Writer’s Block
Seeing the funny side of a unique baking disaster!
We’re out of bread. After Fred leaves the breakfast table, I set yeast cake with lukewarm water mixed with sugar in the crockery bowl warming on the reservoir. Scald milk. Cream lard with salt and eggs. Test for equal temperatures with my wrists before mixing the moist ingredients. Add flour, forced through the sieve by a revolving paddle inside. Stir with a wooden spoon and the dough thickens. Heel it with my left hand in a comfortable kneading rhythm until the dough feels spongy. Round the mound with melted lard, cover the bowl and leave it on the warming oven.
Remember Nan’s old expression, “Hard work never hurt anyone,” as I plump pillows and smooth the tufted green chenille bedspread before centering the rag rug on the bedroom floor.
Bacon grease congeals on the plates. Wash them. Wipe down the oilcloth table-cover, throw the coffee grounds behind the rosebush near the back door, and rinse the coffee pot with a swish of boiling water from the kettle. Sweep the kitchen and shake out the rag mat. Sweep the doorstep and smile with the satisfaction that our house is clean and tidy. It’s important that everyone know I’m an excellent housekeeper.
I stick on my straw hat and head for the garden, spread out beneath an open sweep of blue sky. I spend hours weeding the rich black soil around onions, cabbage plants and beets. Tiny black flies sting my legs and no-see-ums suck the sweat from my neck until they drive me indoors. As my eyes adjust to the dimness, my nose checks the air for a yeast aroma—none!
Laying my hat on the bench, I wash my hands and flip the tea towel off the bowl. There lies the dough, flat as the face of the man on the moon. Must have killed the yeast.
Oh no, what will Fred say? A waste of all those ingredients! He’ll be angry. I can’t bake like his mother. My bread’s a flop! No good. Must get rid of this mess where he’ll never see it. Can’t put it in the garbage, it won’t burn in the fire. I know, I’ll bury it!
With the bowl tucked under my arm I scurry to clearing behind the henhouse where it’s cool and shady. Nobody will see. I dig a shallow pit and roll in the offending dough, tamping the soil like an unmarked grave.
Returning to the kitchen I feed the fire dry kindling to heat the oven. Mix up biscuit dough and roll it flat. Cut circles with the metal
from a quart sealer. The oven’s hot when I pop in the biscuits. They turn out flaky and light. Breathe a prayer of thankfulness, and after supper, sleep the sleep of innocence and awaken with the incident forgotten.
“Fred, will you chop the head from one of those hens so we can have chicken and dumplings tonight?” I notice the brassy sun already blazing overhead. “It’ll be too hot to roast it, but I’ll stew it over slow fire.”
Halfway through the dishwashing, I hear Fred’s cry and hurry to the henhouse. Where is he? I hear him call again, and rounding the corner, I stop still as a stone, taking stock of the situation. A huge white puffball with a scruffy dome has risen from the earth. A gigantic puffball—the largest I’ve ever seen!
I watch Fred admire it for a moment. “Never seen such a big one!” He dashes towards the mound and gives it a sharp kick. With a hissing sigh it collapses, and a yeasty odour fills our nostrils. My heart sinks just like the disturbed dough, as I hear Fred laughing. My baking disaster becomes his favourite story.