the long ferment

It may be true that a watched pot never boils, but a scrutinized lump of dough never rises, either. And yet here I am, frequently slipping into the laundry room--in hopes that the heat generated from the appliances will blunt the chill from the overnight spring freeze—to see if anything has moved or bubbled. I lift the wrap and sniff, as though that will tell me anything. I study the swells and whorls in the dough; have any begun to soften, to smooth out? Or, perhaps, the spray of flour across the top, not mixed in; have broader fissures spread in that fine dust?

The recipe I’m using says that this process should take twelve hours. It has been close to three, and I’m antsy. What if it doesn’t rise fast enough? Do I let the dough sit out all night, instead of in the refrigerator, like the recipe instructs? Should I add a teensy bit more starter?

Since my sister-in-law handed me a mason jar of gurgling, tangy starter, I have made a handful of loaves: one boule (so poorly done that I couldn’t help but laugh every time I looked at it, although it tasted all right) and three loaves of sandwich bread. I know that eschewing store-bought yeast means spreading out the baking process over a day or two, but I like my progress to come a little faster than that.

This morning, I woke at four and never went back to sleep. By five-thirty, my youngest was shuffling into my bathroom and then calling for me to come wipe her. A six, my son climbed into my lap; the older he grows the harder it is to tuck him and wrap him up, but I’m grateful that he stills crawls into my arms and stays there, still but not silent. The blinds are shut but I can see around the edges that the sky has not lightened yet, although there is a bird—I wish I knew which one—shrieking beyond the window. It is not a sweet, trilling song, but more like a squawk.

These days, most mornings begin with children scrambling into my bed and hogging both the heated and weighted blankets that I’ve kicked around in my sleep. I’m cold-natured, and even in mid-March I need the extra warmth. Also most mornings, I wake to a freshly made pour-over in a travel mug on my bedside table, along with a little note or a heart scrawled on a post-it. Courtesy of my husband who, sadly, is out of town this week. So when I haul my crew downstairs, it is not only to start weighing flour, it’s to flick the kettle on and grind the beans.

I am not the mom who wears Little House on the Prairie dresses. The only freshly cut flowers are the ones my children have plucked from the backyard; mostly weeds, a handful of azalea blooms, and withered daffodils. If I tried to take a picture in my home in what, I think, is considered good light, it would highlight the fine layer of dust more than any sort of beauty.

Our whole family eats a gluten-free diet. I know it’s trendy, but we aren’t trendy people. But there is no acceptable gluten-free substitute for bread. There are options, sure. But they’re either spongey and tasteless, or shockingly processed and teeming with sugar, or dry and crumbly, or, in the case of one loaf I’ve tried a few times, weirdly damp. Not moist, but…damp. 

But bread spans time and space. The Israelites collected manna; Jesus offered himself as the Bread of life. At an Indian restaurant I’d love to sop up my korma with a torn shred of garlicky naan; at the bakery conjoined with our favorite wine shop, I salivate over the perfectly laminated croissants. Bread is not bad. Bread is basic, but not boring. Real bread, I mean. And I don’t like missing out on this seemingly vital part of many cuisines throughout history.

So here we are, trying out sourdough, with only einkorn flour (supposedly a naturally low-gluten wheat, unhybridized and unaltered over the years). The long fermentation process, which is necessary when you don’t use commercial yeast, does something that I don’t quite understand. I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation, but, to me, it seems like magic: all of a sudden, there is a real bread, with real texture and taste, that my family eats without getting sick or constipated. But it requires something of me: planning (all of these recipes have multiple stages), but mostly waiting. There is not much actual work in making sourdough: on Monday, I fed the starter, and baked a quick banana bread with the discard (and I make so much banana bread that it requires little of my attention). This morning, I made a levain for a sandwich loaf, and mixed the dough for boule in a large bowl. These steps took mere minutes: check the temperature of the water, weigh the flour, spoon out the starter. But we will not saw into either of these loaves until sometime tomorrow.

It’s hard to wait, especially when it seems like nothing is changing. The lumps in my bowls and jars have barely stretched, and I’ve already done two loads of laundry and bumped up the heat on the thermostat to create a friendlier environment for the wild yeasts that should be chowing down on my einkorn.

I’d like a slower life, not just a slower way to eat real bread. I’d like to have wide expanses of time before me; not to relax, but to feel like there is time for work to be done without haste. I want to feel like I can lay in bed and read Brambly Hedge to my kids before we drag out the schoolwork; I want to walk to the park without checking the time to make sure we’re back for a playdate or chores or jiu-jitsu. I want to pay attention when my children speak, no matter how long it takes them to stutter out the story they enacted with their stuffed animals, muddy Hot Wheels cars, and the rolls of Scotch and duct tape they keep snatching from my kitchen drawers.

Sometimes, I feel like the only way to find this life—not a life of ease, but of capacity—is to find a way to say no. No, I will not think about the heaps of toys in the kids’ closets that they “cleaned up” on their own. I will not think about the soap scum growing happily in my shower. I will not think about the weeds flowering in the front yard (and making their way into vases on my kitchen table) or the frightening mound of half-dirty clothes in my own closet: wash? Put away?

And then there is the no to other people: how do I use wisdom? No, we can’t do an afternoon playdate, but there is nothing on my calendar except for an 8 am dentist appointment. No, I’m not joining book club, but the evening is technically available. No, I don’t want to go to the children’s museum, the science center, the zoo, or a playground. I’m going to be home, watching my kids dig holes in the front yard, make their own puddles, and pretend to be birds building a nest of leaves and twigs.

The hardest no, though, is to myself: no, I will not get distracted when the story drags on with no plot, no conflict, no point. No, I will not get angry when the thing I’ve asked four times over still has not happened. No, I will not try to read quickly through this book so I can feel good about how many titles we completed in one couch-sit. No, I will not feel frantic whenever I glance at my to-do list (which is as often as I’m peeking at the levain) and realize that I have nothing new to strike through, only something to add.

I don’t know how much is practical, how much is idealistic, and how much is the natural struggle to find and then maintain balance. I’m not patient, and I’m not slow. But I am hopeful. There is a bowl of something beginning to stir in the laundry room, to rise up just a little, though it will take time. Waiting is not a bad thing; it did not come about after the Fall. Waiting is not for earth, a part of the curse, a mortal concern. Heaven itself waits for the consummation, and even Jesus waits for his enemies to become a footstool for his feet (Hebrews 12:13). Perhaps I ought to see the long ferment, the slower life, the painfully gradual sanctification, as good.