I wrote personal essays, I really enjoyed writing them, too.
I mean, I still do write personal essays, but it doesn't give me the same pleasure to write them, and frankly, I find myself at a loss for material or bored as fuck.
I wonder who really wants to know about what I find funny, frustrating, or sad?
I know I personally have a hell of a time reading personal essays.
There are people I love to read and I could read their stories every day, David Sedaris comes to mind first and shows like This American Life beguile me. I almost didn't use the word beguile...it was the first word that came to mind and then I was like, "nah, beguile? Really? Isn't that a bit much?" and I realized, no. These stories beguile me.
Then there are the personal stories of people I love, and I love to read those too.
But then I'll read some other stuff, and I'm bored shitless, and I think to myself, why the fuck should I care?
For example, I'll be looking for a recipe, maybe I'm settling in to make a cake or a loaf of bread, and I'll Google whatever it is, and up will come a bunch of cooking blogs, and I'm not picky, one cake is much like the next, and bread recipes are pretty standard, whatever, and I'll have to scroll down past pages of written text to get to the damn recipe.
I've got to read all about how this recipe was this person's spouse's favorite recipe and the birthday when, oh my gracious! Some pedestrian funny thing! and then Grandpa did a thing, and Bobby-Jimmy-Bob said this HYSTERICAL thing, and then MOM...oi. Really. I don't care.
Would I want to write a story to go with my recipes if I had a cooking blog? Hang on, I was going to say no, but the more I think of it, I realize you bettcha, I would.
Do I want to read the heartwarming story of Belinda in Iowa's husband's birthday that one year when all that funny shit went down?
No I do not.
But I want to write about my shitty life. I do. I have found the way to liven up my own personal essay writing. Eur-fucking-reeka!
Here's my recipe for basic white french bread.
Once there was this one time, well not just the one time, several times, several times, we've run out of bread before we've run into payday.
On those occasions I make bread.
Usually we only have white flour on hand, why I don't know. I could think on that question, but I don't feel like it. I am a bloated lady whose eating habits suck white dough balls. Okay?
So I don't want to use up our eggs or milk just to make some bread, so I make the sort of bread with the fewest ingredients, that would be french bread. True story.
you'll need:
1 packet of yeast
2 C. lukewarm water...why Luke? how about Hanswarm? Or Leiawarm?
1 TBS sugar
1 TBS salt
some table spoons of oil...I'll get back to you on that.
5 or so cups of flour, I use cheap unbleached white, unbleached because even if I'm a health disregarding bloated lady, I have standards.
Dissolve the sugar in the Leiawarm water in a large bowl, add the yeast, stir that yeast around, watch it start to orgy and bubble, you're watching yeast sex, you're a perv. Add the oil, that will show those licentious fungi.
Toss in a couple cups of flour, don't mix anything yet, toss the salt in on top of that flour, now mix it around. Salt can kill your yeast. Years ago when I worked in a bakery making this shit for a living, only it was made with wheat flour, some wise Zen baker dude told me about the salt thing. I still think of Dave the hippy baker dude when I make bread. How could I not?
Now you can think of him too.
mix that shit up.
add more flour.
Stop when you get to 4.5 cups, it mix it up more, get your hands in there. You can oil your hands first, or flour them in an effort to keep the dough from sticking to you. It may work for you.
If the dough is still wicked wet, add the .5 flour. kneed it around some more. If it's still wet, add some bit more of flour, do this a little at a time until you have a dough that is not too dry and not too wet.
HAHAHAHA!! If you've never made bread before you are a little lost! What's not too wet nor too dry look like? That's sad but also funny to me, because right now I'm feeling like an asshole and I might not tell you. Actually, I don't know how to tell you. Just wing it. You really can't fuck this up unless your yeast is dead. So don't worry. It's perfect.
Flour your work surface, dump that dough down, now you're going to knead it for 8 to 10 minutes.
This is the best part.
to start, flatten that dough a bit, fold it in half, push down then forward with the heel of your hand. A bit like you're trying to give Resusci Annie a chest compression. Only not down, but down and forward a little, so, if it were Resusci Annie, you'd be breaking the ribs on the side farther from you.
Now turn that dough clockwise from 12 to 3 o'clock, give her another compression, turn from 3 to 6 o'clock, etc. Do this as many times around the clock as you can in 8-10 minutes.
Now your bread should feel like a chubby lady's thigh. Woowoo. You're welcome.
This is good.
Keep your dough intact, don't be stretching it around, don't pull on it, you want to keep this dough in a nice tight little ball of slightly firm slightly squishy doughness.
grease the bowl, grease the top of your dough, toss that dough in the bowl.
Some recipes call for covering the bowl with a kitchen towel.
I have 4 cats and a dog...there's hair on every fabric surface in the house. I use plastic wrap. I use plastic wrap because of the hair issue and because I hate the Earth. I bet you could use parchment paper or wax paper instead. Or maybe you don't have a small zoo, so use a damp clean kitchen towel, but be prepared to pick dough out of your towel and that's going to suck. So do what you will in this regard.
Let that shit rise for an hour or until doubled in size.
Now, the next thing is to PUNCH DOWN THE DOUGH. But you don't want to punch, that's violent and mean to the yeast.
You want to gently press the air out of the dough, then turn it onto your floured surface and give it a few kneads.
Here's my technique. It might suck but this is what I do. I go all gentle on this dough, ok?
I gently push the air out. I gently roll that shit into a 6 inch log. I cut that log in half. Now you have two loaves of bread.
Flatten 1 out and gently stretch it to make a rectangle about 12 inches long and some length, maybe 6 ish inches wide, start at the point in the middle closest to you and roll that dough 1 rotation pretty tightly, now roll the sides to catch up. Do this rolling thing till you have a loaf, pinch the seam closed. Don't be afraid to really pinch that shit shut. Give it a roll. Place on the cookie sheet I should have told you to prepare before now. I'd grease that cookie sheet with olive oil, toss the loaf on that sheet.
Do it again with the other loaf. Cover the loaves with the whatever you used to cover the dough in the first place. Let rise for about 1/2 hour or until it's doubled or close to.
Take a sharp knife, slash those mother fuckers, three or four times diagonally.
Oh. You should have preheated your oven to 350...or is it 400?
400. Toss the pan in the oven.
Now here is the greatest thing, take a handful of ice cubes, toss those on the floor of the oven. Shut that door. Do not open again until at least 20 minutes have passed.
This will give your bread the wicked hard crunchy crust that will lacerate the roof of your mouth, like proper french bread should have. Those French. Here's something so delicious! Hahaha! And it hurts you!
Bake for 25 minutes or until your white bread baguettes are goldeny brown.
There you go.
As I said before I make this bread when the family is low on provisions, and I do, but the ironic thing is, we inhale it so fast, we still don't have any bread when it's time for breakfast the next day.
And there you go.
My chatty personal essay and the first and possibly last of my cooking blog recipes.
I mean, I still do write personal essays, but it doesn't give me the same pleasure to write them, and frankly, I find myself at a loss for material or bored as fuck.
I wonder who really wants to know about what I find funny, frustrating, or sad?
I know I personally have a hell of a time reading personal essays.
There are people I love to read and I could read their stories every day, David Sedaris comes to mind first and shows like This American Life beguile me. I almost didn't use the word beguile...it was the first word that came to mind and then I was like, "nah, beguile? Really? Isn't that a bit much?" and I realized, no. These stories beguile me.
Then there are the personal stories of people I love, and I love to read those too.
But then I'll read some other stuff, and I'm bored shitless, and I think to myself, why the fuck should I care?
For example, I'll be looking for a recipe, maybe I'm settling in to make a cake or a loaf of bread, and I'll Google whatever it is, and up will come a bunch of cooking blogs, and I'm not picky, one cake is much like the next, and bread recipes are pretty standard, whatever, and I'll have to scroll down past pages of written text to get to the damn recipe.
I've got to read all about how this recipe was this person's spouse's favorite recipe and the birthday when, oh my gracious! Some pedestrian funny thing! and then Grandpa did a thing, and Bobby-Jimmy-Bob said this HYSTERICAL thing, and then MOM...oi. Really. I don't care.
Would I want to write a story to go with my recipes if I had a cooking blog? Hang on, I was going to say no, but the more I think of it, I realize you bettcha, I would.
Do I want to read the heartwarming story of Belinda in Iowa's husband's birthday that one year when all that funny shit went down?
No I do not.
But I want to write about my shitty life. I do. I have found the way to liven up my own personal essay writing. Eur-fucking-reeka!
Here's my recipe for basic white french bread.
Once there was this one time, well not just the one time, several times, several times, we've run out of bread before we've run into payday.
On those occasions I make bread.
Usually we only have white flour on hand, why I don't know. I could think on that question, but I don't feel like it. I am a bloated lady whose eating habits suck white dough balls. Okay?
So I don't want to use up our eggs or milk just to make some bread, so I make the sort of bread with the fewest ingredients, that would be french bread. True story.
you'll need:
1 packet of yeast
2 C. lukewarm water...why Luke? how about Hanswarm? Or Leiawarm?
1 TBS sugar
1 TBS salt
some table spoons of oil...I'll get back to you on that.
5 or so cups of flour, I use cheap unbleached white, unbleached because even if I'm a health disregarding bloated lady, I have standards.
Dissolve the sugar in the Leiawarm water in a large bowl, add the yeast, stir that yeast around, watch it start to orgy and bubble, you're watching yeast sex, you're a perv. Add the oil, that will show those licentious fungi.
Toss in a couple cups of flour, don't mix anything yet, toss the salt in on top of that flour, now mix it around. Salt can kill your yeast. Years ago when I worked in a bakery making this shit for a living, only it was made with wheat flour, some wise Zen baker dude told me about the salt thing. I still think of Dave the hippy baker dude when I make bread. How could I not?
Now you can think of him too.
mix that shit up.
add more flour.
Stop when you get to 4.5 cups, it mix it up more, get your hands in there. You can oil your hands first, or flour them in an effort to keep the dough from sticking to you. It may work for you.
If the dough is still wicked wet, add the .5 flour. kneed it around some more. If it's still wet, add some bit more of flour, do this a little at a time until you have a dough that is not too dry and not too wet.
HAHAHAHA!! If you've never made bread before you are a little lost! What's not too wet nor too dry look like? That's sad but also funny to me, because right now I'm feeling like an asshole and I might not tell you. Actually, I don't know how to tell you. Just wing it. You really can't fuck this up unless your yeast is dead. So don't worry. It's perfect.
Flour your work surface, dump that dough down, now you're going to knead it for 8 to 10 minutes.
This is the best part.
to start, flatten that dough a bit, fold it in half, push down then forward with the heel of your hand. A bit like you're trying to give Resusci Annie a chest compression. Only not down, but down and forward a little, so, if it were Resusci Annie, you'd be breaking the ribs on the side farther from you.
Now turn that dough clockwise from 12 to 3 o'clock, give her another compression, turn from 3 to 6 o'clock, etc. Do this as many times around the clock as you can in 8-10 minutes.
Now your bread should feel like a chubby lady's thigh. Woowoo. You're welcome.
This is good.
Keep your dough intact, don't be stretching it around, don't pull on it, you want to keep this dough in a nice tight little ball of slightly firm slightly squishy doughness.
grease the bowl, grease the top of your dough, toss that dough in the bowl.
Some recipes call for covering the bowl with a kitchen towel.
I have 4 cats and a dog...there's hair on every fabric surface in the house. I use plastic wrap. I use plastic wrap because of the hair issue and because I hate the Earth. I bet you could use parchment paper or wax paper instead. Or maybe you don't have a small zoo, so use a damp clean kitchen towel, but be prepared to pick dough out of your towel and that's going to suck. So do what you will in this regard.
Let that shit rise for an hour or until doubled in size.
Now, the next thing is to PUNCH DOWN THE DOUGH. But you don't want to punch, that's violent and mean to the yeast.
You want to gently press the air out of the dough, then turn it onto your floured surface and give it a few kneads.
Here's my technique. It might suck but this is what I do. I go all gentle on this dough, ok?
I gently push the air out. I gently roll that shit into a 6 inch log. I cut that log in half. Now you have two loaves of bread.
Flatten 1 out and gently stretch it to make a rectangle about 12 inches long and some length, maybe 6 ish inches wide, start at the point in the middle closest to you and roll that dough 1 rotation pretty tightly, now roll the sides to catch up. Do this rolling thing till you have a loaf, pinch the seam closed. Don't be afraid to really pinch that shit shut. Give it a roll. Place on the cookie sheet I should have told you to prepare before now. I'd grease that cookie sheet with olive oil, toss the loaf on that sheet.
Do it again with the other loaf. Cover the loaves with the whatever you used to cover the dough in the first place. Let rise for about 1/2 hour or until it's doubled or close to.
Take a sharp knife, slash those mother fuckers, three or four times diagonally.
Oh. You should have preheated your oven to 350...or is it 400?
400. Toss the pan in the oven.
Now here is the greatest thing, take a handful of ice cubes, toss those on the floor of the oven. Shut that door. Do not open again until at least 20 minutes have passed.
This will give your bread the wicked hard crunchy crust that will lacerate the roof of your mouth, like proper french bread should have. Those French. Here's something so delicious! Hahaha! And it hurts you!
Bake for 25 minutes or until your white bread baguettes are goldeny brown.
There you go.
As I said before I make this bread when the family is low on provisions, and I do, but the ironic thing is, we inhale it so fast, we still don't have any bread when it's time for breakfast the next day.
And there you go.
My chatty personal essay and the first and possibly last of my cooking blog recipes.
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