‘Rise to the challenge’
Good morning,
Today’s contribution comes from Dr Christian Livermore, a Visiting Scholar in the School of English, whose PhD is in creative writing from St Andrews, and who has offered the following for her fellow-readers of the Companionship emails and blog.
I fretted over what I might say in this email. Donald and Samantha always have words of wisdom to offer, contemplative thoughts to help us find ways to consider our current predicament. I have no such words. But then I realised, these emails are meant to promote companionship, so I thought I would tell you about something that I’ve been doing to improve life in lockdown. Bread. No, I’m not sitting around eating loaves of bread every day (well, maybe). I have begun baking bread from scratch. For the first time in my life.
I never imagined I would be one of those people who bakes bread. I used to listen as people talked about their adventures in bread baking: perfecting their sourdough starter, having to find friends to feed it while they went on holiday, that time they didn’t feed it for six months and it went pink and runny and they had to start over again. I thought, geez, all that trouble for a loaf of bread? Why not just go to Tesco? A friend gave me a starter a few years ago called Herman the German, but we put it on top of the cupboards to be out of the way while we cooked Thanksgiving dinner and then forgot about it for two weeks.
But some of the things we need are in short supply at the grocery store, and we’ve been looking for ways to minimise shopping trips anyway, because social distancing. So I’ve planted tomatoes and herbs. We stocked up on pantry staples. (Hey, did you know Fisher & Donaldson deliver?) I puzzled over a question I never asked my grandmother because it didn’t seem important at the time: exactly how many times can I reuse the tinfoil?
And we decided to bake our own bread. I found a recipe for a simple white loaf. It came out very well, so I posted a photo on Facebook. Many people ooh’d and aah’d, and one said, ‘Where did you get yeast?’
I said, ‘Why? Are people hoarding yeast, too?’
Apparently they were, and he’d searched for it in five stores without success. He offered me £1,000 for the rest of mine.
Having become attached to freshly baked bread and now knowing that there was a shortage of yeast, we figured we’d better make a sourdough starter. After much research online, reading various peoples’ recipes, we set to work. I posted Facebook updates on our progress. We killed the first one. We had misread the directions — which, in our defence, were not clear — and added apple on days 1-3 instead of only on day 1. I was following point 9 of Don Paterson’s advice to graduates in his graduation address last summer: give yourself the freedom to fail at something.
So we tried again. When the starter began to bubble and it was clear that it was alive, I posted a photo. A friend, delighted, asked how we’d made it. I said it was very simple, just flour, water and apple. My friend Jeff chimed in.
‘APPLE!!!! You don’t use apple in sourdough starter!’
Gee, I thought, maybe we’re doing something wrong. But every recipe we’d seen included apple, including the one from Jan Hedh, the Swedish master baker at Peter’s Yard. I told Jeff this. He was unmoved. Apple in a starter, he insisted, was daft.
‘Well, he’s a master baker,’ I said.
‘I’m from the Midwest,’ he replied.
I’m not sure exactly what expertise being from the Midwest confers on Jeff, but he is clearly observing point 4 of Don Paterson’s advice: cultivate an obsession about something.
‘P.S.,’ Jeff then posted. ‘How did you capture the yeast?’
Capture the yeast?
People began messaging me.
‘Listen, I don’t know who that Jeff guy is,’ one wrote, ‘but you absolutely need apple in a sourdough starter.’
Somebody else said, ‘You don’t need apple. You can use grapes instead. Or if you can’t find grapes, just go look around on the ground underneath the apple tree at Kennedy Hall. Some apples may have dropped from last summer, and that will do just fine.’
Then my friend John, who had been following my sourdough starter journey, posted. He had just made his own bread. The obsession was spreading.
We made our first successful sourdough loaf the day before yesterday. We called the starter Aunt Augusta. (It is traditional to name your starter.) The first one was called Bunbury, which we should have realised was a bad idea right from the off.
So now we’re baking bread every few days, and we’re quickly going through all the bread flour left on hand. Panicked at the idea of no longer having freshly baked bread, I went online and ordered five packages of T55 bread flour from France, demonstrating that I have neglected to follow point 8b of Don Paterson’s advice: turn off one-click ordering on Amazon.
I suppose if there is any wisdom at all to be taken from this, it’s to take care of yourself, whatever that looks like for you. Bake bread. Argue with people on Facebook about how to do it. Or do something else you can obsess about. But do turn off one-click ordering on Amazon. (After you order flour.)
Two invitations now for upcoming services. First, Compline this evening at 9 pm, led by Jared Michelson, Honorary Cornerstone Chaplain.
Donald MacEwan is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Compline Online
Time: May 7, 2020 09:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/96161119371?pwd=WDFSK0t4QWZzRXJSamkxZ1FsT3E3Zz09
Meeting ID: 961 6111 9371
Password: 2w6iM2
Then, for this Sunday’s morning service, which includes celebration and commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, including a new Chapel Choir audio and video recording of Surrexit pastor bonus by Lassus. The preacher will be Revd Sam Ferguson, Assistant Chaplain.
Donald MacEwan is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: University Worship for Sunday 10 May
Time: May 10, 2020 11:00 AM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/97757355713?pwd=bkwybzlaVCtFZVBlSHFvQUVIVkVsUT09
Meeting ID: 977 5735 5713
Password: 0QriyP
Yours,
Donald.