This past year, I returned to bread making after a multi-year hiatus. The recipe I started with was one of the easiest yet and worked out wonderfully . It was exactly what I needed to get back into the flow of things - relearn how the dough should feel to touch when it is ready. I was experimenting a good bit back when I started to bake until I met M. Admittedly, I do not know legions of excellent home bakers but M was certainly highly excellent by any standard. Her breads were the kind you would buy at an upscale bakery. It would be one thing to know of M's talents but I had the privilege of watching her in action in her own kitchen. If she was "baking bread" I am not exactly sure how I would describe my efforts - the level of play bedazzled and bamboozled me to the point that I could not return to baking bread anymore. While my productions had been far from perfect, artisan bakery quality - they had been like a solid effort with acceptable results. That was life before...
crossings as in traversals, contradictions, counterpoints of the heart though often not..