The Dough
Made this morning.
Rested all day.
Four ingredients, and none of them is a shortcut. Flour, water, salt, and a little of yesterday’s dough carrying the memory forward. It mixes before the sun is properly up and rests until the fire is ready for it.
Morning
Folded soft,
never punched.
She mixes at seven in the morning in a wooden trough her grandfather would have recognized. The dough is wetter than looks reasonable and softer than beginners can handle, and that is the point — tenderness in the crumb starts as tenderness in the hands.
Then it waits. Nine hours, sometimes ten, shaped into balls at noon and left alone under cloth while the flavor does what only time does. Fast dough tastes like flour. Rested dough tastes like bread with an opinion.
By four each ball is a small quiet promise — relaxed, extensible, ready to stretch wide without a fight and blister the moment it hits nine hundred degrees.
Noon
Tucked tight,
left alone.
