How to make bread (and other things too)

sort of about bread

Baker (Boris Kustodiev, 1920)

Every Saturday at 5:30am, after putting coffee on the stove to percolate, I take my sourdough starter out of the fridge and feed it with equal parts starter: flour: warm water. (If you don't have any starter, you can come over for coffee one afternoon and I will share some of mine.)

In the afternoon, after the starter has expanded, I weigh out 500g of flour, 10g of salt, ~100g of starter, and 375g of warm water in a large bowl, mix it well, then cover it. The bowl goes in the fridge before bed and comes back onto the counter the next morning to “re-rise”. After lunch, I set the oven to 450°F, flour a baking pan, scrape the dough out of the bowl, fold it over itself a few times, put it into a pleasant bread-like shape, then bake for thirty-five-ish minutes. This whole process takes about 10 minutes and produces bakery-quality bread at a fraction of the cost.

I've made all my own bread for about a year now, and often make extra to share with neighbours and friends. Of course, making bread can get more complicated. Some recipes have seventeen stages of proofing and scoring and patting and pulling and caressing. Some recipes demand you dedicate a day to kneading at precise, thirty-minute intervals. These, in my opinion, are needlessly complex in a way that discourages attempts being made. I cannot look like an expert if I admit something is surprisingly simple.

I am not going to win any awards for my bread, or be recruited by any Parisian boulangerie (although that would be cool). But that does not mean I cannot take great joy in both the process and result, and share it with others.

Perhaps one day I will seek the status of an artisan, but perhaps not. Besides, something must first be formed before it can be perfected.

~~~

I assume much of life is like this. I assume there is meaningful work everywhere, work that tangibly makes life better, that isn't as difficult as it appears to a spectator. I assume that the world is full of useful things to make that even someone with the abilities of an amateur can accomplish.

In the last year, I built shelves, stairs, and a deck. I helped put a steel roof on a timber-framed off-the-grid cabin in Newfoundland. I designed and built a shed at my cottage to store firewood for the winter. Even in the last few weeks, I taught myself how to service a bike, adjusting the brakes, replacing the back tire, tuning the spokes, and repairing the chain. All things I once deemed impossible, at least impossible for me, yet yielded to effort and patience.

By seeking and blundering, I learn. And with each attempt to do something difficult, my confidence in my ability to do other difficult things grows.

It's hard to describe the satisfaction that arises when I do something myself that I had always cognitively outsourced to "other people." It’s even harder to articulate the clear joyousness of spirit found in embodied doing. Man is at his most natural when he is making things.

I've learned there is a very thin layer of knowledge needed to make an attempt. The much bigger barrier is belief. That’s why agency is precious. Making a good attempt, making something worth making, is often simple. Excellence is rooted in the capacity to feel like a fool and the willingness to do things imperfectly. To witness the early results and continue anyway.

The real reward is in the striving itself. That is what most experts fail to grasp. Instruction is good, but encouragement better. My life became immeasurably more alive when I lost the impulse of spectatorship¹. To create is to lure the divine.

When you learn you can just do things, you become—dare I say it—unstoppable.

My first bookshelf was wobbly, the deck wasn’t exactly level, and the roof had a weird overhang on one side. All were imperfect. But all were still worthy of love. The bookshelf held books, the deck held me, and the roof kept the rain out.

I got to a point where I realized if I wanted my life to be more full of the things I want, I had to be willing to do those things imperfectly, but frequently². It would never be convenient, but it was still worth it.

Life grants nothing without hard work.

~~~

When I am at my most vital, I think often of my hopes and dreams. When I meet new people, goals practically spill out of my pockets. I've come to believe cultivating desire is a skill in itself. The future must be beautiful enough to want.

I get a kind of tingling thrill from entertaining my aspirations. From contemplating what my life could become if I so choose. From daring to ask, "What breaks my heart with longing when I imagine it?" All this I permit, as long as it is paired with action. The more I act, the more I can allow myself to dream.

These visions are romantic in nature, even edging on unreality, but I tend to think that's important. I'm starting to think romanticizing life will actually make it better³. That some idealizing is necessary on a regular basis to live well⁴.

Without a vision, the people perish. Without a beautiful future, I fall apart.

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I let the grandiosity of my vision daunt and demotivate me. When one dreams of constructing a coliseum, laying the first brick feels meager. Almost pointless. I wanted to do everything, and so I did nothing.

Today, I have far more ambitions than I could possibly accomplish. I have a long list of projects I want to pursue, many I won't get to this year. It required a shift in my heart posture to look at all these plans as an abundance of hope, rather than a scarcity of resources or skill⁵.

A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Besides, it is remarkable how well things work out in the long run if I am patient and consistent.

I choose to see life as a skill I can only improve at⁶. Over the years, with patience and effort, I will perfect my favorite recipes, become a seasoned outdoorsman, absorb more from each book I read, and grow a more fruitful garden (one protected from the despotism of rabbits). I choose to see every small thing as a skill I can take seriously, develop in, and learn from.

It is a kind of piety to take great joy in daily life.

This is all to say: If you want to be the best, the details make a world of difference. But, if you don't need to be the best, you can just try stuff.

Now that your attempts don't have to be perfect, they can be good.

With a sincere heart,

---

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1. I remember reading a writer fed up with TikTok's tyranny over their lives, proclaiming something like, “Scrolling on your phone and wondering what other people are doing instead of living your own life is loser behavior and I’m done with it.”

2. I read a quote somewhat along the lines of this. But I read so much I can't quite tell which of my thoughts come from me and which from my books.

3. I know everything I said about not falling in love with architected, romantic visions because life may have other plans and won't happen how I think blah blah blah.

4. I revere children for their imagination. Their ability to turn a boring car ride into a visceral space shuttle launch. Having a healthy imagination makes life much more interesting and miles more fun.

5. It requires a kind of patient optimism to let these dreams stir in my chest. I had wanted to learn to carve wooden spoons for two years before I got around to it. I got my hunting license to procure more of my own food, but it's probably a ten-year goal, one I won't be able to begin for another two or three years.

While I admire the ideas that instantly kindle into action, the dialect of dreams I cherish most are those that require long months of chipping and chiseling away. Those that are built on the back of little notebook sketches and diagrams and lists that pile up over time. Because of their immensity, they require many slow mornings of coffee and contemplation to think through.

6. Life only gets better and I refuse to believe otherwise. There are far better things ahead than anything left behind. (CS Lewis said something like this, I think).