It happened. As of last Wednesday, my stove was hooked up, along with the other lonely appliances that have been sitting around patiently awaiting their rightful position in my new, completely awesome kitchen. Problem was, last week was jam-packed, all the way through Friday night. But Saturday and Sunday? Me and my new kitchen became one.
I woke up at 5am Saturday and started the job of putting everything—pots, pans, utensils, gizmos, and gadgets—back into place. Then I headed off to my Saturday morning greenmarket, where for the first time in five months I bought fresh eggs (eggs! Oh, I missed eggs!), gorgeous turnips, mushrooms, carrots, and onions, goat cheese, bacon, striped bass, and a pile of honey crisp apples. And then I broke in Teresa.
Teresa is the name I’ve given my 6-burner, dual-fuel, griddle-in-the-middle double oven because that was the name of my goddess-like Calabrese grandmother, who emigrated here with two small kids during the teens of the last century. And that woman? She could cook. It seemed like a good tribute.
So Teresa and I bonded. We giddily made scrambled eggs; we pan-seared local fish pressed with kosher salt, fresh thyme, pepper, and olive oil; we sautéed onions and garlic and spinach; we roasted fingerling potatoes to a perfect, golden outer crispiness; we took the whole of Sunday to make boeuf bourguignon.
But maybe the most fun was baking a simple loaf of white bread.
I say the most fun because it involved resources that I had on hand: ingredients already sitting in my (new) cupboard and ‘fridge and a couple of books I’d bought a year ago at a funky little antique store back home in eastern Long Island: an older imprint of Joy of Cooking and a tan-colored hardback with an illustration of jaunty bald man rolling out dough on the cover—Beard on Bread, a book first published in 1973 and still on shelves today in its umpteenth deserved printing. “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” Oh, James, you had me at “good bread.”
I went for the very first recipe, Basic White Bread. I followed his steps to a tee, and everything was going swimmingly—great texture, nice first rising, found my old Pyrex bread dish, and tucked in for rising number two. And then…oh, my wee, little sieve brain strained out the fact that I had bread rising, and totally, utterly forgot about it until I sat straight up in bed at 4am and gasped, “THE DOUGH!!!”
On went the slippers, down the stairs I ran, and snatched up the towel-covered glass bread pan. I lifted the cloth and prepared for the worst—after all, James was very clear about saying to watch the second pivotal rising carefully. It looked okay, maybe it had gotten a little bit hard on top, but, I thought, maybe if I just bake it now before any more time passes it would be okay.
And that’s how I found myself sitting on a stool in my kitchen reading the wise words of Sir Beard on Bread while Teresa put heat to dough. Thirty-five minutes later, I had a pale, golden loaf that, when I rapped the top with my knuckles, sounded hollow, just like James said it ought to. I shook it out of the pan, wrapped it in the towel, and went back to bed.
When I crawled back under the covers, my husband sleepily rasped, “Where have you been?” What else could I tell him—I was hanging out with Teresa and James.
