Not to humble brag, but I have few disasters in the kitchen. But when I have them, boy, do I have them. The other week when I was ill I decided that the only thing that would help my summer head-cold would be if I baked some homemade peasant bread.
Yea, I don’t know what I was thinking either. Let’s blame it on all the medicine I was taking. And the fact that I really, really, really wanted to eat some real bread. When I crave carbs and the local shop is closed it is painful for anyone who has to deal with me. So I decided to make my own bread, while feverish and sniffling. For the ever-loving-life of me I could not get this bread to rise. I even turned the oven on, and cracked the door open to make the kitchen warmer and more conducive to bread rising.
I was inspired by this recipe at Alexandra’s Kitchen. It’s a beautiful simple peasant bread. This is how Alexandra’s turned out:
I’m a type-A personality. I dislike being bad at anything. I strive for perfection. And I fail in a million different little ways and it really does irk me. I’ve always been this way. As a 3rd grader I would spend hours making sure my homework was perfect. It got to the point where in 6th grade I was waking up in the middle of the night to look over my work again and again. My mom started keeping my backpack in her room at night so that I wouldn’t sneak out of bed to keep working. That is really crazy, right?! Okay, I’m borderline obsessive compulsive and struggle with generalised anxiety, but perfectionism just adds its ugly face to these attributes.I’ve learned to give myself time limits over the years. If something isn’t done to my satisfaction in a certain pre-set amount of time I will walk away from it for the day to avoid starting to obsess over it.
Sam is a perfectionist when it comes to certain things- work being one. But one of the brilliant things that I have learned (and am hopefully picking up) from him is the ability to accept my failures with grace and to not dwell on them for too long.
