muesli bread

     Last spring, I discovered the breathtaking magnificence of a bookstore. 

     I had taken up an interest in riding my bike around town. Being able to go places, without having to have someone drive me, was an exciting and novel concept to me. I biked to the grocery store alone to buy ingredients. Several times, I rode my bike to a park in Seattle, 8.2 miles away.  My bike was ridiculous, built for ten-year-old boys and bought from Wal-Mart, but I had freedom.

     Then, on a sunny spring day (much like the ones we've been having lately), I took a backpack and my helmet and rode to the bookstore, because why not?

     There was also a Great Harvest Bread Co. in the same shopping complex. I had never been in one before. I parked my bike outside and went in. It was amazing! A real bakery! I ogled the focaccia and sourdough and so much more - it all looked so good. Then I noticed that an employee was handing out samples. Too shy to speak up, I hung around until they offered me a slice of bread. I tried a piece of their bread with pesto and Asiago cheese, smeared liberally with butter. It was savory, complex, and delicious.

     I walked up the escalator to the bookstore. I had been there before, when I was younger, but never alone. Then, the sudden realization hit me - there were more books on one floor of a shopping complex than I would likely ever read in my life. Shakespeare's plays, classic literature, gardening manuals, treatises of philosophy, detective novels, trashy romances...in each of those blocks of stacked paper, there were words printed that came directly out of another human being's consciousness. How had we, as a civilization, managed to amass so much learning? I wandered around, just marveling. Then I walked down the escalator and rode my bike home.

     I've now developed a slightly misguided habit of buying every book I want to read. Whenever the local thrift store has a 50% off sale, I half-heartedly flip through the hideous shirts and dresses, but then spend most of my time with my head tilted to the side, scanning the bookshelves for good titles. The books I've amassed that have yet to be read sit in a permanent, 3-foot-high stack next to my desk. Agatha Christie: an Autobiography, Of Civil Government (bought at Magus Books in the University District), Letter to a Christian Nation, Little Women, and many more seem to accuse me of "why haven't you gotten around to me yet"? I will, one day.

     But back to Great Harvest Bread Co. A bakery, even a chain store or even a grocery store bakery, is a wonderful thing. The giant carts and dough hooks in the back, the multitudes of breads. There's something extremely beautiful about slicing into the crackly crust of a good artisan bread. Even when you're supposed to wait at least half an hour for it to cool, it's so tempting to just tear off a hunk of bread right out of the oven, releasing a billow of steam that catches the afternoon light in the kitchen. This bread is perfect for that, with little gems of fruits and nuts scattered in the soft dough. It's also good for making sweet-savory grilled cheese sandwiches. And for revisiting memories of simpler times.

classic whole wheat sandwich bread

     Before I became interested in food blogging, I proclaimed myself photography-averse. I just wasn't "that kind of person", I thought. I shied away from having photos taken of myself on trips or special occasions, since I thought it was a waste of time. To be fair, the only photos my family takes are the kinds where several people stand grinning at the camera, faces harshly illuminated by a naked flash...hardly professional photography. But I just didn't really value photos.

     In hindsight, I really regret it. There are so many events in my life over the past several years which have gone undocumented. Sure, I can visualize them in my brain, but a picture is so much more tangible, and so much more valuable. After all, it captures a fragile, fleeting moment of time, never to be reproduced.

     So I suppose I am a "photography person" now. I do my best to document my life. I mean, I don't have an Instagram, and I don't photograph everything I eat or do or everybody I spend my time with. But I'm more aware of the value of a picture. What's more, I actually enjoy photography, especially of food. I'm willing to spend time fussing over composition and color and lighting, and it's really satisfying.
     There will always be things that won't be and can't be immortalized in a photo. Like the chill of an early morning as I go for a run, or the tang of balsamic vinegar catching in my throat, or the darkness that seems to envelop me while I wait for the bus on school days, beaten back only by the rings of orange light cast by street lamps. More important, it seems to me, is to not worry about what I didn't and can't preserve, and to remember that I still have an entire lifetime to create and record memories.

     What did that soliloquy have to do with this bread? Close to nothing. Hahaha! I just felt like I had to talk about the guilt I sometimes feel over not documenting everything in my life. But, anyways...this bread was the first successful sandwich bread I've made. I've tried making sandwich bread from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day master recipe. While it definitely would have made an excellent crusty, artisan-style loaf, it didn't hold up well as a sandwich loaf. So I tried a recipe for "classic whole wheat bread" from online, and it worked so much better. I let the dough rise on a Saturday morning as I went to the local thrift store and bought some cardigans, books (another thing I hoard like nobody's business), and baking pans. I came back, shaped the loaf, let it proof, and I had the best whole-wheat sandwich bread I've ever made by lunchtime. My mom and I devoured it in a matter of days. It doesn't have very much whole-wheat flour, but it has a tender crumb, and is excellent toasted, with some mashed avocado, salt, and pepper on top.

cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread

      R and I met on the first day of third grade. We had both come from another school - almost every third grader in the classroom had. I wore my hair in two plaits, braided by my mom that morning, with a plastic flower clip. I was bespectacled and short. Between my braided hair, glasses, and poor fashion choices, my elementary school self's personal style is one I'd prefer to forget.
     The two of us were assigned to desks that were next to each other at the end of the U-shaped alignment of tables. Naturally, we fell to talking. I don't remember all of it, but I remember the conversation turning to giant tarantulas and a friend of hers whose contact lens fell out after their face was slammed into a door.
     From that first day, we were fast friends. All throughout elementary school, we were allies, if not always as close as Castor and Pollux. We traveled through late childhood together, always in the same class. We had our ups and downs, especially after the drama of fifth grade. But there were never fights or bitterness between us.
     In junior high, we separated. R moved to a different part of town, and we didn't talk very often. It happens. This year, though, we were reunited at the same high school. We've started talking again, on the rides to and from Chinese school on Friday nights. We don't have any classes together, but I still see her at school several times a week, and I'm glad.

     R's birthday almost always falls on midwinter break, a week-long vacation in the middle of February. She doesn't want anybody to know about it, because "then they feel like they have to give me presents", and write bland, cookie-cutter posts on Facebook congratulating her. But, of course, I remembered this year, and invited myself over to her house for a sleepover. I did a quick sketch of her and put it in a small frame (oh, the advantages to being an artist! They include the bonus of always having a heart-felt gift up your sleeve.) And because I always leap at the opportunity to bake for others, I prepared a loaf of cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread. I'd been eying the recipe for forever, since it seems that everybody and their six-year-old brother is obsessed with pull-apart bread, at least on the Internet. I brought the unbaked loaf to her house, put in the refrigerator, and let it rise as we played video games and watched Avengers.
     In the morning, I woke up at 8 o'clock, because I have the annoying habit of always being the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up (seriously, I once pulled an unintentional all-nighter because the other girls were snoring too loudly). I slipped down to the kitchen to bring the bread to room temperature before baking.
     An hour and a half later, the bread was baked. The smell of yeast and cinnamon filled R's house. I pulled it out of the oven, grabbed R's camera, and insisted on taking photos. Then, we dug in. Enjoying the lazy morning after a sleepover, we pulled off steaming layers of spiced, sweet, yeasty goodness. The bread took a total of half a day to make, but I was happy to do it. Like friendships, breads benefit from a long, slow rise.

(Life has been a whirlwind of activity lately. I've been going to bed past 11 every night, much less had time to blog! I'm sorry for the hiatus. But it's a good kind of busy - I've just been accepted to a summer program at Brown University on a hefty scholarship. I can't wait until July, when I get to study in Providence for a month. I've never even visited the eastern part of the US before, much less lived in New England. Yaaaaaay!)
(R: if you're reading this, I am both unsurprised and completely unrepentant. Hahaha.)