Page 26 of We Can Do
“Hiring babysitters to look after them while on vacation...” I tick off on my fingers. “Singing to them. Creating temperature-controlled habitats out of boxes and heating pads...”
“I considered singing to it.” She opens her bag and carefully settles the jar inside, treating it like precious cargo. It’s hard to tell whether she’s kidding or not—her expression is perfectly deadpan. “And you did say that they grow better when they have names, so I’m not sure why you’re poo-pooing babysitters.”
“Fair enough.” I find myself genuinely smiling now, not the customer service smile but something real. “So what’s its name?”
“Starter Stan.”
“Get out. That’s my starter’s name!”
Her eyes widen, blue as the ocean on a clear day. “It is?”
“No.” I chuckle at her expression.
She shakes her head and purses her lips, but I can see she’s fighting a smile. “Well, ha ha. Very funny.”
“Seriously, though, the sweater dress might be the weirdest thing I’ve seen...” I pause for effect, “and the cutest.”
“Oh, yeah?” She looks up and flashes a smile that transforms her whole face, and for a moment it feels like I’m walking on clouds, weightless and unsteady all at once.
But then I clear my throat and turn around, the spell broken, remembering why she’s here. This is business. This is about the cookbook. Nothing more. “Ready to get started?”
“Born ready.”
She follows me across the floor and through the swinging doors, our footsteps echoing in the empty space. The kitchen greets us with its familiar stainless steel embrace, everything gleaming and ready. Silence reigns here now, so different from the controlled chaos of the morning shift.
The air between us feels charged, crackling with something I can’t quite identify—or maybe don’t want to. Needing to cancel out the tension that’s making my skin feel too tight, I turn on some music. A soft folk song wafts through the kitchen speakers, the acoustic guitar and gentle vocals filling the space between us.
I get to work pulling out the ingredients and placing them on the stainless steel counter. Each item has its place—the flour in its container, the salt in its small bowl, the tools lined up like soldiers. Organization is everything in baking. In life too, though I’m not quite as successful there.
“Okay, so I’ve already combined rye flour, the starter, and water. It’s been sitting for five hours.” I uncover the bowl with a flourish, like a magician revealing his trick. The dough hastransformed in those hours, becoming something alive. “It’s doubled in size, which is good. That’s what we want.”
“Got it.” She pulls out a pen and pad from her bag, her movements efficient and practiced, and takes notes in handwriting I can’t quite read from here.
“Now we’re going to shape the dough. Have you ever baked bread?”
“Uh, no. I haven’t.” She looks almost embarrassed by the admission.
I can’t help but chuckle, the irony not lost on me. “Are you one of those food reviewers who doesn’t cook?”
She gives me a level, unperturbed look that would intimidate someone who didn’t know her. “Why would I cook when I can go to restaurants and let the experts take care of that? You wouldn’t want more competition would you?”
I raise an eyebrow, playing along. “Oh, really? You think you would be my competition?”
She shrugs a shoulder, the gesture casual but her eyes dancing with mischief. “Eh. Show me how to make sourdough and we’ll see.”
I laugh and shake my head, genuinely delighted by her confidence. “Okay, okay. We’ll see. Maybe this student will surpass the teacher one day.”
She winks, and heat explodes through my abdomen like I’ve opened an oven door too fast. Forcing a swallow past my suddenly dry throat, I redirect my attention back to the project at hand. Focus on the bread. Always focus on the bread. “We’ll start with lightly flouring the surface.”
Grabbing a small handful of flour from the container, I sprinkle it across one of the wooden surfaces we use for shaping. The flour falls like snow, dusting the worn wood that’s seen thousands of loaves. “Rye dough is sticky and it doesn’t have thesame elasticity as wheat dough. We need to be careful with it. Gentle. Like handling something precious.”
“Got it.” She nods, gaze fixated on what I’m doing with an intensity that makes me hyperaware of every movement. I watch her for any signs of mockery, any hint that she’s not taking this seriously, but she appears to be completely absorbed.
“This is where we’ll mold it into the loaf shape we want.”
“Like a heart?” Her eyes light up with childlike enthusiasm. There’s the silliness I was expecting.
“I was thinking a round or oval,” I laugh, imagining trying to fit a heart-shaped loaf into our equipment. “A heart would be cute, but it needs to fit in one of the proofing baskets.”
