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I’m just in the middle of making some bread. I make all of our own bread. I buy organic flour direct from the mill, which buys direct from Swiss farmers. I buy it in 25kg bags. I make a blended bread of wheat, rye and spelt. I love making bread, I used to run a bakery. I was brought up on homemade bread, I can’t stand shop bread, unless it’s the very expensive type of shop bread, that we can’t afford to buy regularly. My family like my bread. It’s a wonderfully happy situation. Most people who visit gasp at my flour bins and think I am heroic. I bask in the momentary domestic goddess status and everyone is happy (again). This was until Boxing Day this year. Some friends of ours visited. Their children are of a similar age, we are of a similar age and all of us have been friends for many years. We are same enough and different enough to both get on well and hate each other at the same time! After many years of them living in the traditional roles of breadwinner/housewife, she has started part time work and he has reduced to part time. And so they find themselves in the same situation as we are. She now has that thin, strained look on her face that I see in the mirror every day, instead of the round and relaxed face I know so well. She complained about the hell of being expected to prepare Christmas as well as go to work. She also complained about the fact that even though she had passed on Christmas tasks to her husband, they were still not done. I grinned and reassured her that it would all even out in the end. He, and this is where the bets and bread come in, loves being at home. He cooks “properly” for the children. I hasten to add at this point that his wife is a good cook and made wholesome, if simple, meals for her children every day. She also attended numerous nutrition courses and really does know what she’s doing. But anyway, he does it better. The children long for her cooking days so that they don’t have to eat millet pizza and green corn pie. The other thing he has started, is making his own bread. He grinds the corn himself and makes a sourdough. Now, I know how time consuming this is! I would love to do it myself but I never, ever have time. Added to this is the fact that children hate such bread. His children too. They long for Sundays when their mum, like me, makes a plaited white loaf. My prediction is that this is just a phase, like all other enthusiastic beginners, he will get over it and at least start using yeast! My other half claims that he is frighteningly stubborn and that he will carry on and on til begged to stop. I’m giving him two years, if he gets his children to eat the stuff and is still grinding his own grains then he will be put on a pedestal and worshiped by me. If he stops, I’ll just grin and think “told you so”.
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