wait. My heart is longing for this season of expectant waiting, of patience. I'll be sharing more details soon, but I hope you'll join me in the waiting.

And maybe enjoy some freshly baked bread along the way.