My kids love me right now.
I’ve been bringing home freshly baked bread from school for two weeks now and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end soon. I’ve made sweet rolls, focaccia, rustic bread, white bread, dinner rolls, ciabatta and baguettes, to name a few. Unlike the tranquil, stress-relieving experience of kneading dough and following through with the levening and baking of a happy perfect loaf for dinner at home, commercial baking practice is a whirlwind of exact measurements, timing, temperatures, coordination and dodging other students in our randomly arranged workspace, most of whom are freaking out, and many of whom are carrying knives.
I am still loving it. There is something very reminiscent of childhood when you get to play with dough in class. Yes, the teacher is completely the opposite of the lovely lady who taught you in your tender years, but after a few weeks of abuse, you start to feelĀ proud of the attention you’re given, even when Chef is only stopping at your table so he can tell you you’re an idiot and your rolls look like crap. Just smile and say “Thank you, Chef”. After a while, he starts to smile when he insults you. He can’t grade you too badly if you amuse him.
Here’s some of the results of my first week:
Baby Baguettes
My knotted rolls. Just for practice.
Monday's bounty
All I can think of as I scarf ridiculous quantities of doughy goodness is the scene in Scott Pilgrim vs the World where he looks at his girlfriend in horror and repeats her fact in the disbelieving voice of innocence crushed- “Bread makes you FAT?”
Yes folks, and when you have been up since 5 am and have mostly forgotten to eat for six hours because you’ve been throwing things in bowls and riding your wave of agitated energy from the large coffee you managed to scoop on your way over from one of the many open coffee shops on route, a loaf of bread just sort of disappears. Then another.
Needless to say, as much as I’m completely ready to crash by early afternoon, I’m aware that I’m going to need to make time and energy to work off some of my labours of love sometime in the near future. In the meantime, though, I will keep indulging my breaded bliss and what we can’t eat will go to the noble cause of bribing my friends and neighbours.
Because if we all get fat together, who’s going to notice?