Light A Fucking Candle

Girls at a high school in Brooklyn protesting the school dress code saying females could not wear slacks, 1940s.

Here’s @dduane​’s first take on it and the finished product. We’ve made even more photogenic batches since.

Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you don’t want to or don’t have one, get hands-on. It’s like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat - it takes about 10 minutes - until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesn’t stick to things and feels silky-smooth.

Here’s what before and after look like.

My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.

Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and “knock it back” (more kneading, until it’s getting back to the size it started, this means there won’t be huge “is something living in here?” holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever - we’ve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roaster…

You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.

Let the dough rise again until it’s high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180°C / 355°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.

Here’s some of our bread…

Here’s our default bread recipe - it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.

Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we don’t bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a “ready for my close-up” glamour shot.

I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf. We’re happy to have it on our table.

Even if your first attempts don’t work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like this…

Me: “ok”

Lake Turkana, which is mostly in Kenya, is the largest permanent desert lake in the world. It has sheltered humanity since the first homonids learned to walk. A female Australopithecus anamensis fossil found here in 1994 lived around 4.2 and 3.9 million years ago. Researchers were surprised to realize she had walked on two feet. It was a huge discovery at the time, because it meant hominids developed bipedalism earlier than previously thought.

now, if you work in retail, you know this sort of customer. those assholes who walk in right before you close and take their time shopping and act like they dont notice the announcements that “the store is now closed. please bring your final selection up to the front for checkout.” or that every employee is so fucking done for the night and want to get home. or that they are the only customer in the store. and when they have a shopping cart, you know they’re gonna be a while.

so a solid half hour after we are officially closed this woman comes to my register, because i am the only one open. because it’s ten fucking thirty pm and everyone else is ready to leave and ive been stuck here for eleven hours because someone called out and i was already there and a fucking idiot. 

and this woman, she’s a Suburban Mom ™ type and, like all the fucking moms who come into this store, she doesnt have a coupon because she expects us to just give it to her. and we will, if they ask. except i, after a solid hour of no customers and foolishly thinking nobody would come, had gotten rid of my coupons a few minutes before she walked in. so when she asks if i had a coupon i say no, i’m sorry, i don’t have one at the register. 

and this woman, she leans in and tells me “you know, i’m a professional psychic.” and i think “oh christ here we go”

and long island medium here, immune to the glares of the other employees who want her to just fucking pay and leave, goes on and on about this boy who loves me. we are soul mates, she says. destined to be. but there is a power keeping us apart. she mentions this “power” keeping me from mr. right several times. 

i, exhausted and frustrated and wanting to go home, reply “is it the power of me being a lesbian?”