I started when I had only four kids. White bread was
on the menu at first. So began what I thought was easy, you just follow the
recipe right? NOT. My first four or five times were a mess. The counter covered
in flour, the kids covered in flour, the floor covered in flour. And the damn
bread didn’t even rise. It was so frustrating. I had put the yeast in warm
water to rise, I had kneaded one hundred times. I had used the beast bread
flour. The rising was done properly, to the minute. What was wrong? No internet
at the time, so instead of stopping and asking for advice or trying to get a
book about it, I tried again and again. Any sane person would have stopped at
that point. But not me, I tried again. Finally I gave in as the pressures of
family life were wearing me down, I just didn’t have energy to keep up with
scraping the huge crust of flour and water off of the counter, flour, cupboards
and kids for the four white bricks that I seemed to be becoming quite an expert
at producing. Several years passed by and I decided to risk it again. We were
living in an apartment at the time. This time it worked!!!! I put everything
together, kneaded it, my hair plastered to my forehead, flour up to my elbows
and four little lumps of dough all around me with four little people covered in
flour too. Their enthusiasm was rivalled only by the mess they made. I don’t
know what on earth made me think that I could manage to stay sane and make
bread with four little ones. But we did it! Four beautiful white loaves. I
realized that my yeast had not been working when I was making it before. So I
learned to always test the yeast before mixing it in with the huge bowl of
flour. Mommy can I eat some? Mommy how much can I eat? Mommy can I knead more?
Mommy, Jordan* is touching me? AAAAHHHHHH, Lisa* is throwing bread at me! The
mess was phenomenal. But I faithfully made bread after that, knowing that at
least there were no additives and preservatives in it. It was white but so good
and so “healthy”. After that we moved to our house in the woods. It was
beautiful, a house after apartments for two years. So the bread making began
again in earnest. I was a homemaker and making bread is a sign of a good
homeschooling mother.
But now, I was becoming a REAL homeschooling mother. I
needed a wheat grinder. No good bread can be made with just white flour; I
needed organic wheat berries and a wheat grinder. So in the very conservative
church that we were attending, there was a lady grinding her flour. She helped
me purchase one from the States and another learning process started. We were
real bread makers now! Grinding the flour, kneading the breading, washing up
the kids’ faces, hands, and hair, pulling chunks of half chewed, sloppy lumps
of dough out of their mouths and scraping off a dried up messy counter became
one of the normal occurrences of my life. Honestly, it was fun for a while. I
loved the feel of the dough under my hand. I loved the smell of the yeast
wafting up from the bowl. I loved the
feel of the hot, hollow sounding loaves that I pulled out of the oven. And most
of all I loved the feeling that I was doing something good for my family and
kids. We were eating homemade, brown, organic, fresh-ground flour bread. I was
a GREAT mom.
*names have been changed to protect my children and me.
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