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So this is happiness. This moment: stomach growling because of the silly (and apparently pointless) Intermittent Fasting, the promise of freshly made rye bread for lunch (a promise made more vivid by the dying-yeast aroma filling the house at this very moment); the awareness of problems, potential problems, insoluble problems in the lives of family and friends, acquaintances and strangers. What can I say but—This Is Life? And having said that, in light of the alternative lurking in the wings, even I have to admit that This Is Happiness.
So, because I am who I am, let me return to that rye bread. A new book came in, a tiny little thing about sourdough rye bread. It's a bit twee (the author refers to the starter as "he" and is pretty insistent that you give him a name—I'd say that's twee). Nonetheless, it captured me, so I ground up rye berries in the grain-grinding attachment of my fifty-year-old KitchenAid mixer and I followed the instructions for making my own rye starter. This will exist alongside my current, regular, white-flour starter—which doesn't have a name. The rye starter, which obediently followed the schedule and turned light and airy within three days, has been named Dolly, after Dolly Parton. I have never in my life given a name to an inanimate object, the way some people regularly name their cars, but I was apparently quite happy to override my principles and call my rye sourdough Dolly.
Then I made the bread. What had seemed slightly eccentric when I read through the recipe the first time (well, perhaps very eccentric when you consider the way the author anthropomorphizes the dough at every stage), it wasn't until I actually started following his instructions that I began having doubts. I persevered and I have a loaf cooling, waiting to be sliced, though the author assures me it will be even better if I wait another day before cutting it. But I got up at 6 to put the final touches on the loaf, so by golly we're eating some of it for lunch.
What he does wrong: 1) he adds salt too early and then wants you to save a portion of that salted dough for your next loaf. In other words, he contaminates the starter, which is a sourdough no-no, as I have always understood it. 2) After a first 12-hour rising of the dough, you put the whole thing together: 2 cups boiling water (what?!), a bit more salt, 2 cups rye flour, and the 12-hour dough batch. Really? Boiling water? Won't that kill the yeast of the starter? Does this man know anything? 3) If your dough survives the boiling water, you will notice as you beat it that it is almost a batter rather than a dough. Very moist. At this stage you beat it for five minutes (you can't knead it because it's too wet) and then you let it rise for an hour.
Then you shape it, putting it onto a thick layer of (rye) flour, he says. Thick indeed. It took three cups of added flour before it would form a loaf.
Let it rise again, then bake at 450 for 65 minutes (really? That long at that high a temperature?). Then leave it in a cooling oven for another five to ten minutes.
So what I have (and what we will have for lunch) is a fairly heavy loaf with what looks like a thick, hard crust—not a bad thing in itself, though I will be cautious as I cut it, wary that the knife might slip. Will it be edible? Or will I have to turn it into croutons?
The point is this. Making the dough was happiness. Writing about it here was happiness. Who are you, Ms. Serenity, and what have you done with Eeyore?
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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