Finding Nirvana in a Piece of Buttered Toast

 I have been baking our bread for more years than I can accurately remember.  I'm pretty sure it's been this whole century, but at this point in my nearly 55 years of being on this earth, there's a lot of minor details of life before this little place here that I just don't remember.  (We built this house in 2002/2003).

This summer, after returning from our family vacation to Myrtle Beach in July, I found myself just totally swamped and overwhelmed with trying to run my horse business, catch up on tending the garden, do household chores, make sure the bills got paid on time, and have time for family members as needed (as they needed me).  That, plus the unrelenting heat and the fact that we don't have air conditioning so often my house was 80+ degrees inside--to hit 88 was not uncommon--led me to decide that of the many things that had to give so I could not break down physically or mentally, one of them was going to be baking bread.  

And so, for part of July, and all of August and September, I bought our bread at the store.  Seems like every loaf I was trying a different brand, different style, etc., because none of them were to my liking.  

Some were too 'mushy' as I call the airy fluff that is prevalent on the grocery store shelves.  Some were reasonably dense, until I toasted them.  Then they either shrank (what?!? shrinky dink bread??) or became the texture of an unused brand-new sponge back in the days before sponges came presoftened with antimicrobial whatever-it-is that "they" put on them.  Some breads were too sweet, some were too chunky with grains, some were just not right in a way I couldn't put my finger on.

Instead of giving me a break by not making our bread myself, finding a 'good' loaf of bread at the store became a stressor.

In October, with the weather cooler, I started baking our bread from scratch again.  That first loaf I cut into was so good! Oh, what joy I got from eating a simple piece of buttered toast.  The texture was right.  The flavor was right.  The toast that came out of the toaster was the same size as the bread that had gone into the toaster.  What bliss!

I never really thought about toast as a sacred object, but after nearly three months of unfulfilling bread, the sense of nirvana that simple piece of buttered toast brought me was amazing.

Simple joys are the best kind.