Flexibility

I'm delighted to report that I'm still stubbornly slogging along with sourdough. I make it regularly, and use it in other recipes that call for "discard," even when I don't need to discard. 

I've joined a number of Facebook groups to help expand my knowledge. Many members are very militant about their bakes. They will only phrase their recipes in percentages, which is absolute gibberish to me. Or they will rattle off a stream of instructions in sourdough terminology that makes the whole process sound rigid and inaccessible. 

But the more I work with it, the more I realize how flexible sourdough baking really is. There isn't only one way of doing things. Nearly every attempt is delicious, even if it isn't pretty. 

There was a post put up on one of the groups, where another believer in flexible sourdough baking explained why you don't need to be so rigid. 

For instance, those who abide by the rigid group insist the starter has to be "fed," and then to "double" before use in baking, and maybe it should "float" as well. But he explained that it's not necessary. Sourdough starter is full of microbes, and while they will certainly ferment the dough faster if they are "active," they will do the job even if cold straight from the fridge. It'll just take a little more time. 

One day I tried it—I used cold, unfed starter from the fridge, and the resultant bake had the same taste and texture as if I had fed the starter and let it double. 

In general, I think we are less likely to try to tackle something new because we think that there is only one way to do it. It seems daunting, then, if there is only one, highly complicated method. 

I was thinking of those baby sleep training books, how they proclaim that their system is fool-proof, that it works on ALL BABIES EVERYWHERE. But how can that be true? All babies are different. All mothers are different. Different strokes for different folks. 

There is, rarely, only one way to get to a certain result. 

Au Contraire

After I had Ben, someone gave me their copy of Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé, the American take on French mommying.

Of course, the French way of doing things makes any American feel inadequate. French children always eat new foods (Ben will eat four things). French children sleep through the night at two months (Ben is two years old and he usually wakes me up at some point). French children never misbehave (well, duh, a toddler doesn't always behave . . . right?) 

Today I was watching Netflix's Call My Agent! a rather funny French series about the acting biz in Paris. An actress had two babies in three years. Her agent visits her at home, trying to coax her to come back to work. She is feeding her three year old, begging her to try the baby carrots. Her daughter's mouth is firmly closed, refusing to take a bite. The mother gives in, plucking another option from the fridge.

There is no mention on the show that this is an aberration, that she is a sucky mommy. It is simply presented as . . . kids are kids. 

I found this to be profoundly comforting. 

In the end, there are few cases where generalizations apply. People are different. People parent differently. Kids are born with their own natures. It has nothing to do with nationality. People are people all over. 

People like generalizations, though. It makes life simpler. But it makes us more judgy.

The Way to the Heart is through the Stomach

I am going to say something now which will, in all probability, be considered controversial. 

Are you currently dating someone but can't get them to commit? 

Bake and/or cook for them.

I "joke" with Han that he would have married me much sooner if I had made muffins for him while we were dating. 

"No, no," he denies, his mouth full of lemon cake. But there is no denying the adoration shining in his eyes. 

I didn't really get into baking until we married. Ma used to hog the kitchen in that regard, and while I would be intrigued by different recipes, she wasn't exactly encouraging. She wasn't that jazzed about potential mess and sugary temptation.

But it turns out that I like to bake. Can baking be a hobby? I don't have many others, so it would be nice to have one. I see a recipe and I itch to try it. I frantically calculate: How much sugar can I shave off? How can I divide it into a smaller pan? What ingredients do I still need for it? I've always sucked at math but now I convert tablespoons to cups with ease.

As I type this, I have a whopper of a burn on my left wrist. Ben has a fascination with the oven so when I have to quickly get something out (it can be just a few moment between moist and dry goodies) I tend to scorch myself. It's fine. It's like a cool battle scar.

So after I started dabbling in baking, I noticed that Han was happy. Very very happy. While I grew up with at least two steady cake options in the freezer, Han did not. That makes him quite appreciative of my homey efforts.

And so we "joke." 

Brownie: "I'd marry you all over again!" 

Blueberry muffins: "I looooove yoooouuuuu!" 

Pesach sponge cake: "Damn, girl!" 

This strategy swings both ways. Han's brother likes to bake too, so he'll be a'wooing with ease. 

Suck at baking? Can't cook to save your life? No problem! Enlist the help of a friend who does like to and make sure to never expressly lie to the object of your affections. "You seem like you could use a home cooked meal." "These were no trouble to whip up."

Hey, just give it a try. Like chicken soup (Han lives for chicken soup) it can't hurt.

Thin Skinned

I used to like the romance genre more, but once the typical cliched plot becomes ubiquitous, I've been leaning towards murder mysteries. 

Romance plot: 

(1) Two people meet. 

(2) They get along swimmingly. 

(3) One half of this excellent couple screws up in either a major or minor fashion. 

(4) The other half is so angry that the two go their separate ways. 

(5) The one half initially accepts defeat, then decides to fight for the other, abjectly apologizing while a crowd of onlookers gawk. 

(6) Couple reunites and prance into the sunset. 

After the first 500 iterations, it gets kind of old. 

Olivia Dade's Spoiler Alert is no different. But a scenario in the story that took place made me think. I'll try not to give anything away: 

Character A makes a comment. A comment he believes to be innocuous. 

Character B, however, has experienced this comment beforehand, but not in an innocuous fashion. Therefore, she assumes A's motivations to be nefarious, and marches off. 

Character A has no flipping idea what happened. 

It made me wonder. Was I like that when I was single? Did people make comments that they really thought were innocuous but due to my previous experiences, I thought they were issued with malice? 

Well, the lady who said as soon as she met me "Don't be picky," I stand by my freak out. Otherwise, I can't remember every interaction I had (once I had Ben it was like a memory wipe took place; sleep deprivation destroys recall), but many upset me. Was I misunderstanding others' intentions? Was my skin too thin? 

But then, why was my skin too thin? Because I had been bombarded with ego-destroying comments once I was 23 (seriously, that is ridiculous), when everyone began earnestly listing to me how just being me was getting in the way of my marrying (here's my spoiler alert: if I have to pretend to be someone else in order to con some shmo into putting a ring on it, I'd rather fulfill my dream of getting a horse).

Are single people sensitive? Yes, for good reason. Same as everyone out there is sensitive regarding some unknown issue. We all have something that triggers us, makes us freak, and sadly, telepathy isn't an option. 

So here comes my suggestion again that we all just wave at people and say nothing. 

Oh, and Spoiler Alert was incredibly UA, for mature audiences only, heck, I had to skip a few explicit pages.   

Ambiguous Grief

I've mentioned before Lori Gottlieb, the psychotherapist and author. Yesterday someone forwarded this to me, an answer to a question from a single person who can't bear hearing her friends rant about their significant others, when she is sad about being unattached. 

Gottlieb gives this sadness legitimacy. She calls it "ambiguous grief," because the recognized instances of loss tend to be around actual loss, as opposed to mourning something that one never had. 

I've noticed that in my experience, most people did not realize that a person who is single can be sad not only for a person they have not yet met, but also for children that don't exist. 

Singles can be hurting, but others tend to pile on the hurt, proclaiming that they must be doing something wrong, it's so simple to find a life partner. And have children. And raise those children. And keep your marriage healthy. 

I denied my ambiguous grief when I was dating because—well, I didn't think that it was valid either. No one acknowledged it. How many would say, "It must be hard"? And frankly, if someone did say that to me, I'd be annoyed because I don't like to be pitied. 

I just wanted to be . . . not mistreated. Not badgered. Not blamed. That was the painful thing—being accused as the reason why I was unattached. 

Luckily, whatever friends I had vanished once they married (I didn't mind all that much) so I didn't have to hear about them complain about their spouse, or at least they were tactful enough to rant about the weather instead. 

I have a friend who married before I did. I have Ben; she does not yet have a baby. It is not by choice. Whenever we text, or speak, I do not kvetch, "I was up all night with the baby, again." I do not vent, "Can you believe the little stinker emptied out all the spices?" Or "You are so lucky you don't have to deal with nasty diapers! It was everywhere!" 

That would be rather cruel. Right? She would happily do all those things because the positives, in the end, outweigh the negatives. 

Additionally, I wouldn't complain about those typical baby tasks in the first place, because getting into the mommy game later than most, I am grateful. It's hard, but it's the happy kind of hard, not the sad kind of hard dating fruitlessly was.