Ask not for Whom the Dough Rises
Jada Veasey
I am making a mess of the kitchen, but I do not have the wits about me to care. I know that somewhere else in this room there is a bread pan made of sleek glass with smooth edges and a plastic lid. It would be easier to find than the dingy one I am looking for, but I don’t care about that. I am a woman with strong opinions; one of them being that bread that comes from ugly, dented pans older than I am just tastes better. Maybe beat-up pans have magical properties. Stranger things have been true. At last! I am victorious! I’ve spotted the pan, and I set it on the counter. Now it’s time for the actual baking to begin. I throw the ingredients in the bowl and let my mother’s fancy mixer, the one with the bread hook and everything, do its thing. I dance around the house to the beat of its mechanical whirring. Eight minutes go by; I’m dizzy, and the dough is done. Into another bowl it goes, this time greased and covered in cheap plastic wrap that wants to stick everywhere but where I need it to. I win the war with the plastic and set the bowl on the oven. Time for the dough to rise, time for me to pray that it rises, time for me to text someone about how long it’s taking for this damned dough to do anything. I must wait for an entire hour. An hour. I am a toddler with no attention span. Hell is not a burning pit, a crowded shopping mall, or a bowling alley; Hell is waiting for dough to rise. I twirl around some more, and time ticks by. The hour runs out quicker than I expected it to. Out of the bowl and into the bread pan the dough goes. I slide it into the oven. Oh God, the oven means even more waiting. Half an hour more at least! May-
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