Tag: bread

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Molting

As the daylight shortens and the shadows grow longer, critters, human and otherwise, hunker down for the hungry days.

A ghost crab sits at the edge of the bay, exposed by the low tide, molting its summer shell before crawling deep into the beach to wait out the dark.

My skin lightens, melanocytes no longer waving tentacles laden with packets of pigment, no need to do the work when it no longer matters.

Through billions of years of evolution, doing pointless work leads to extinction. Laziness is a gift.

And here we are, pretending machines can make the pointless worthwhile.

Me? Time for a handful of freshly made bread, time for a nap, time to sit in the still warm October light.

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Precision

The recipe says set the oven to 450°.

I have baked a lot of bread, and I know that this oven lies. I could check it with a thermometer, but no need. I trust my experience. I set the oven to 420°, but I believe it’s closer to 450° inside, and that belief is based on experience.

Still, the oven’s bright digital display of numbers in an authoritative font makes me question myself every time–and that is the threat of science (or at least, technology). Trusting the abstract over your senses.

Rosemary bread, just out of the oven a few minutes ago….

If you want to make a missile, well, you’re going to have to trust the tech. If you want to make a decent loaf of bread, trust your hands.

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The quick, the yeast, and the dead

Every damn time I throw dough in the oven or clams on the stove I pray to the Holy Whatever (for who knows the agony of heat besides the heretics, the saints, the damned, and the unlucky).

Consciousness is as overrated as life is underrated.

Yeast are alive. I know they breathe (or else we’d have no crumb), and I know they convert wheat and water into alcohol–I can smell it.

Before I cast the yeast into a hot oven they are eating, fooking, budding, breathing, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They know other yeast are nearby.

You are not special–you will die, too.

So live a yeasty life, while you can.

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