Heather Wyse

One Million Times

I watched my grandmother cook a million times. She’d bake bread when she could have bought it. It’s what she’d always done. And weren’t we happier for it? I always marveled at how she could knead the dough with her frail arms. I tried, many times, and each time my arms gave out before the gluten could bond. She made wheat bread, rye bread, refrigerator rolls, potato loaf, and focaccia and sourdough and pumpernickel. Richness of the dark grains, light break of the crust, the structure so dense it seemed to defy logic that butter melted so well into its grained web. These bread recipes were all captured in a little black notebook.