Today we are baking bread. Not what Nina calls "the new fangled way" of mixing water and powder together and sticking it in a bread machine, while you catch up on episodes of "How I Met your Mother." The old school way of mixing all the ingredients by hand, letting the dough rise and actually putting it in the oven.
She rustles through the cabinets, shoving pans this way and that until she finds just the right baking pan. "You know my Dear," her echoing voice from inside the cabinet calls back, "you really need to arrange your baking tins better. I cannot find a damn thing in here." She chuckles, her lovely accent shines transparently through her laugh. Simultaneously she hits her head on the cabinet, and I hear another "damn" followed by her intoxicating chuckle.
My Ninja says making bread is like a relationship that is filled with love. Believe me, I was as curious to find out as you are now.
Nina adds the first ingredients together. "Warm water, the catalyst for the yeast..or the beginning of, " she pauses as she dumps the yeast into the warm water, then says "the getting to know someone. It's always fun in the discovery stage. You will see how it plays out later, Dear." Then she adds 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.
"It sweetens the bread." she winks. "Like the courting part of the relationship when you are fascinated with one another.....then we let it sit for a bit."
Ten minutes later the yeast is in action. "The yeast, is the catalyst in making bread rise. It is quite similar to the catalyst in relationships where 'like' can to turn love. The warmth of the water activates the yeast, much like the warmth of your heart.." she points her finger at my chest and smiles "It activates someones interest in you."
After she has added the flour and rolled the dough out on to the counter, she continues her analogy. "Kneading the dough is the getting to know you stage in the relationship." I understand what she means, though I can't help but chuckle as I watch her squishing, squeezing, rolling, and sometimes pounding the dough against the counter. "This is the part where the fascination stops and the reality begins, Dear."
When she had finished beating up the dough, she rolls it, smacks it one last time, places it in a bowl and covers it with a towel. "When it rises, we will cook it!" Her eyebrows raise as she exclaims 'cook it' giving me the impression that she knows it will be a masterpiece...just so you all know, everything she cooks is a masterpiece.
The bread dough will need to rise for forty to forty-five minutes. While we are waiting for it, we do a quick clean up of the kitchen, then sit down with coffee. Nina sips her coffee loudly, and let's out something I can only describe as a sigh as she sets the mug back on the table.
"You know," she says thoughtfully "I only realized a few years ago what I am sharing with you now, about bread and love." Her east European accent seems very thick when she says this to me. "Even though I hafe been married for many years, Dear." She places her hand on top on mine, and roughly pats my hand with her fingers, before she pulls back in her chair.
Forty minutes later the dough is plump and ready to be kneaded again. She takes it from the bowl and whacks it on the counter. "In life there are so many variables...no guarantees. Do you understand?" She asks while she begins to knead the dough again, adding a bit of flour here and there to keep it from sticking. "You see how the dough got fat? Not the baby yet." She chuckles " That's the two people comfy in their new relationship."
"And now you are smacking the tar out of it?" My turn to laugh.
"Yes Dear, this is the reality part. It has risen once. Now we will see if the yeast has really done it's part." She explains that the bread should come out, having risen again; much like the trials and tribulations that couples go through, they should work things out and rise through the issues.
"If everything works out right, the bread will be soft and chewy on the inside." She further explains that the soft and chewy part is the forgiving and moving forward.
"It should also have a nice crust; One that is not too hard and not too soft, but just right. Remember Goldilocks?" She smiles and puts the loaf in the oven. "When a relationship has learned balance," she points to the oven "that is the soft chewy inside.The crust is the shell, the layer of protection from the outside world.
About an hour later, our loaf of bread emerges from the oven, smelling spectacular! Nina smiles, pulls it from the oven and announces "Bread and Love!... I am certain. But we will cut it in about twenty minutes to be sure."
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