Most Pampered Water on Earth

In the homemade bread department, I did try using a food processor, which required doing the initial preparation of one loaf’s worth of dough at a time, which was slightly inconvenient, and the dough rose even more slowly than usual. The end product seems just fine, as always—yum, homemade bread!—but I have since learned that you need to chill the water before you put it in the food processor, because the processing heats up the water and can thus potentially kill the yeast. I probably at least disheartened my little yeast specks without realizing it.

But since I heat the water on purpose to activate the yeast, does that mean I have to HEAT the water and subsequently COOL the water? Isn’t that more special treatment than your basic cup of water really has coming? My mother said to get instant yeast. That doesn’t sound like the way they did it in the Stone Age to me.

My next idea was to get a stand mixer, which is what certain highly esteemed bread bakers of my personal acquaintance use, and rightly so, after decades of laborious hand kneading. I went so far as to clear a spot for this prospective stand mixer by balancing my blender and food processor on top of my toolbox on the floor.

I do feel I have an appliance coming , since I didn't end up getting a grain mill to grind wheat with, somewhat of a miracle, as I really kind of had my heart set on it and very nearly went ahead with that purchase. Now I’m glad I didn’t, in part because I don’t always use whole-wheat flour, and the bulk flours at Rainbow are good enough.

Choosing a stand mixer is not as simple as one might hope. My mother has helped with the research, since she has a Cook’s Illustrated subscription and can access their website.
(There was a chilling moment on day two or three when Cook’s Illustrated proved to conflict with reviews at Amazon’s website—isn’t Cook’s Illustrated utterly infallible? I had always believed this to be true, even though I am not a subscriber and don’t aim to be; its concerns probably overlap with my vegetarian/vegan concerns only intermittently.

It seems that a lot of stand mixers these days aren’t actually powerful enough for kneading bread dough, because the cost-conscious/crafty makers of same know that hardly anyone bakes her own bread these days, so they don’t bother to produce machines that are equal to the task.

One person at Amazon's website said he had to return five of a certain KitchenAid stand mixer in a row, though he said they were perfectly nice about it; Cuisinart’s customer service is apparently lousy.

Now we have a new wrinkle, however, in that my cranial-sacral practitioner all but convinced me yesterday evening that bread is evil (i.e., gluten is); he said gluten is the one thing on earth he avoids without fail. For what it’s worth, both he and his partner look absolutely fabulous—utterly radiant, all the years I’ve known them, so I thought I might look into a period of gluten freeness just to see.

Note from my mother earlier this week: “I have discovered that my newly re-covered chair is a tad firm, so you will be welcome to sit in it whenever neither I nor the turd is occupying it.” She added, “I can sit in it but it's not as comfy as it was or as my recliner is. It needs breaking in, and that's where houseguests can help!”

Finally, a chance to use my major talent: sitting around.

Later in the week, I sent my mother this note:

“I'm sorry I was distracted when you called. I had gotten stressed out by something at work and so my life forces were gathered to eating chocolate-covered almonds as a healing measure.”

During the conversation in question, she was sitting on the deck off the kitchen of their new house pounding in errant nails, and she answered my email by saying, “That's OK. I was a busy deck repairman anyway,” which I thought was cute.

I didn’t want to tell her what stressed me out, but I’ll tell YOU: a bomb scare. I was sitting in my cube at work eating lunch when this came over the P.A. system:

“Attention, attention. We have an emergency situation on the 12th floor. Please activate relocation procedures for the 12th floor.” (I sit on the 4th floor; the building has twelve floors.)

Then: “Attention, attention. We are investigating a bomb on the 12th floor.”

Then: “Attention, attention. We have an emergency situation on floors ten, eleven and twelve. Please activate relocation procedures for floors ten, eleven and twelve. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATORS.”

“All right,” I said to myself, “I’m going to have to put on my hat,” but about two minutes later, we received an all clear. It was probably someone’s bag lunch that overshot the trash container, but I did feel slightly rattled, hence the chocolate-covered almonds.

I hope now that my mother knows how close I came to being vaporized at work, she’ll forgive me for the stand mixer research that might never be used. (Or had she already forgotten and I shouldn’t have mentioned it again?)