HOME-MADE BREAD

            Barbara and I were married in 1953. She had been quick to inform me that her mother, though a good cook in a 1950’s way, had not been inclined to allow her only daughter to mess around much in the kitchen. So Barbara, who believed that anybody who could read could cook, relied on recipes. After several successful years, she began to experiment with baking, including baking bread.

            In the 50’s and 60’s, I believe baking bread was considered a lost art, especially by the young home-makers. Baking bread was something that was done by mothers and grandmothers. Barbara’s generation relied heavily on white wonder Bread. But her essays in baking were quite successful and we had bread from the grocery store less and less often.

            In about 1964 we had moved to the house on Loch Drive in Green Bay, which had a completely open kitchen-dining-living room. I was sitting in my comfortable chair reading something when I heard this short cry of pain and then sounds of strong annoyance. Barbara had somehow cut her finger while kneading bread dough. How she could cut her finger in dough I have never understood, but she was bleeding a fair amount. The annoyance was that if she continued with the bread, it would be ruined with her blood. She could not just throw out what she had, so the only logical solution was to call on me to finish the kneading, forming loaves, and putting them into pans. She said it could be fun. “Take out all your stress and frustrations on the bread,” she said. “Punch it hard. Take that, Richard Nixon, take that, John Mitchell, and here’s a punch for you (fill in the blanks)!” So I took over the kneading and had a jolly time of it, subduing all the bad guys.

            I don’t remember what impelled me to ask her to show me how to do the whole job, but having once proved that I could, bread making began to fall more and more into my hands. It turned out to be fun for me, and gave me the opportunity to make raisin bread whenever I wanted to, putting in lots more raisins than Barbara ever did.

            So there was plain white bread, whole wheat bread, cracked wheat bread and raisin bread using white and/or whole wheat flour. A friend of ours gave me a huge crockery bowl, big enough to make eight standard loaves, so that became the accepted quantity. Why not? We had a deep freeze, and the bread could keep for a while.

            So we moved to Ridge Road, then to Washington and the University housing, then to Everett and north Seattle. Even later there were different places in Stanwood and Camano Island. Every single one of these moves required learning about the idiosyncrasies of each oven. I am now positive that every home oven had a hot spot.

            During the short while we lived in north Seattle, Barbara left me to live on her own. I was not at all happy that she left, and a small part of the reason for that was that I had invited the Seattle chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) to have their next meeting at our largish condominium. I had thought it to be an honor to be accepted as a member of this NATS chapter, and had actually served as a board member for a couple of years. I figured it was about time for me to host the meeting. But with Barbara gone, I did not see how I could handle this, especially the after-meeting coffee and goodies. Probably there would be at least twenty people there, made up mainly of fussy women (how could it be otherwise, as teaching singing requires fussiness?).

            My first thought, of course, was to dis-invite the group. They would still have about two weeks to find another place, but I did not want to back out, and it became a kind of matter of honor with me, to be able to function without Barbara.

            There is a wonderful Grimm brother’s fairy tale called “The Valliant Little Tailor.” At the beginning, the tailor has bought some fine jam from a passing peddler, takes a loan of bread, cuts it lengthwise and spreads a lot of jam on the big long slice of bread. This always seemed to me to be a daring thing to do, something that my mother or Barbara would never have allowed. So as a kid, this turned out to be one of my life’s dreams, to cut a loaf longitudinally, instead of slicing off the end.

            I knew my home-made bread was good; I had some years of experience making it. The smell of bread in the oven, or just coming out would be enough to bring tears to the eyes of anyone whose mother or grandmother had baked bread. That was the happy solution. I would serve absolutely fresh-baked bread for the NATS meeting.

            Now the rules and conditions for the bread party, as I made them up, were to have some loaves of white bread finished and an equal number of whole wheat still in the oven. These should be taken out at exactly the time the business meeting was over. I would then ceremoniously, in the presence of the guests, take the bread out, and against all rules, cut into it immediately. Bread is supposed to stand cooling for a time before slicing, but of course, I cut into it anyway – the long way – and the guests could then break it into pieces if they wanted, but only the long slices would come off the loaf. Plenty of real butter and jam would be on hand, and each could take, or leave what they wanted. I told them the “Little Tailor” source; all entered into the spirit of it, and the bread party was a success. Lest I take too much credit, I had the help of a couple of my voice students to make and pour the coffee and tea. Of late, bread making seems to have become much more common, and the bread machine does a pretty good job too, one loaf at a time. This party scheme turned out well enough so that I did the same thing for other small groups of my friends.

            But making bread turned out to be something much more significant in my life than mere party food. As I have written in others of these essays, in spite of my resolution to live out my life as a bachelor, Margaret changed all that. Our “association” was proceeding well, with her riding to choir rehearsal with me, going out in the sailboat, and having tea and cookies after choir at her house. I thought I could make some good points with her by bringing her an unusual present, a loaf of bread, of course. So I did that, but was taken somewhat aback when I learned that she baked bread, too. But her daughter, Holly, came to my rescue. At age three and a half, she told her mother that she should take me, “because he brings us bread.” Thank you, Holly!

            I mentioned the bread machine a paragraph back. When Margaret and I had been living on the boat, Greta, At LaConner for a couple of years, I discovered a good sale on bread machines at a local store. On the boat it is possible to bake bread, two loaves in the oven at one time, but the oven is hard to regulate and the success rate varies. There was electric power at the dock, so a bread machine seemed like a good solution. It virtually guaranteed success with every loaf.

            Actually, I was a bit disappointed with the result. I kept on trying to get better bread with the machine, so one day when Margaret was at work ashore, I decided to try again. I had a new recipe, special bread machine flour, and high hopes. Now, on a boat it is necessary to store things in containers other than the bulky box or bags they come in. I looked in the usual places for the flour, years, powdered milk, oil, honey and so on, put it in the machine, turned it on, and waited for the effortless miracle of automatic machine bread.

            When the time was up, I peered in to see a dispirited lump on grayish hard clay about the size of a tennis ball. I was shocked! Margaret came home after work; I told her about my dismal failure; I showed her the ingredients I had used. When she was able to stop laughing, she explained to me that the white stuff I had used as powdered milk was laundry detergent. Next time we would clearly label whatever was in a plastic container. But this episode with the machine was the final discouragement for me, and the machine was given away. I didn’t like the cylindrical shaped loaf anyway.

            My good friend, Wally, had been an arm chair sailor for years, and finally bought a sailboat of his own, a Cal 34. This was a beautiful boat, shipped straight from the builder, not a blemish on it. He invited me aboard for his second trip away from the dock. To contribute something for the occasion, I brought along a loaf of bread, still hot from the oven.

            When some time had passed and I had been sufficiently impressed with the boat under power, I brought out the bread and a bread-knife. Super-fussy and proud new boat owner, Wally, said, “Would you hold that over the side when you cut it so you won’t get crumbs all over the deck?” Was he serious, you ask? Yes, he was.

            One last comment (brag) about my bread. I have two little grandsons, Mark and Luke, ages five and two and a half, who love Grandpa’s bread. No butter, peanut butter, jam or anything. Just plain bread that Grandpa made.