So I have these really great friends who are really great cooks. Whenever they feed me, I don’t feel shame for my lack of skill, but rather, the eternal optimist that I am gets inspired by the fact that it’s actually possible to produce such kitchen wonders oneself. If it’s made in a restaurant kitchen, I assume that it necessitated some magic or machinery that’s out of my reach. But if someone I know made it in their kitchen, someone without superpowers, then I just assume I can do it.

And that’s how I came to think that I could ever make bread. On Michel’s recommendation, I ordered a book entitled Dough, which would demystify breadmaking forever. I excitedly tracked it on Canada Post’s website on its journey from mythical Mississauga to me. With each leg of the trip that this grimoire completed, I could almost feel my hands grow stronger with the power of the baker. Oh, how I was going to impress my team with homemade olive foccacia! How my father’s proud eye would tear up on tasting my baguettes on Christmas Eve! Nothing less than a new way of loving my uh… loved ones awaited me.

On the “what you need” pages, the author discussed how laughably simple the ingredients for bread are - flour, water, yeast and salt. Surely this is the most basic skill known to man. But still, the Scotsmontonian would think me a Goddess of the kitchen.

Then, later on down the page of what I’ll need, the author lists a dough scraper, a lame (thingy with a razor blade on it), and most importantly, a breadstone (a slab of rock on which to bake bread - the author mentions having found his on a construction site). Ok, so basically, to make bread, all I need is a bakery.

Undeterred, I hunted down and bought the exotic implements, and was finally ready to take to the dough. The DVD that came with the book, which demonstrates how to knead, didn’t work. Undeterred, I watched youtube videos of how to knead. Ended up with some beautiful proto-baguettes, which I set on my hot breadstone.

Set the timer. Waited.

The baguettes were too hot to pick up with my hands, so I planted a fork in one to get it out. But it didn’t plant. It almost bent. I pushed harder on the fork, but the baguette’s crust, seemingly made of adamantium, resisted. I pushed harder until the baguette flew to the bottom of the oven.

What had gone wrong? Was I wrong to use instant yeast? To use the highest temperature my oven went to? (the book said “475 degrees or more”) To be off in the cooking time by three minutes out of twelve? Where did my hubris lie?

Ever the sweetheart, Comet seemed interested in eating my homemade bread. She worked on it for an hour as if it had been a bone.

Update: Success on the third batch!!! Activating the yeast made the difference. Yaaaay!