I step down and pack the door back into the ceiling.
On Christmas Eve, my father comes home from work with a two-foot potted spruce and a plastic bag from the grocery store, handles knotted. He sets the tree on the bricks in front of the fireplace and kisses my head. Aunt Anwyn is coming tomorrow. And the rest of them.
Okay, I say.
Okay.
He goes to the bedroom. I stare at the tree, dotted with starlight candies and wrapped in a plastic gumdrop garland. The mints are real, wired on; I tug one from the back, twist off the cellophane, and suck it onto my tongue. Christmas fills my mouth, and along with the sweet, peppery flavor, I’m flooded with holidays past, the memories coming until I almost drown in them, and I spit the candy between the flimsy branches of the tree. I shove the empty wrapper in there too.
Christstollen.
I can shake away thoughts of favorite gifts and trips to Oma’s house and building snowmen with Santa hats every Christmas Eve, as long as enough snow covered the ground. But my mother’s stollen won’t fall off as easily. She made it for my father; he ate the first piece with cream cheese at breakfast while I had bacon and chocolate chip pancakes and my mother drank her special amaretto tea.
The recipe is there, tucked in her recipe box, the index card translucent in places from butter stains. I hold it in my hand, considering, reading the ingredients and pawing through the cupboards and pantry. We have raisins and a bag of dried cranberries from last year’s Christmas baking. There’s a wrinkled orange in the fruit bin, a couple plastic packets of lemon juice that came with one of my father’s fish and chips take-out orders. No marzipan, almonds, candied fruit, or mace. I’ll be up all night. It’s too much effort. But the card won’t seem to leave my hand. So I start, soaking the fruit and preparing the sponge. I lay on the hard wood, the side of my head pressed against the brick in front of the fireplace, trying to look through the underside of the potted tree, just as I did as a child, beneath the real tree my mother chose each year. Our trees were never the full, bushy kind. My mother liked the spindlier ones best, with short, spiky needles and plenty of space between the branches.
I doze, the beep of the microwave timer enough to rouse me for each phase of the stollen. It’s past four in the morning when I remove it from the oven. I wash the bowls and spoons and pan, taking the bread and aluminum foil to my bedroom.
Aunt Anwyn knocks on my door late in the afternoon. Neither my father nor I have been downstairs, at least not since I’ve been awake; I’ve heard him in his own room, listening to television. She moves down the hall to summon him and I dress, wind the bread in foil, and search around for something else to tie around the package. I cut off the hem of a faded red t-shirt, one I wear only to bed, and use the strip as a ribbon, tying it into a limp bow.
Liesl, my aunt says as she passes my door again. I follow downstairs and put the stollen behind the spruce’s pot. My father has his own unhappily wrapped gift beside the tree. The young cousins yank the ends of Christmas crackers, confetti exploding throughout the room, and give each of us a paper hat. I glance at my father. He puts his on, so I do too. My aunt tells us she’s warmed leftovers on the stove and brought desserts for the rest of them, since they left their own home without having Yule log cake. My uncle sits in the corner, drinking Guinness from a can and watching a basketball game. The over-sugared cousins screech about the toys Santa brought them and throw presents at us. We open the penguin socks and woolly ice scraper mitt and angel mugs filled with toffees and travel manicure sets. My father gives me his gift—it’s my favorite Christmas treat, a chocolate orange, the Whack and Unwrap kind. He’s folded forty dollars into the front of the box.
I give him mine. His fingers tighten into it. He knows the weight, the shape, the way it indents under the pressure of his hands. Without opening it, he sets it beside him and covers it with the ice scraper and socks. He looks at me and nods ever so slightly. I try to smile back. He stands, touches the top of my head, and says, Let’s get something to eat.
When Tee arrives for work Monday morning, I shout at her.
“Where were you? One of the biggest days here, and you don’t even have the courtesy to call?”
“I am sick yesterday. It is not a crime. And I tell that man there to tell you.”
“Well, I’m not paying you for not showing up.”
“Your choosing.” Tee shrugs, hauls her soup pot onto the stove; it’s twice her girth and more than a third as tall as she is. She’s always been small but seems frangible now, the knobs at her wrists, the way her collarbone juts from her T-shirt. Her head shrunken beneath a thick mushroom of hair. Has she been this way since we met, or is it recent, brought on by illness and concern? I can’t remember, won’t remember even if I sit for hours and concentrate. I don’t notice these things, so caught up in my world of fougasse and lactobacilli and protein content. I choose bread over people.
Tee holds a long-handled wooden spatula in one hand, a stainless ladle in the other. I ignore them both and embrace her. She stands rigid against me, and then I feel her arms move, her fists in my back, the ladle cold against my neck. I release her and sniffle, wiping a tear trail from my cheek.
“Yeah, well, just remember, you don’t have to work here,” I say.
She dumps congealed beef stock into the pot, turns on the burner. Stirs. “You are boss.”
“Well played,” Xavier whispers as I pass. “She won’t suspect a thing.”
I relieve Jude of front counter duties and greet customers. The bakehouse doesn’t swell with people like last week, but it is busier than usual. Several regulars who had been at the taping congratulate me. I smile politely, giving them the answer Patrice Olsen made me rehearse. “I really can’t say anything until the show airs.” They wink and grin and say they understand and buy a loaf of bread for dinner tonight. Others ask for the breads I made Saturday and are disappointed when I explain they were recipes I used for the show and aren’t necessarily in my regular rotation. I convince them other variants are just as good, and they grudgingly agree to try a yeasted baguette or the garlic basil focaccia I made this morning.
Again, the bread sells too quickly.
I don’t make many single-build recipes, where the dough is mixed, proofed, and baked in a matter of hours. Those are fine for home bakers who haven’t the time or inclination for longer processes, but it does nothing to tease out the flavors of the flour, the natural yeast, the bacteria. Most of my formulas require at least two days, the dough cold fermented overnight or some kind of pre-ferment—whether a yeasted poolish or biga, or a wild sourdough starter—prepared and added to the other ingredients. Because of this, I can’t boast the variety of a Baskin-Robbins–type bakery; I make eight to twelve different kinds of bread for the day, and when it’s on the higher end, it’s because of the different shapes or additives—seeds and spices and flavorings—not different dough. I’m not able to whip up some quick loaves to have ready to sell for the afternoon.
I poke my head into the kitchen and motion to Jude. “Watch the counter for me again?”
He nods. “They all want your winning ciabatta. I’m gonna have to beat them off with a stick.”
“Tell them maybe tomorrow.”
“They won’t hear the maybe part, and then you’ll have an angry horde.”
“Then say I’ve taken my winnings and moved to the Cayman Islands.”
Jude snorts. “I’ll come up with something.”
We switch places, and in the quiet of the kitchen, I sag. Every part of me. I look at Xavier, who pours a bucket of flour into the stand mixer. “I thought I’d get a start for tomorrow.”
“Tell me things will go back to normal.”
“You’re looking at normal.”
“This is all novelty,” I say, motioning to the unseen patrons on the other side of the wall.
“No. Last week, with the big bus and the cameras, that was novelty. This is discovery. It’s not going away.”
I slouc
h backward, hard, head banging the cooler door. “We can’t keep up, Zave.”
“You need to hire more help. Someone for the counter and to wait tables. Another baker. Maybe even someone else for the kitchen.”
Tee drops the lid on her pot. She grabs the knife beside her cutting board, shakes it at us, her eyes invisible slits behind her Lennon lenses. “You think I am hard to hear? You think I don’t know what you say?” She taps the knife to her temple. “There is no more cook here. I am cook.” Slicing the knife through the air, she turns and chops the waiting carrots with heavy strokes.
I raise my eyebrows at Xavier, who shakes his head and bats Tee’s angry words away with the back of his hand, like swatting flies at a picnic. “A waitress and baker, then.”
“Where am I going to find someone I can trust with my bread?”
“You found me. There are others out there, Liesl, who would be just fine. Start looking now, because once the show airs, things will only get busier.”
“All I wanted to do was bake.”
“If you wanted that, you could have done it in your kitchen. No, you wanted to bake good bread for others to eat. Well, they’re eating it. Sometimes success looks different than we expect. Yours looks better. Be grateful.”
“You’re telling me to grow up.”
Xavier smiles. “Something like that.”
Claudia’s Christstollen
Makes one large or two smaller loaves
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE FRUIT :
230 grams (1 generous cup) mixed candied fruit or 165 grams (1 generous cup) mixed dried fruit of your choice
165 grams (1 generous cup) raisins
120 grams (½ cup) dark rum or orange juice
FOR THE SPONGE :
10 grams (1 tablespoon) active dry yeast
60 grams (¼ cup) warm water (about 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
170 grams (⅔ cup) milk
8 grams (1 teaspoon) honey
120 grams (1 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour, organic if possible
FOR THE DOUGH :
113 grams (⅓ cup) honey
2 large eggs, beaten
113 grams (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened
10 grams (1 tablespoon) finely grated lemon zest
6 grams (1 teaspoon) salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
⅛ teaspoon ground mace
60 grams (½ cup) slivered almonds
360 to 480 grams (3 to 4 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
DO AHEAD
Oil, for coating bowl
FOR THE FILLING :
3 ounces marzipan or almond paste
FOR THE TOPPING :
60 grams (½ cup) powdered sugar
DO AHEAD
Combine the mixed fruit, raisins, and rum or orange juice.
Cover and set aside overnight, or for at least 4 hours.
ON BAKING DAY
Prepare the sponge in a large bowl by first combining the yeast and water. Heat the milk and add it to the yeast mixture along with the honey and 1 cup flour. Cover the sponge with plastic wrap and let rise until light and full of bubbles, about 30 minutes to an hour.
Add the fruit mixture, honey, egg, butter, zest, salt, spices, almonds, and 2 cups of the flour to the sponge. If kneading by hand, stir with a wooden spoon until combined, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the remaining flour ¼ cup at a time until the dough begins to pull away from the side of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Knead, adding flour a little at a time, until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. If using a stand mixer, use a paddle attachment and beat the mixture on medium-low speed for 2 minutes. Gradually add the remaining flour ¼ cup at a time until the dough begins to pull away from the side of the bowl. Switch to the dough hook. Continue to add flour 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough just begins to clean the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes on medium-low speed.
Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a large, lightly oiled bowl, turning to coat the dough. Cover with a tightly woven towel or plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 to 2 hours.
Gently turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface. For one large loaf, roll the dough into a 9-by-13-inch oval. For two loaves, divide the dough in half and roll each half into a 7 x 9-inch oval. Brush the melted butter over the top of the loaves. Between two pieces of waxed paper or plastic wrap, roll the marzipan the length of the dough. Place the marzipan on half of the oval and fold the dough over it lengthwise.
Carefully lift the bread onto a parchment-lined or well-greased baking sheet. Press lightly to seal the seams. Cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 25 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread reaches 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Immediately remove from the baking sheet and place on a rack to cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
Variation: Omit the marzipan filling. Instead, combine 2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, and 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and sprinkle over half the ovals before folding lengthwise. Or leave out the filling altogether. Allow to rise and bake as instructed above.
Three days later I interview Rebekah, a still, milky girl nearly as tall as Seamus. Her mother waits outside for her in a fifteen-passenger van. She’s the second oldest of eleven, she tells me. This will be her first real job, outside of babysitting and helping work the family’s organic farm.
“I can run a register. We have one at the farm stand.”
I nod. “Where’s your farm?”
“On the other side of the creek. Windsor Creek, you know?”
“That’s a bit of a drive to get here.”
“Thirty-five minutes. But we’re in the middle of nowhere so it’s at least that to anything.” She uncrosses her legs beneath her almost ankle-length skirt, which she wears with a matching bandana around her hair, T-shirt, and plastic flip-flops. Her gangly feet are flat with calloused heels, her toes scrubbed clean, nails cut too short. “This is a nice place. I’ve never been here before. Most of our trips are in the opposite direction because, you know, Hanson has a Walmart with a grocery.”
“Why are you interested in working here?”
“Well, our church gets your bread. The leftover ones you give us to give away to people? When I read the help-wanted in the paper, I was kind of hoping I could somehow be involved with that.”
We sit in Wild Rise, at the table in front of the window, the bakery having closed an hour ago, the sun at the exact angle to dance on the dust particles in the air. I offer her coffee and water and Tee’s special summer punch and nearly anything in the bakery. She declines all of it with a graciousness not usually seen in teenagers. Her voice is animated, but the rest of her moves so little. She’s not at all the type I expected to have work here, but I have a feeling she’ll fit. “Well, right now I’m looking for a waitress and counter help. Hours are six forty-five a.m. to about three fifteen in the afternoon. You get a half hour for lunch in there. I’d like you to work either Tuesday through Saturday or Monday through Friday, but if there’s another day that works better for you to have off, I can accommodate, except Wednesday, because my other waitress has that off now. Otherwise, you can start tomorrow and learn as you go along.”
“You mean I got the job?”
“If you want it.”
“Oh my goodness, yes. Thank you, Miss McNamara. I can’t believe it.”
“It’s Liesl,” I tell her, giving her two forms to fill out and return in the morning. “As for the bread ministry, you’ll be the one packing the extra loaves for pickup, but other than that, there isn’t much else to it. At least for now. I’m open to ideas, if you have any.”
“Really? Oh, I wasn’t thinking anything in particular, but I’ll pray about it.” She stops, rakes her teeth over her bottom lip. She does this often; the skin beneath her mouth is cha
pped, her lip puffed and bruised on one side. “Is that okay to say?”
“It’s fine.”
Rebekah stands. She’s lean and sturdy but her bones are large, the kind that too easily hold on to pregnancy weight and extra helpings of mashed potatoes and sleepless nights and worry. She won’t be thin much longer. “It’s the bags, you know.”
I don’t. “What bags?”
“The ones you put the bread in, the pretty ones that say Bread of Life Ministries on them. Our church gets food from different places and most of it is just thrown together in some boxes. Some of it’s not even edible, you know, like all covered in mold or bruised up, or really, really old. I knew when I saw your bags that you cared.”
I lock the door behind her, wave as she gets into the van and it pulls away from the curb.
It began in high school, when our Key Club collected food for a local pantry. We went out Halloween night, and instead of gathering candy we asked for canned goods and brought a van-load back to the school cafeteria. We stacked the food on a table, organizing it as best as our hormone-saturated brains could manage—pasta and sauces here, other noodles next, soups, canned meats, rice, vegetables, the pickles and strange items on the end. I took a jar of blue-cheese–stuffed Greek olives from one of the bags, the dust on the lid so thick it was sticky. I couldn’t blow it off, finding instead a box of Kleenex and scrubbing the top before adding it to the tower of beets and gherkins and mincemeat filling.
It bothered me for days, and I grappled with my feelings, the idea that someone would use a food donation to rid the pantry of disliked or never-used food. I mentioned it to Jennie, who said, “Maybe they just thought someone else would want them. There are people out there who really like green olives. Or maybe that was all they had to give.”
Stones for Bread Page 15