The staff of life…

FOR a long time now, at least 35 years, I have successfully dodged the making of a decent loaf.

A decent loaf can mean two things: either a lazy winter afternoon in the sun with a book and a ginger beer (or whatever takes your fancy), or it can mean clouds of bread flour everywhere.

I suppose my reticence is a shyness of cooking with yeast, or perhaps a fear of failure. All this is now a thing of the past, thanks to Pamela Shippel, who, for those of you who may not know, is the genius behind the charming Tea Rooms at Kirstenbosch Gardens, surely one of the most sublime places on earth to eat.

On a recent visit to Cape Town I lunched there with two friends; Mrs Shippel came over to join us for a while and signed the book I had just bought, My Way with Food, one of several highly successful books by Mrs Shippel on cookery. She wrote a delightful dedication.

I think my main appreciation for the book lies in the way the writer treats yeast and bread making; like some of my friends to this day, I had an irrational fear of making bread.

The first few attempts were to draw me into a web of mystery and disaster. When instructed to slap the dough onto a floured board, I obediently did so. The kitchen vanished; all was whiteness. Too much flour on the board.

I went into the bathroom to wash my hands and looking back at me from the mirror was what appeared to be Marley’s ghost. I washed my hands – almost of the whole thing – and did what I could with the whited spectre.

Back in the kitchen I prodded the dough; it bounced back, a soft and slightly warm substance of great tenderness and, seemingly, life.

It must have had life because at this point it knocked the bag holding the remaining kilogram of flour onto the stone floor. At last, stone grounded flour. Weeping seemed the only option, with, perhaps, a little light gnashing of teeth; I think I said, “Well, I never!”, but it may have been something with a little more bite.

I hoovered up the drift of flour – a lot, admittedly, had thankfully stayed in the bag - and returned to the dough, which was now sitting sulkily on the board; I swear I saw a disdainful eye.

I prodded it again and folded it over; I twisted it a bit and folded again and began to feel the restoration of my equilibrium. The feel of the dough was rather pleasing, if alarmingly sticky, so I carried on for a while.

Again following instructions, I plonked the dough into the bottom of a bowl, covered it with a damp tea-towel and left it sitting in a small corner, so to speak, of the bottom of the bowl.

Some considerable time later I removed the cloth and there was the dough; sitting in a small corner, so to speak, of the bottom of the bowl. I returned to the recipe. At this point I noticed a small blue sachet marked instant yeast next to the pages of the book. There ensued another bout of weeping.

Here ended the lesson.

My next attempt was aided and abetted by the adding of the yeast, the warming of the flour and the water, and the placing of the flour bag on the other side of the kitchen.

Vengeance and victory were mine. The bread rose, was knocked back; rose again; was baked, was cooled on a wire rack and was delicious.

Mrs Shippel had removed the mines from the field of wheat.

CB

8/7/11