cheap therapy

I decided to do something highly out of the ordinary yesterday afternoon. I decided to make bread. From scratch. And I don't usually make bread. From scratch. Because why go to the trouble when you can buy a perfectly good loaf at a nice shop?

But I needed something basic to put my hands to, and bread-making seemed the perfect antecdote for a busy mind. Creative, but pleasantly methodical.

My sweet dad makes a batch of from-scratch bread at the start of every week. He's done it for years, and it's become something of a Sunday ritual. He calls it his therapy. After Sunday morning church, you'll invariably find him kneading an armful of dough and shaping it into four perfect loaves. Growing up, we rarely had dinner on Sundays - just slabs of bread, fresh out of the oven and smeared with butter.

So, yesterday afternoon, I decided to follow suit and give Dad's therapy a try. I settled on a braided egg bread - the kind we have at Thanksgiving dinner. I quit work early, poured a glass of wine, and set to work. Mixing. Kneading. Making bread.

And it's true, there is something soothing about warm yeasty dough stretching out under your hands. Kneading and slapping dough against the kitchen countertop. That small bit of dough popped into your mouth - just for a taste. And the patience required in waiting for bread to rise once...and then rise again. You even get to punch it when it's it full and bulbous.

Dad may be on to something...it wouldn't be the first time.