Kneading is my Meditation

No, no, I'm not going to be one of the birds piping the virtues of that fabulous looking no-knead bread from Jim Lahey that is EVERYWHERE on the blogs these days - but I will admit, it does look gorgeous. No people - I'm afraid this bread here calls for a little upper-arm work-out.

I'm a self-proclaimed home baker. Not quite a Bakerina ('cause face it, who would be able to live up to the Bakerina?), but I try to make sure we never have to buy bread, unless we feel like something I don't know how to achieve myself at home (that would, coincidentally and ironically, be something like the wonderfully hole-y and slightly tough to the teeth-looking no-knead bread) I not only like baking my own bread for the whole "we're providing for ourselves here"-mentality - but I actually like the job itself. It's strangely comforting and relaxing to me.

A long, loooooong, time ago, I used to do yoga. I don't remember exactly how I ended up in a yoga class, but I think it was because there was some classes being held at the gym I was enrolled in at the time, and I guess I thought I might as well try it out, as I do with so many things in life. Initially, I just liked it for all of the stretching and the full-body workout (I did an Ashtanga-type class). I liked the discipline - that it was actually possible to cheat in almost every position, but the only one that would suffer from it was yourself. I liked seeing how my body would step across the limits I thought it had already set, from one class to another. I liked not concentrating on nothing but my breathing and the next move I had to make my body make.

Every class was ended with a five minute meditation sequence. Lying flat on the floor on our backs, our teacher would talk us through every little inch of our bodies, inside and out. At first I thought it a bit ridiculous, but after a while, I learned that as hard as it was to let everything else out, just as giving it was when you actually accomplished it. It wasn't easy, and four times out of five, I didn't succeed - but the times I did? Woa. That's when I started missing it whenever I wasn't able to go to a class.

These days, meditation - or yoga for that matter - is scarce. I'm not even sure I did it right back then. But if there is ever a time I feel sort of the same calm and tranquility, the same kind of focusing on a single thing, that I got from lying there on a thin mattress on the hardwood floor, it would be in my kitchen. It doesn't really matter what I'm doing, but the sheer act of concentrating on nothing but picking the leaves from a couple of parsley stalks, stirring a risotto or (even!) doing the dishes, has an effect on me that is similar to that from yoga class. The action that does it best is probably kneading bread. The constant focus on stretching, folding, gently punching, turning again, puts me in a state of calmness unlike many others. So I'd go as far as to say that not only is this bread good for your stomach - it's also good for your mind.