Bread

This past weekend I taught my son how to make bread.  

Oh. My. God.  

While that last statement is technically true, I make it sound like I taught him to silently track and kill wheat, corral wild yeast, and mine salt using nothing but a rain-moistened stick, and guided only by the special quality the air takes on during a gibbous moon, just like my father and his father before him.

No.  I found a simple, minimalist article online on how to make a four-ingredient rustic bread and we followed the instructions.  There is the result in the pic.  The loaf was plain but good.

During the process I explained to him what all the ingredients were for - flour is the stuff bread is made from and is food for the yeast, yeast makes it fluffier (I told him how), salt keeps the yeast from making giant holes in the bread, and everything needs water to live.  I also told him while we were hand-kneading the dough that “a man who knows how to make his own bread will never starve”.

You read that right.  I actually said “A man who knows how to make his own bread will never starve”.  I even had the nerve to say it sagely.  As soon as the words left my lips I thought to myself “[insert slow, sarcastic clap here] Bravo!  What are you, a freakin’ bumper sticker, now?”  About one-quarter of a second after I had that thought, the six-year-old laughed and said “You sounded like Yoda when you said that.”

I smiled at his “joke” and said nothing.  What could I say?  “Ok, boy, you win this one,” I thought.  

I totally deserved that.