Stones for Bread (27 page)

Add the sponge to the dough. Using a dough hook, mix at medium-high speed for 6 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Add remaining butter and mix for 1 more minute, or until the butter is incorporated.

Transfer dough to a greased bowl. Lightly dust the dough with flour to prevent a crust from forming. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at room temperature until more than doubled in bulk, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Gently degas the dough, re-cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and chill for at least 12 hours.

O
N
B
AKING
D
AY

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If using pecans, spread them on a baking sheet. Bake, stirring once or twice, for 7 to 10 minutes and allow to cool.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Whisk in the brown sugar and cook, stirring to combine. Remove from heat and whisk in the honey, water, and salt. Let cool for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture reaches room temperature.

Remove dough from the refrigerator. On a floured work surface, roll out the brioche into a rectangle about 12 x 16 inches and ¼ inch thick.

In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and ⅓ of the pecans. Sprinkle the sugar mixture and 60 grams (½ cup) of the pecans (if using), evenly over the entire surface of the dough. Starting at one of the short sides of the rectangle, tightly roll the dough like a jelly roll. Trim off ¼ inch from each end of the roll.

Use a bench scraper or a chef’s knife to cut the roll into eight equal pieces, each about 1½ inches wide. (At this point, the unbaked buns can be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen for up to 1 week. When ready to bake, thaw them, still wrapped, in the refrigerator overnight or at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, then proceed as directed.)

Pour the glaze into a 9 x 13-inch baking dish, covering the bottom evenly. Sprinkle the remaining pecans evenly over the surface. Arrange the buns, evenly spaced, in the baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm spot to proof until the buns are touching and almost tripled in size, approximately 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake until golden brown, about 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the baking dish for 20 to 30 minutes. One at a time, invert the buns onto a serving platter, spooning any extra sauce and pecans from the bottom of the dish over the top.

Cinnamon roll variation:
Omit the pecans from the filling and do not make the sticky bun glaze. Instead, bake the rolls without any glaze. To make icing, use an electric mixer to beat together 56 grams (¼ cup) cream cheese and 90 grams (7 tablespoons)
butter until creamy. Add ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract 30 grams (2 tablespoons) heavy cream (milk or half-and-half may be substituted), and 1.5 grams (¼ teaspoon) salt. Gradually beat in 180 grams (1½ cups) powdered sugar until smooth and fluffy. Spread over the cinnamon rolls before serving, while still warm.

Fifteen

My wild yeasts need a warm place to grow, a womb, somewhere safe and hidden away where I don’t have to explain them. I won’t put the jar in my room; I don’t know what things live in there. It’s not been cleaned since my mother’s death, the sheets unchanged, the dust thickening, downy like the hair appearing above my lip. I try to remove it with a lotion from the drugstore, one smelling of lavender and toilet bowl cleaner, and it burns until I wash it away, well short of the required five minutes. My skin is left raw; I can’t talk or smile or brush my teeth. I suck mouthwash through a straw, swish and spit. I eat applesauce and cream soups, which require no chewing. Eventually the irritation heals, the deepest burns scabbing so it looks like I have a scaly, dark mustache instead of the nearly unnoticeable blond one from before. My mother would have broken one of the spidery tips from her aloe plant and coated the scab so it wouldn’t scar. I use triple antibacterial ointment, the aloe plant shriveled from neglect.

In our old house of twists and quirks I find a place for my jar.
The vanity in our downstairs bathroom is over a heating duct, and the previous owner who built it from a clumsy mismatch of oak and pine added a decorative screen to one of the cabinet doors to allow the hot air to escape. But the drawers are unvented, and the lowest, smallest one—the size of a bread box—remains unused. I tuck a thermometer in there before I leave for school and read it when I arrive home. An ideal 82 degrees.

I line the drawer with a nest of kitchen towels and close my jar into its incubator. I feed twice a day, removing all but one-half cup of the culture, adding in equal parts fresh water and flour. Nothing happens for four days, other than the tiniest pockets of air along the glass, only four or five I see if I squint, which may or may not indicate life. By day five there are honest bubbles, and the mixture rises a little. By day nine the culture doubles in size.

It’s ready.

I don’t make bread with it. I’m not certain I ever will. And I don’t store it in the refrigerator, not yet, because the book I read tells me I should continue the daily feeds for thirty days to establish the colony and the flavor. And because I want to be responsible for something, I keep this starter alive. Like a newborn, it’s dependent upon me.

I’m its mother.

Then I find the empty drawer.

On day twenty-two, a Saturday, I pull the wooden knob and nothing’s in there. The wood is shiny and smells of lemon. I run into the kitchen and notice the lid of the garbage pail askew. Inside are the towels, clotted with the yeast and flour mixture, and the jar.

You’ve seen it
. My father. He’s come up behind me.
I found it spilling out the bottom of the drawer. Was it an experiment for science class?

I quietly hate him then, not because he threw the starter away, but because he doesn’t know what it is. He lived with my mother for more than twenty years; I think of them as desperately in love, constantly connected through ears and eyes and heart. Now I wonder,
did he never watch her bake her bread? He was so consumed with his springs and wrenches he was blind to what she loved most.

Yes. For science
, I say, and I go back to bed.

Hiring a new waitress is easy. Ellie is twenty-two, an art major recently graduated from college, a Hobbit of a girl, round through the middle with a shock of green-streaked hair. She mixes patterns with her vintage clothes and wears wide, silver hoop earrings onto which she threads all manner of found objects—feathers and playing cards, candy bar wrappers and empty dental floss containers. “I don’t sell many of my paintings,” she says. “People don’t get me.” The customers like her, though; she’s full of smiles and kind words for everyone.

The baker decision is more difficult. I analyze résumés and interview fourteen prospects. Like Goldilocks, I find fault with them for being too hard or too soft. Too pompous or too wan. Too eager. Not eager enough. I sit in church between Cecelia and Jude one Sunday and listen to the pastor read the beginning of Acts, where the apostles cast lots to replace Judas. The sermon has nothing to do with these couple of sentences, but they don’t leave me, so I go home and write each baker candidate’s name on a scrap of paper and toss them all into a paper lunch bag. Close my eyes and choose.

Kelvin Morse.

During our interview I call him Calvin. He corrects me, saying he’s named for the Kelvin Scale, giving me some explanation about thermodynamics, absolute zero, and triple point—the single combination of pressure and temperature where liquid water, solid ice, and water vapor can coexist in a stable equilibrium. “That’s zero point zero one degrees Celsius or two hundred seventy-three point sixteen Kelvin.”

“Oh,” I say.

“My folks didn’t know that when they named me. They just liked the sound of it. Turned out to be some sort of prophecy, though. I’m a total science nerd.”

“And you went to R.P.I.?”

“Chemical engineering.”

“But you’re not doing that now.”

“No,” he says. “The small firm I helped start went under about eight months ago. Still haven’t found another job. I saw the ad in the paper and thought I could do this until something else came around. Just being straight with you. In college I worked nights in a family-owned bakery. They made mostly Italian bread, soft rolls, that kind of stuff. Nothing artisan like you. But I understand the chemistry behind it, figure baker’s ratios and the like. I can handle what you’re asking with this position.”

So I hire him. Xavier thinks I’m insane, questioning why I didn’t choose someone who would be around long-term. I can’t tell him I pulled a name from a hat. I shrug instead and imitate Tee with a terrible Ukrainian accent. “I boss. I do what I do.”

Kelvin proves to be capable with dough and uninterested in creativity. He follows my formulas to the last decimal. I’m pleased with his work. However, his hiring makes it unnecessary for Seamus to come and help me in the evenings. He still picks up Cecelia during the week, after he’s finished the day’s delivery route, but stays minutes instead of hours. We do go to lunch, the three of us and often Jude, after church—I now attend almost regularly—and Seamus and I have been out twice more, alone. I suppose I should think of those outings as dates, but I can’t seem to manage it. Our relationship hovers somewhere between
friendship
and
more
. My protective instincts won’t allow me to consider what that
more
might be.

All I know is I miss him when he’s not around.

Cecelia and Seamus both have a day off, Columbus Day, and I invite them to the bakehouse for . . . well, for no reason in particular
at all. They show up midafternoon while my hands are varnished with molasses and rye because I have it in my mind to tweak my mother’s pumpernickel formulas. While I respect dark breads, I’m not a particular fan of eating them. I know I should offer the classic at least weekly, though, so I first find and then photocopy the pages in my mother’s journals where she’d kept notes about her adventures in pumpernickel bread. She has three versions—one using the crumbs of stale rye bread, one with a hint of cocoa powder, and one featuring a commercial yeast booster—all of them with ingredients I want for my own version, and also with this and that I plan to eliminate.

“Eww, what is that?” Cecelia asks.

“Pumpernickel dough,” I tell her.

“Does it have nickels in it?”

“Nope. It has caraway seeds and onions and coffee.” I look at Seamus. “Actually, it sounds a lot like something you’d eat for breakfast.”

“Ha, ha,” he says, but I know he likes that I’ve taken the time to tease him. A role reversal. I’m the boy who ties a little girl’s braids together when he has a crush on her. He’s the girl telling all her friends the reason some guy
just has
to be interested, because he poked her in the ribs when she was taking her books from her locker and gave her an extra chocolate milk carton at lunch.

“It sounds so yucky,” Cecelia said. “Who would come up with something like that?”

“Well, the Germans.”

Suddenly, the screen door bangs shut and another voice speaks. “And have you told your young friend what the name literally means?” It’s one I recognize and can’t place, until I look up and see Jonathan Scott standing in my kitchen. Still, I can’t speak. Apparently, neither can the others. Tee and Rebekah stop their chopping, and Seamus’s winter beard—almost full, curling from cheekbones to mid-neck—doesn’t hide the greenish cast that’s come over him.

“Those Germans have quite the sense of humor,” Jonathan continues. “
Nickel
is the word for sprite.”

“What’s that?” Cecelia asks.

“It’s like a fairy, but one who makes great mischief.”

“Oh.”

“And
Pumpern
means . . . well, I’m afraid I’ll have to whisper it in your ear.”

And he bends down to Cecelia. His mouth moves, and she begins giggling, little snorts punctuating her laughter. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” I manage, knowing full well what he’s told her. Pumpern is the gas the bread tends to create in the intestines. I shake my head, wipe my hands on a towel. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, let me tell you,” he says, and it’s his television voice, the smooth, perfectly styled Jonathan Scott ready for crowd and camera. “I woke this morning and thought, It’s a gorgeous autumn day. I think I’ll get out of the city and drive somewhere I can see the leaves turning and buy some real maple sugar candy. Wouldn’t Vermont be the perfect place to do so? And while I was driving, I remembered seeing an episode of some cooking show on the Good Food Channel about a little bakery in Billingston that has the best bread in the area, so I figured I’d stop in and see what all the fuss was about.”

“I saw that show too,” Cecelia says, oblivious to his joking. “I was even on it.”

Jonathan snaps his fingers and points at her, flicking the end of her nose. “And you were amazing. Now, if only—”

“Tee,” Gretchen calls, pushing through the kitchen door, staring down at the order pad in her hand. “There’s a woman out there who wants to know if your soup has—” She sees Jonathan. “What are you doing here?”