I smell my beans simmering on the stove. The wonderful aroma takes me back, like various food aromas sometimes do. Back to a place in my mind's eye. Back to my grandmother's kitchen and we're baking homemade bread. Beans simmer on the back burner there too, while the bread is being prepared.
I watch my grandmother's hands, covered in flour, pushing the soft, white dough, turning it and pushing; she calls it kneading. In my seven-year-old mind, the word becomes "needing" and I say it softly to myself, trying to figure out what it all means. We're wearing aprons, freshly clean and pulled out of the kitchen drawer where cook's attire is neatly kept. Mine is red, (always my preferred color) with tiny, little, brightly colored flowers splashed all over it.
I feel important in my apron--I'm watching my grandmother bake bread. I wear it proudly tucked under my arms and tied with a huge bow in the back. I dance around the kitchen pretending I'm wearing a red dress, twirling to see if this pretend dress will flow out with my movement. Seeing that it doesn't make a very fanciful dress, I settle down for the bread baking. Kneeling in a chair I watch and smell the yeast and yearn to get my hands into that dough! Finally, my grandmother senses my desire and pulls off a hunk of dough, sprinkles a little flour and plops the dough in front of me and goes back to her kneading.
I watch her with wide eyes for a moment, surprised and pleased at her silent invite into her world of bread baking! Then I catch her slight smile as I spread the flour and try my hand at kneading and I'm smiling too. I watch and learn and feel so important in my red apron that now has a light coating of flour down the front. I'm learning to bake bread! I wish I could be the best bread-baker in the whole entire world! I'm going to bake bread for everybody! People will love my bread, hot and fresh from the oven! Such were the thoughts running through my seven-year-old head as I squished the dough and plopped it down sending a whoosh of flour into the air. I pushed it and pounded it, flipped it and tasted it. A sure sign of a born-bread-baker!
I've baked many loaves of bread over the years that have passed since then. The process never ceases to bring about memories of my grandmother baking bread and what that day meant in this little girl's life. There was a lot of love kneaded in with the dough and perhaps that is why the memory is so precious to me to this day. And why I won't ever be using a bread machine--not in this bread-baker's lifetime!
