Look at those sweet sweet loaves of bread! (And that plate of fluffy naan!) I made those! Yeah, I finally learned to bake bread. I’m clearly not turning out golden Instagram loaves or anything but everything I’ve made so far tasted good and was reasonably crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. Success!
Honestly, I started this post weeks ago. That bread is long gone and a new loaft is in the oven right now. I’ve been struggling with this stupid post, writing and rewriting it and just feeling weird and I finally realized why.
It’s the Tradwives’ fault. They’ve made baking weird and fetishy. I mean, I sort of am a tradwife on paper, that’s probably why this gets to me. for various uninteresting reasons I was a stay-at-home mom in a fairly traditional straight person marriage. I was thinking about going back to work when the Pandemic hit, then we moved, then various other reasons kept coming up that made at-home parenting the best option. Now my last kid is sixteen and I could totally go back to college or get a job or whatever, but we’re financially lucky enough that I don’t really need to. If parenting was my career, I’m semi-retired and loving the freedom. This was just how things turned out. It wasn’t everything I wanted out of life but it had its up sides.
But now I feel like my job title has been turned into something political and vaguely gross by cute young influencers. Honestly, I’m not totally surprised. I was at-home parenting in Utah during the rise of the Mommy Bloggers and this seems like the logical progression of that weirdness.
If I’d learned to make bread during the Pandemic like everyone else, this wouldn’t be a problem. Back then, bread was having a moment. Unfortunately, back then I was too busy tradwifing my way through the crisis with three young kids suddenly doing online school to learn the art of sourdough. Now that I actually have time for this stuff I feel like I should either be baking in a pristine white kitchen (while wearing a prim little dress, prattling on about submission to my manly man). Or making a stand by only making vegan freegan punk rock bread that somehow smashes the patriarchy? You know, something dramatic to suit the present political climate.
I really just want to cook without all the fanfare, though. And I want to show it off a bit because I always thought bread from scratch would be harder to make than it is. I only learned because the grocery store raised the price of its fancy loaves yet again and I wanted to save money.
Bread is political now but here I am without a manifesto prepared. Ironically, my mom was actually a conservative at-home religious type and she totally refused to make bread from scratch. If Jesus wanted her to cook meals from scratch He wouldn’t have invented Hamburger Helper. My husband’s mom (also a conservative at-home religious type) cooked bread from scratch but when he reached his teenage years and started eating enough for five people, she made him learn how to bake it. When we were dating I would cook him dinner and he would bake me bread from scratch. So much for the bread-baking housewives of yesteryear.
So yeah, I let politics get in my head and stop me from sharing the cool thing I can do now. But no more! I want to live a quiet life and use my newfound free time to make tasty food. I totally have politics and lordy, things are getting more urgent than ever, but it’s important to carve out some quiet space to feel happy and proud of yourself and in control of at least one small thing.
Today, that one small thing is a loaf of Italian bread like this guy’s grandma used to make. Looks like I burned it a little bit but I’m gonna eat it anyway.
If you’re interested in recipes, the naan is from a Rasa Malaysia recipe. It’s pretty quick and easy to make. The other two loaves are from a fancy cook book called The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I actually got it for my husband years back; it’s very thorough but also very geared toward the hardcore bread nerd. The recipes are super solid, though.
Cauldron Comforts 