I dunno what's going on either

You put the yeast in the water and wait to "proof" it, aka, prove you didn't kill the yeast. If it doesn't have a strong bready smell, and look all bubbly, the yeast failed, do it again.

"warm" water means a little above body temperature.

If sugar is a luxury for you or you're worried about the yeast failing, don't mix it in until after the yeast is proofed.

Yeast in little packets is expensive. Yeast is larger containers is not. If you keep moisture out of it, it lasts an age (literally. they have made bread from yeast that is millenia old). You can keep most of it in the back of your fridge and a smaller amount in a container.

Oil vs butter makes a texture and flavor difference. Not all oils work the same. If you don't have vegetable, canola, or olive oil, check first.

If you can buy bread flour, or any flour that has higher protein, it works a little better. That is not the weird keto high protein stuff. fwiw, the standard flour at costco has a higher protein content, and its what I use.

Whole wheat flour is not a one-to-one swap. Look up what needs to change.

This recipe is not going to be mix in friendly. Don't get fancy yet.

Mixing the dough is easiest if you have a large bowl and a flexible spatula. Run the spatula or spoon around the edge, then in, until it's no longer got obvious dry bits. Don't jump to kneading yet.

If its goopy, add small amounts of flour and mix. If it isn't coming together, add very small amounts of warm water and mix. On a recipe with 6c flour, if I needed to add more than a 1/4c of flour, or an 1/8 of water, would throw a flag that I made a serious mistake.

The dough should not be firm after mixing, but it also shouldn't stick to your hand and leave a mess.

Kneading means beating up the dough. Once the stirring has made it into a ball, you start to knead. If you don't have a stand mixer. Dust some flour on a clean flat surface. Dust some flour on your hands. Put the dough on there. Push the heel of your hands into it to sorta spread it out. Fold it back into a sorta ball, and push it around again.

Kneading builds gluten strands. As you knead, it will get more elastic, and will hold a shape better. You might need to dust more flour as you go, but it becomes a smooth ball.

Rising is when the yeast does it's job and creates air bubbles. If your house is over 75 or under 65, the rise time will be different. Keep an eye on it until you feel comfy. Trust the 'about double' or 'about one and a half' increase that a recipe mentions.

Overproofing(yes, same word as yeast, no, not part of that step) is when you let the dough rise too long. It gets too many air bubbles, and they're too big. This will NOT get you extra soft bread. It will collapse in the oven and make you sad. Set a timer.

An egg wash has several versions. Generally 1 egg, or 1 egg white, whisked with a bit of water and some salt. If you're flat broke, and don't have eggs, or if you don't eat eggs, mist the top of the loaf with water.

Finally:

Let the Bread Cool Down Before You Slice It

POV you’re interrupting mbart media time. rude, honestly :/

stills:

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)

my daughter cannot, through action or inaction, harm a human or allow a human to come to harm

a daughter at rest or in constant motion remains at rest or in constant motion unless acted upon by another force

daughters are never created or destroyed, only transformed

always treat every daughter as loaded, even if you know she isn't

One day a woman in her fifties came in. She looked at the pretty amphora displays and the sample cups before she turned to me. “What would go well with steak?”

“Oh, some of the fruit vinegars would be a nice finisher,” I said, talking out my ass. Like, I’d eat that but whether it’s conventionally accepted to douse a steak in mango vinegar is up for debate.

“I’ve been a vegetarian for forty years, but my doctor suggested I might need more red meat. So I thought I’d get a steak tonight and I don’t know much about preparing it.”

I stared at this woman. This fully adult human woman. Who had just spoken to a doctor. And I said, “Do not buy a steak tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve been a vegetarian for forty years?”

“Yes?”

“Then your body has no idea how to process meat. You will get so sick.” It was pure luck that I knew this. I had a few hardcore vegetarian friends who had been exposed to meat at potluck dishes and told me about the ensuing horrors as their gentle veggie gut biome was overrun with flesh. And how consequently their toilet overfloweth.

“Really?!”

“Yes,” I said, emphatically. “If you want to try to incorporate meat I would start with a tiny portion of fish, and slowly work your way up, but your insides will not know what to do with steak.”

“Wow! I’m so glad I mentioned that to you.”

The sweet spot is a place that has like 10-20 stores; that’s the best possible work environment. They’ll be polished enough to have protocols that make work structured, but not so bogged down with bureaucracy that nothing can ever get done.

This story is not from that sweet spot. This story is from my time working at Oil and Vinegar. Now, like many little franchise stores, the idea was solid. There was on tap imported olive oil and vinegar and it was really delicious. Top shelf. Unfortunately, each location was like the Wild West because owners varied wildly.

My owner was the human embodiment of Mr. Krabbs. His eyes were just constant dollar signs. Throughout my training he informed me of the price of every single piece of equipment I touched and how much it cost to replace it.

He had cameras set up to watch us, and an app on his phone to access the live feed. He’d call us to ask what we were doing when he’d just checked a camera to make sure we were being honest.

Now, the trouble was he had two locations. His location further south did amazing. It was way more centrally located and got three times the foot traffic. The one I worked in was in the snottiest mall possible in Arizona and consequently the rent was through the roof.

It was not going well for my store. We didn’t get as much traffic, so there was only so much I could do in a day. I could dust, sweep, and wait for customers. I read a lot and was frank when he called to interrogate me. I always asked for additional tasks but he never had any. What could I do to prop up a failing business?

But this man was convinced there was some Secret Reason that the store I was in was doing worse. He crunched numbers, looked at staff, and eventually hit upon the most insane possible solution.

We used too much toilet paper.

We were probably stealing toilet paper! Bleeding him dry one single ply square at a time! How dare we need to use the bathroom?! His south location used half as much toilet paper as we did, we must be thieving little monsters!!!!

Friends. The south location was populated entirely by men. My location had three people on staff who had to sit to pee. It was so blindly transparently the source of the discrepancy but this man was convinced we were making off with toilet paper to bankrupt him.

So he implemented what he believed to be an entirely reasonable response to this base treachery. We were allowed to have one roll of toilet paper. At any given time, one roll was permitted to us. This was so transparently unhinged that we protested but he insisted. If we were low on toilet paper we needed to call him to drop off a roll that he brought from his home. Smiling jovially, he assured us he lived so close by that it would be no problem!

When we needed to call him often for more he started tearing his hair out. What were we using toilet paper for?! Why wasn’t his genius plan to stop our scandalous waste working??!

Finally, the manager, the only man on staff had to pull the owner aside and be like, “Look, man, their bladders are smaller. They need to wipe every time they pee. They need to pee even more on their period. Is this really the hill you want to die on?”