What's on my mind?

[Poll #173171]

B--Baking

I started baking a few weeks after getting out of the alcohol recovery house, where I had spent the previous three months trying to pull my shattered life back together.

I found myself with lots of free time, very little money, and a strong desire not to slip back into old behaviors. My roomate, for some reason, had access to all sorts of government surplus food stuff--cheese, flour, butter, sugar, and so on.

One day in October, I picked up a Good Housekeeping cookbook at a garage sale for a quarter. I started thumbing through it to see what I could make out of what we had available. What I came up with was cheesy biscuits and pie crust.

I bought a couple of pie pans at another garage sale, and just started making crusts from scratch. The first ones were kind of pathetic, but the more I made, the better they got. Every once in a while I bought some apples and made actual pies.

I can't describe the satisfaction this gave me. At the time I stopped drinking, I had absolutely no sense of self-worth, and it was a difficult journey back from there. Being able to master pie crusts was the first step. I could actually produce something positive.

A couple of years ago I began to bake bread. Not the bread machine kind--the old-fashioned kind that requires much more than just measuring out ingredients into a cylinder. It requires thought and engages the senses. Kneading dough in a warm kitchen, with the smell of yeast all about me is about as close to heaven as I've ever been. It is like prayer.

I haven't baked bread for a few months, from before Arlina became ill. At first, there was just too much going on--bread making takes time. Then it got too hot. There is a huge difference between standing in a warm kitchen on a winter day and standing in a hot kitchen when it is 105 degrees outside. For me, bread making is one of those seasonal rites that accompanies the falling of leaves and the first chilly mornings of fall. It is the time I put away the grill and take out my mixing bowls.

I wait patiently.

Some answers

althaea: A tie between a freshly-washed baby and a loaf of bread right out of the oven. Rose gardens run a close second.

tallulahmae: This was tougher than I thought. Freshly baked bread (there seems to be a bread theme today), an unusually smelly cheese, wild mushroom lasagne, pork schnitzel covered in sauteed mushrooms, tuscan beans, and gelato for dessert, followed by espresso.

More answers

ldygwynedd: This has been one of the most difficult aspects of all this for me. Much of my spoken prayer has seemed empty and lifeless. I have drifted more towards silence and contemplation, simply listening. It is in silence that I most feel his presence. But there are times when I feel very alone.