Writer, Let It Rest
By Karen Wingate The process of writing is like bread baking. I love to make homemade bread. Bread baking is one of those wonderful life tasks where art meets science, and history is tucked into the everyday. Ever since the Egyptians invented sourdough, bakers have used the living organism of yeast to harness the plant’s production of carbon dioxide to make loaves of bread with a scent and taste that speak of home. It’s that rising process that fascinates me. After mixing and kneading, the baker rests so the dough can get to work. The carbon dioxide produced by the yeast stretches the strands of gluten embedded in the flour and expands the pile of dough to more than twice its size. The baker punches the air out of the dough, shapes it into loaves, and allows it to rise again before baking. If you don’t give the bread time to rise, your loaves will be dense and heavy—not the full beautiful loaf you’d like it to be. Like bread, our writin...
