I Can’t Do It All ...

 

Baked yesterday.

For years I’ve posted on FB a picture of the sourdough bread I’ve baked that week. The pic has become part of the baking—and people have come to expect it, have become worried when I don’t post one.

Now, every few weeks, I do sourdough waffles instead. They don’t take anything like the energy that the bread does, and I can wait for a later day in the week to bake them, a day I feel strong enough to do it. A day when Joyce is available—for without her? No baking at all.

We put the waffles off till Friday this week (too busy and whupped to do it earlier). We kind of had to do it—or throw away the sourdough (not the starter—that lives and lives and lives, as long as I feed it once a week).

Our refrigerator is just too small to hold two large bowls, one with the waffles-that-aren’t-yet-baked, the other holding  the dough we fed on Saturday and will use on Sunday to bake our bread.

So ... we mixed the waffle batter this morning (Friday); we’ll warm it up; we’ll bake; we’ll eat one waffle apiece tonight and freeze the others to give to our son and his family. The younger grandson, Carson, especially loves them and sometimes (I hear from one of my ubiquitous spies) sneaks downstairs at night to steal one. (Reminds me of someone I knew very well about, oh, sixty years ago!) 

We feel good about sharing. Well, and we also bake more than we can eat.

Eating a chunk of our bread each day has been something I’ve done for decades—since 1986 when I bought the starter in Skagway, Alaska, and have been using ever since.

But, lately, my appetite’s been changing. I don’t eat nearly as much as I used to. I can’t. I can no longer exercise (dizzy, yes, but I’ve also always needed to watch my weight), and the combination of dizziness and Covid has kept me pretty much indoors. Often I eat no sourdough at all at supper—so without our son and his family I don’t know what I’d do with all the loaves.

Lately, both our grandsons have shown an interest in the dough, so it’s likely I’ll pass it along to them one of these days. Who knows?

I do know this: I always used to look forward to my Sunday baking, but now it’s become more and more of a chore—a chore that usually has a tasteful outcome, sure. But is it a wise use of my effort and time?

Not so sure any longer.