Thursday 16 March 2023
I have had a break maker for more than twenty years, the current one is the second. I go through phases of using it, with the early pandemic months being the last regular-usage phase (until I was no longer able to restock flour and yeast). This morning, having started the timer before bedtime the night before, we could smell the bread from the bedroom upstairs by about 06:00. There are surely very few smells so enticing as to make me want to get up with great enthusiasm. Our flat in London is always degrees of hot, or maybe there’s just more ambient noise, but on the two occasions I’ve baked bread here, to be ready in the morning, I have heard what I was convinced must be the sound of a platoon of mice above the kitchen. It is in fact the sound of the hot bread resting and cooling. This morning, I got up earlier because of bread, I have listened to it, clasped it in my hands to warm my hands on it and I will soon be eating it. How good is bread?! How multipurpose, even. Bread baked in a cold house in Scotland, who knew, is more exciting and multi-sensory than bread baked in a hot flat in London.
