no knead to need

Following a friends simple directions, I mix my first batch of no-knead bread. The recipe is simple:

1 cup wheat flour,
2 1/2 cups white flour
Some salt (about a teaspoon)
Some starter (about a tablespoon)
1 5/8 (or so) cups warm water.

You mix it up a bit and let it just sit there for a day or two. All of the ingredients are approximations, you dont even really need to measure. Then you cook it for 45 minutes at 350.

The bread is perfect, every time. One day, a baking genious blogs about the no knead method and the next day, hundreds of people drop hundreds of years of tradition for a smart, trendy, and in style of baking. I am thrilled by it, but also uneasy. No kneading felt like cheating.

I knead to sift the fine flour through my fingers, like my great great grandpa used to do so long ago, at the bottom of a dusty chute in Sicily.

I need to pick up where grandma padalino left off, filling the kitchen with energy and warmth and fresh crusty loaves.

I kneed to push a days worth of racing thoughts into the soft dough that absorbs it all.

The no-knead method yields delicious, fluffy loaves that required no sweat, no shortness of breath, no high risk of failure. I will admit that I am among the masses who have adopted the no knead method. It is too easy not too. But every once in a while I will give the dough an extra push, for old time's sake.

If not for the bubbles, then for the therapy: I need to knead.

regulars

Along with the town gamer, walker, grinner, and researcher, I have become one of the Frankfort library regulars.

The gamer wears a denim flame do-rag and a light blue denim coat and sits tensley in front of his large screen laptop on which he plays various video games. Most of the time he guides his alter ego (a winged creature that hovers at the center of his screen,) through a maze of karsty hills and foggy forests. Sometimes I like to take a break from my work and look over his shoulder at the mystical world he is in, and think 'wouldnt it be fun to be him, and fly at the library?'

I consider the walker a regular, even though her visits are very brief. She is primarily known through town as the walker of the streets, but I have never been through a library visit without seeing her. She speedwalks through the library doors, arms still swinging wildly, straight to the magazine section, and then straight to the 'Health' magazine, where she lifts the lid of the magazine display to check for health magazine extras. All of this happens within about five seconds. Whether or not she finds what she is looking for, she turns around and speedwalks out with perfect form; at least one foot on the ground at all times, arms pumping, and all at a breakneck speed that would probably be hard to keep up with if you were running.

The grinner has become my role model. He is an older man with short white hair and a trim beard and a pointy nose and red cheeks. He sits at the window overlooking the bay with the latest copy of the Traverse City Record Eagle and reads it for hours. With a grin that never fades. Despite the news, his smile shines on like the reflections from the bay, and his apparent joy is contagious.

The researcher and I have quite a lot in common. He sits in quiet concentration behind his small laptop with a frown across his brow that makes you think he is really getting to the bottom of something. On the back of his laptop is a bumper sticker that says "Point Betsie," a lighthouse and nature preserve that is actively managed for invasive species. This is why I suppose we have a lot in common, because I have to assume that he is researching Pointe Betsie, and hence invasive species control, which is exactly what I do.

As you can see, I am in good company. Like they say, Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card.

nothing ever changes and it is never the same

At Christmas, nothing ever changes, but it is never the same. This year was no exception.

Heavily rooted in culinary tradition, our family very rarely strays from the ravioli, squid, and octopus dinner that is synonymous with Christmas to our palates. Upon entering Uncle Steves house, we are greeted with that undeniable smell of squid that I so hated as a child. The smell has not changed, but it's not so bad anymore.

Uncle Steve is bent over the stove, lost in a cloud of steam, and when his face appears over a pot of boiling water he smiles and says "Merry Christmas!" and laughs and you know his smile is real because of the wrinkels that form around his eyes.

Grandma Padalino is sitting at the table with her walker, which, as always, is outfitted with helium balloons and stuffed animals and beads and countless crafts that change every time we see her. "Hi Kids" she always says as we enter, and she is referring to both generations of her grandchildren. She pats us with a hand heavily adorned with colorful plastic jewelry and painted nails.

Granny isn't here to greet us, nor has she been for several years. There is no small, skinny, curly haired, large-eyed, shivvering woman to reach up and hook her hand around the back of your neck, and draw your face in close to hers so that she can gaze into your eyes to tell you ever so slowly, ever so shakily, how much she loves you. And then smile. For a long time. And your face is still so close. No one even seems to notice how long David's eyelashes are, now that Granny isn't around to remind us.

For the first time, Grandma Mancini was not here. The nucleus of the gathering, she was always the one to organize the buying of the 'rav's' (slang for ravioli) and canolies, matters of utmost importance on Christmas. She knew all the family gossip and would speak freely on all of the latest topics. Her greeting was similar to Granny's, but rather than hook her hand around your neck she would wrap her arm around your waist and draw you into a warm plump hug. Then she would gaze up at you (in later years she was literally looking straight up, so you were compelled to lean down, though not by force) and say 'now, who do I have here?' This was a sincere question, because she could not see well. "It's me Grandma." is what I would usually answer, and she would know.

For the past 23 years (at least) there has always been a serious, recurring argument after Christmas dinner. When it is time to boil the octopus. This is the most exciting moment of Christmas day, and there is possibly more anticipation for the moment that the octoupus is dunked into boiling water as there is for the opening of gifts Christmas morning.

First, Grandma Padalino ties a cotton string around the floppy grey head of the octopus. Her loose jewelry swings freely with the long tentacled legs as she waves the creature around for the 'kids' (everyone) to see. The brave among us touch it, and it feels just as slimy as it looks. And then, the dunking. Once, twice, three times Grandma dunks the octopus, and with each duncking the creature's tentacles curl up into tighter and tighter spirals, and change color, and what was once a grey slimy mass is now curly and bright.

This is when the argument starts. Grandma Padalino says it must boil for at least 10 minutes, but you don't want to let it get too soft. Grandma Mancini would insist that it needs to boil for at least an hour or it will be too chewy. This chewy/soft argument would go on and on, although it never seemed that Grandma Padalino could hear Grandma Mancinis arguments, and the octopus would come out after about 20 minutes. Always too chewy for grandma Mancini, sometimes too soft for Grandma Padalino.

We are still grappling with how long to boil the octopus, and I do not think that will change for the next 23 years at least. And a Christmas will never pass where everyone is satisfied with its consistency. But never before would Grandma Padalino herself admit that the mollusk was too chewy, until this year. Because Grandma Mancini was not here to say it. It was then that I realized Christmas would never be the same again.