Baking Bread
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Life as we know it has changed drastically for many folks in the world. Here in our small county, the department of health confirmed the first case of COVID-19. And the person is from our town, which is also the county seat. Fortunately, no new cases have emerged since that announcement. On the home front, J's company provided equipment for him to work from home. He left the office on Saturday and said it was a strange feeling. Strange, because he doesn't know when he'll return and when he does, there's a possibility that some of his coworkers will have died. It's morbid, I know, but it just hit him as he left the building.He's checking in with several supervisors that have become friends over the years. They're older, nearing retirement, and one of them is immunocompromised. His mom is also immunocompromised, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. She's in Kansas and fortunately the mid-west is thankfully trailing behind in the number of coronavirus cases. It's a blessing, because we worry about her and her health.There's also the added worry for our youngest son. He works at the local grocery store and has been on the food front line of this since panic buying started on Friday, March 13th. We went shopping on Thursday the 12th and it was peaceful, toilet paper was plentiful as was everything else in the store. By Friday evening, the store shelves were bare. Eleven days later and the stockpiling continues. I'm thankful that I can create meals out of whatever I can find in a store. We're good on groceries for another 2 weeks, so hopefully people will have calmed the heck down. In the meantime, since we're unable to get to the store before the bread sells out, I tried baking bread from scratch.I grabbed my beloved King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary cookbook and got busy. This cookbook is wonderful because it gives such detailed instruction. The recipe for Hearth Bread was simple to make, and we're so happy with the results. J couldn't wait to slice the loaf and taste it. This will be great with the large pot of navy bean soup that's simmering on the stove right now.Making this bread was incredibly soothing. On Wednesday, I plan to make two more loaves. And after the worst of this crisis passes, I plan to keep baking bread. What will tomorrow bring? I'm thinking about trying to bake my first lemon meringue pie. Now I have to log into my Duolingo account and continue my German lessons.Bis später!
