The Minnesota Farm Woman

My mother always made the best homemade bread. Family legend has it that my dad asked for her hand in marriage once he tasted her Swedish rye.  With seemingly little effort, she would mix and knead, and before we knew it, have six loaves of delicious crusty bread cooling on the counter. The house smelled wonderful. As kids, we didn’t appreciate it and begged for “storebought” bread….that soft, white gummy stuff that is so bad for you. When I married and moved away, I wanted the same wonderful tastes and memories for my own family.  Unfortunately for us, my  sister is the only one who inherited what I call “the bread gene”.  She  makes delicious whole wheat bread while she listens and sings along to the radio. She has even been known to whip up a homemade pizza crust after working all day. Me?  I hardly want to admit it. In this family of wonderful bakers, I am yeast-impaired.  I have tried, over the past 34 years of marriage, to make bread, rolls, pizza dough, or just about anything that calls for  flour and yeast.  I follow the recipe exactly.  I use fresh yeast. I punch it down.  I knead and I knead. Sometimes in desperation I have even have tried turning on the radio and singing to it.  Some days it it rises, and  some days  it doesn’t.  Occasionally,  it will trick me and rise beautifully, only to come out of the oven looking and tasting like a soggy, heavy brick.  Some of my failures have been cleverly disguised as Italian focaccia bread when spread out on a cookie sheet with olive oil,  garlic, and rosemary.  My chickens will eat almost anything, but they often start clucking loudly and I think they are saying, “Not that stuff again!” when I toss the latest failure into the coop.  My  sister has offered to give me lessons, but I don’t want to learn from anybody who can whip up a homemade pizza crust AND walk for four miles after working all day when I am almost too tired to  lift my fingers to dial for take-out. I haven’t given up, though, especially on those chilly Sunday afternoons when I have a pot of soup simmering on the stove.  I make really good soup.  You are welcome to  stop over and have some, but please bring a loaf of  bread. Just in case.