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Baking Bread

I find myself watching breadmaking recipes without any sound in times of stress. During the pandemic everyone was  baking bread at home mostly for stress relief. I went through my own bread-making phase a bit before the pandemic and did not find it as therapeutic as advertised. The process itself was fun - getting a feel for the dough and gaining confidence in being able to predict the outcome were the highlights. 

But with that came some downsides. For me atleast it turned out my attention to detail was lacking in proportion to what was going through my head at the time. If there was too much noise there, I would start to take short-cuts which resulted in an underwhelming bread. Knowing that in an hour, I would be pulling out of the oven a thing that would bear testament to my mental state was not ideal. Eating that bread over the next several days was a reminder of how it came to taste the way it did. 

So while there was some near term joy from the process of baking bread, it was far from given that it would be a gift that kept giving good things. I was working through my iterations, keeping good notes of what worked and what did not when I ran into S who is the queen of baking bread at home. I had the chance to observe her making baguette from start to finish. The final product was excellent but it also gave me impetus to take pause from my baking activities. 

I had seen first hand what it takes to produce something of that quality which brought home the realization that I was very far and away from any hope of perfection. I lost the taste for store bought bread from the first time I was able to produce something respectable and I never got back to liking it since. Reading this article about a specialist baker's tool reminded me of my own thwarted journey.

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