Views From Mount Dunbar: An unlikely baker

My partner John Denniston with the first thing he has ever baked in his nearly 75 years. Stunning what a long stretch of pandemic isolation can do! He set up this photo of himself for a Facebook post; note the T-shirt.

As someone who believes food is more fuel than pleasure, John has never been much interested in its creation. To him, cooking is a mysterious activity carried on in another realm that is not photography, bicycles or computers. So it was with amazement that I learned, a few weeks into pandemic isolation, that my partner of nearly 50 years had heard the call of the bread-making hordes. The most unlikely males of the neighbourhood were turning to baking; Facebook acquaintances were peppering the site with their golden loaves. Whether from boredom or a desperation for something new, John expressed interest in joining the action.

By then, of course, we’d missed the boat. The pandemic baking flurry had emptied store shelves of both flour and yeast. At Stong’s, a hand-written, capital-lettered “No Yeast” sign in the baking section had a beleaguered air. Too many requests, obviously; and there was no hint as to whether we’d ever see yeast there again. But a couple of weeks later, I scored a big bag of all-purpose flour, and recently, a box of instant yeast. Both were limited to one per customer, and neither were familiar brands, but one of the lessons of a pandemic is that you take what you can get.

Which led to Wednesday, with John up to the wrists in goopy bread dough, and me, decades after last making yeast bread, trying to offer advice. How much flour can you add to a watery dough before ruining it completely? What’s the right way to knead, and how do you know when it’s enough? John seemed to be prodding the dough very delicately, while I remember mom –a farm wife who made bread instinctively and often – pummeling it, her muscular forearms in action. Our dough rose quickly enough, but to my eye, it had a discouraged, baggy look compared to the smooth elasticity of mom’s efforts. As we bumbled along, John and I reassured each other that it was an experiment after all, and six cups of lost flour wasn’t the end of the world.

Nobody was more astonished than us when our two loaves turned out fine – nicely textured and tasting just like freshly baked bread should. Add it to the already long list of pandemic amazements. As for whether John will add baking to his long-term realm of interests, I have my doubts – but he could surprise me once again.

Here's how John's first baking lesson went, starting with measuring out the flour.

Pouring water into the flour-yeast mixture. The recipe said warm-hot -- which is what, exactly?

The dough ready for action.

It was pretty mucky, so we added flour, and more flour, far more than the recipe called for. How much is too much?

John kneading the dough. We looked up a YouTube video to see how it should be done, but the beautiful blond teacher seemed more interested in facial close-ups than in what she was doing with her hands. Not much valuable instruction there.

The kneaded dough ready for its first rise.

A much-anticipated section of the recipe called for "punching down" the dough after it had risen. John prepares for the punch....

... a satisfying squish...

.... and a fine hole in the centre, which seems to delight John. I had to tell him that it wasn't just one punch; he had to knead the whole thing again.

Cutting the kneaded-down dough for placement in loaf pans.

The risen loaves looked a little loose and baggy to me, not like the smooth elastic ones I remember mom producing. It was at this point that we began talking about what to do with two inedible loaves.