What I Did Instead of Making Resolutions

January first. I woke up with no plan, no resolution written in a cute journal, nothing. I had a bag of bread flour I bought impulsively two weeks ago because I watched someone on a cooking show make it look extremely manageable, and I had exactly nowhere to be. So.

I have never made bread before. Not once. My experience with yeast begins and ends with knowing it exists. I watched a couple of how-to videos, read approximately four contradictory sets of instructions, and then just picked one and committed to it. The kneading took longer than anyone warned me. My arms were tired. At some point I started thinking about the Creative Writing instructor's prompt from the first day of class, write one true thing you have never shown anyone, and I genuinely could not tell you why making bread made me think about that, but there was something in the process of just doing the next step without being able to skip ahead. You cannot rush rising dough. You just leave it alone and hope.

the inspection phase

It worked. I mean, it is bread. It is a little dense. The bottom crust is slightly darker than I intended and the shape is more 'freestyle' than 'loaf.' But it is real, actual bread that I made with my hands in my kitchen on the first day of 2010, and I am unreasonably proud of it. I cut a slice while it was still a little warm and ate it standing over the counter with nothing on it and it tasted exactly like something I wasn't sure I could do.

verdict: yes.

This is not a metaphor. Or maybe it is, a little. Either way, happy new year. I hope yours starts with something small that works out better than you expected.