I Am a Breadmaker

When the pot of homemade seafood chowder I put together this week started clamoring for a hefty chunk of bread to go with it, I pulled out a much be-spattered cookbook to find this recipe. You see...I am a breadmaker. Other people specialize in cakes or cookies, bars or pies; I make bread. And I make it the old-fashioned way...by hand. I don't use a doughhook to knead, and I won't have a breadmaking machine. I want to stir the flour and yeast mixture with my wooden spoon. I want to knead the dough until it has that firm, elastic smooth-as-a-baby's bottom feel to it. I want the dough to become alive in my hands. Making bread is like a holy ritual to me. I have made bread in a wood-fired cookstove in the Yellowstone backcountry and served it at upscale neighborhood dinners in San Diego. This particular challah recipe has seen California, Iowa, California and Wyoming and has fed hungry kids, ravenous backcountry Rangers, trail crew gangs, friends and neighbors. Its highest praise came from a friend's mother, a Jew who had fled Germany in the face of Nazi persecution. She declared just like the Shabbat challah from her childhood. I felt so proud. I am a breadmaker.