I’ll let you in on a secret: I bake bread between meetings. I don’t mean to boast, well maybe I do. I’m not shirking my full-time job responsibilities either. How is this possible, you ask? Strategic coordination. Planning. And a love of multi-tasking. And bread.
Now, for anyone considering attempting the amazing feat of baking bread between meetings, a few words of warning:
I Stick To What I Know
First, I don’t recommend testing new recipes between meetings. The first time I try a new recipe, I take my time. I move slowly through the steps. I check and recheck what comes next in the process. So, when I make my bread (more often than not, an amazing cinnamon swirl bread) between meetings, it is a tried and true recipe that I know almost by heart.
Baking bread is one of those silver-linings of my pandemic-induced work-from-home situation. Baking bread was much more challenging when I was not actually in my house for 10 hours a day. But now that I am here all the time … literally, all day every day, I mean, I can probably count on both hands the number of times I’ve left my house in the last 8 months … baking bread between meetings is a definite reality.
Baking is My Happy Place
I hope this is obvious, but if you aren’t fully committed to baking bread, then it’s definitely not worth it. But, if like me, baking is your happy place, your de-stresser, your best way to unwind, then you can definitely bake bread between meetings.
I’m relatively new to bread-making and can’t say for sure what drew me to it. Maybe it was the comfort of a warm loaf of bread which was much-needed during this crazy pandemic. Or maybe it was the sense of accomplishment.
While I would argue that bread-baking is not hard, it does take time and patience. Bread dough can be fickle. But when my kindergartener signs-off of virtual school for the day and enters the kitchen inhaling the scent of freshly baked cinnamon swirl bread and sighs a happy sigh, it’s definitely worth it.
I Embrace Multi-Tasking
If focusing exclusively on one task at a time is your jam, then baking bread between meetings is likely not for you. Save your baking for the weekends when you can devote your full attention to it. I, on the other hand, love the feeling of accomplishment that comes when I have orchestrated my time down to the minute. And baking bread between meetings definitely results in that feeling of accomplishment. It’s like a well-choreographed dance prepping ingredients while also making breakfast. Heating the oven and buttering the baking pan while the yeast proofs.
But in reality, after the first half hour of mixing the dough, I get to hop on my computer and focus on my j-o-b.
From then on, the bread only needs my attention for brief moments at a time, no more than I would spend on an average bathroom or snack break. And I can even participate in a conference call (phone only, obviously … I mean, I could try a video call, but that might get awkward) while rolling out dough or checking on the rising progress.
So, don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not like I’ve got a full-blown bakery going on in my house every day. But there are days that I might dash to the kitchen to check on rising dough between meetings. I might take my conference calls while putting my loaf into the oven. Because as long as I’m working from home, I will definitely bake bread between meetings.