Mr. Brulee and I are a perfect example of the old adage “opposites attract”. We are diametrically opposed on almost everything from our political views to our taste in music. What does this have to do with my culinary pursuits? Our most obvious difference is on bread. He rarely indulges in bread not wrapped around a significant hunk of meat, and I can eat it as a meal in itself. A preference for bread may seem a trifling and insignificant point. But, I LOVE bread, from fresh baked ciabata to week old store bought, toasted or soft, slathered with butter or dry as a bone. Really! I am renowned for my love of the stuff, actually having once being dubbed the Sunbeam Queen. I adore bread.
For over a decade of marriage I have offered toast to my husband every morning, and to my dismay, my husband has declined, now literally thousands of times. Upon discovering my baking book, Mr. Brulee casually says “So, why don’t you make some bread?” You can imagine my shock. So, I baked a loaf of bread. And it was GOOD! Ok, I realize I did not create life, but I felt as if I had. I, a mere human being, had essentially recreated the human genome project, in bread terms. From a crude blueprint of simple bread DNA and correct sequential ordering, I had formed a perfect loaf of edible bread. What else was I capable of? Brownies? Chocolate cream pie? Cake? Could I produce crepes?
To my astonishment, I could and did. By following the recipes, and delaying cocktail hour, I had a zero percent failure rate. I have since learned this was an amazing stretch of beginner luck (more on that later) but I hadn’t been this confident since acing my pathophysiology test. Could I actually be talented at something other than bathing and toileting the infirmed? With this kind of power in my hands, I decided to expand my resume and found food care plans that included proteins and vegetables. So I have been baking and cooking since and am ready to see if I can make a career out of doing something I love.
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