Making Bread

Baking bread reminds me of Nelson Rafael Perez Perez. Thats my father. His mother and father were no relation but it is horrible branding. However, he embraced it. Had the name embossed on the knick knacks of 70s and 80s middle management. His padfolio with the leather and brass label etched with it. A marble based pens holder that lost its pens. 

When I bake bread I see these tchtotkes. The logos of all the banks he worked for. Santander faux torch. The Aguadilla Farm Credit unions 4 leaf stripped angular clover. I also see him. Sitting shirtless and in slacks on a Sunday afternoon listening to music in the stark black furniture of the living room. The hair on his chest is thick and curly and he wears charcoal grey slacks. This is lounging outfit with a Schiltz beer, soemthing quite exotic in Puerto Rico. My father would have loved Ikea. The mod-wod designs to further his 70s lifestyle magazine aesthetic.

The bread machine? That was a novelty. Bought at the first Sam's Club on the island in the labyrinth traffic jams of Bayamon. It had a cylinder shape the size of a five gallon paint pocket a clear done head. I thought it a bread microwave and asked him to make the braided croissants and pretzels from the insert cook book. But I just had to watch as it stirred with a whimpy paddle stirrer and then the pre programmed rises. "It will be ready overnight."

"Overnight?!" I reacted. The most exciting part was the hot glow of the electric coils that baked it. The finished loaf was the same domes shape and obtuse for slicing. The croissants? Mami just bought those at the same Sams Club.

After my father passed the bread machine collected dust. "Died of laughter," as mami would say. It sounds better in Spanish. My singing uncle then took it. Which was fine beacuse later, when my dog had puppies, they took one for a few months and then I decided to just take the dog back one day. Now I had the second generation. From what I know, over a decade since I've been to PR, he still makes the funky loads. Dog eared bread machine books bought lifetimes ago from the old Borders in Plaza. 

When I bake I think of my father and the cookery knick knacks left behind. His electric wok. The liquor cabinet with an already ancient and much depleted bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I know let my bread rise 3 or 4 times. To kill time. To give the kids soemthing to smack. "Hey, son? You bored. Here smash this." 

It gives the bread a mealy airy bite that is different from the dense shell of his bread machine better. Ill say mine is better if only because of the process.