Time to Bake

Last month, I wrote about the delightful start to my retirement. There is something magical about being a full-time novelist. This month, I want to write something about one of my favorite things to do that is coming back to me. That thing is baking.

In my younger years, I would make chocolate chip cookies and send them to family and friends. I used to make them thick and big. At Christmas time, I would make eight dozen and send them out.

During my 20s, I spent over a year reading classic novels by Russian authors, including Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and War and Peace.  At that time, I was the only one of my friends who made it through War and Peace. I went to my local library and found a cookbook for Russian cookies. I experimented with dozens of recipes. Some worked well, and others did not. I loved to try something different than chocolate chip cookies.

In my 20s, I also got divorced. That freed up my weekends and made me grumpy.  I needed a baking way to get the grumpiness out of me. I decided to start baking bread. This was in the 1980s, so bread machines weren’t affordable for me. The kneading process became therapeutic. It took strength and hard work to get the dough to bake well. I experimented with white bread, wheat bread, and sourdough bread. I had a sourdough starter culture in my fridge for years, which I used repeatedly.  I would make two loaves of bread each weekend and mostly use it for the sandwiches I took to work.  If I had a couple extra pieces, I would sit on a bench by the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and feed the birds.

Years later, after I remarried, I kept up with the chocolate chip cookie baking. That went well until recently, when I was having trouble with the strength to mix the dough. My wife suggested using a mixer, which has been a godsend.

I have been so focused on my second novel that I haven’t considered what to bake next. Now that I am retired, I have the time to experiment. These days, I use Google to find different recipes. I never got a library card after we moved to California 23 years ago.

I envision a day soon when I will spend the morning writing and the afternoon baking. That would be serendipitous.