I know I can buy a loaf for less than it costs me to make a loaf, but I don’t care. There is something transcendental about mixing water, yeast, salt, and flour and kneading it into a loaf of bread. Bread has always been a synecdoche for all food, for wages, for a living. Bread is a central part of Christian symbolism and a major part of worship. The transformation of wheat into bread is mysterious, complex, and fills me with wonder. As a small child I watched my mother make bread, knowing full well that she was repeating the lessons she learned as her own mother made bread, who was repeating the recipe and actions that her mother had taught her. I came to making bread later in life, but I had learned my lessons. I believe that making bread is a tradition that should be honored, not forgotten. I don’t mind getting messy, or getting out the bread board, or spending time with my hands in the dough. I don’t mind that it takes hours to get a loaf mixed, kneaded, and baked. I don’t measure anything exactly. I love the idea that no two loaves are ever exactly the same and that I don’t have to “wonder” about how many weird and dangerous chemicals have been added to the bread to keep it soft and fresh for weeks. I love to let the bread rise under a dishtowel while I do something else. I don’t kid myself: I am not an expert baker, but I assume that bread has been made this way for many millennia, and I love being a part of that tradition. Bread is such a fundamental part of the human condition–the variations are almost infinite. Sometimes I had cinnamon, other times cardamon adds a different twist to the taste. Whole wheat flour gives the bread a nutty flavor that is best savored slowly. Kneading bread is a nice workout, therapeutic some days because you can really put your whole body and spirit into pounding, folding, and working the dough. The best part of making your own bread, at least for me, is the sense of accomplishing something original, creating a new thing with my own art, my own recipe, my own energy and effort. There are so few things over which any of us have any control, but baking bread, at least for a moment, can give any of us the illusory feeling of power and control. Yet it is not a complete mirage because at the end of the process you have a couple of loaves of bread that you can slice and eat and enjoy. The process of bread-making is an odd interplay of dry ingredients interlocking with water that creates a whole new thing when fire and heat are added. Who would suspect that flour, with a little coaxing from yeast and salt, could be turned into a crunchy, springy, nutty, moist, chewy phenomenon that can light up as a midnight snack or help wake up a sleepy day beside a cup of coffee? I like my own bread toasted with a little real butter on it. My own bread is nothing like the bread you can buy in a store. My loaves are not perfect, a bit crusty, unsliced, doesn’t come in a plastic bag with a twist-tie closing off the open end. Making bread grounds me in a way that my digitally mediated existence doesn’t. Currently, my bread has been divided into two loaves which are rising in the oven just before I bake them. They’ll be ready around midnight.