Baking on a Friday Night
I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but when I’m stressed out, I bake. Sometimes cookies or bread, but more often than not, I bake complex items that take on lives of their own. Dishes with several well-timed steps that take hours to bake, chill, whip and beat into submission. It’s like choosing a geometric theorem over simple addition; it takes every ounce of concentration, so there’s no room in my brain to fret and run my worries over and over like a hamster wheel. So, when I’m stressed out, I bake. This is why I have a platter of chocolate mousse in my refrigerator, why I have a tiny mountain of scones…
Play the Tape Through
I wiped a dribble of sweat from my brow, and as I pulled my hand away, I noticed that I had just smudged flour on my face. “Shit,” I muttered. Not that I really cared at this point, I just wanted to get the damn bread in the oven. Company would be over any minute now, and I had just set it out to rise, which it needed to do for at least another forty minutes. It had started with one of my “brilliant ideas,” the ones that come to me when I’m way too busy and I suddenly get the urge to rip out a patch of lawn and…
