the neighbour's tip

2025 · 04

The neighbour caught me out by the bins and somehow we ended up on bread again, which is apparently the only subject I own now. I gave her the whole miserable list. The flat ones. The gummy ones. The one that cemented itself to the tin and had to be dug out with a knife. She heard me out with the patience of someone who's been baking since before I was born, and told me two things.

One, my dough's too dry. I keep throwing more flour at it the second it feels sticky, because sticky feels wrong, and she says sticky is the entire point and I should leave it wet and horrible and trust it. Two, my oven isn't hot enough. Get it properly hot before the loaf goes in. Hotter than seems reasonable.

Wetter dough, hotter oven. Written down it's almost embarrassing how simple it is. But she said it like it was just a plain fact, and I believe her in a way I never believed anything I read. Trying it at the weekend and I'll report back.

Then she wouldn't let me go without a tray of seedlings. Some tomatoes, some herbs, a couple of things I didn't catch the names of. "That balcony's doing nothing," she said. So now I grow things, apparently. I've cleared a spot for them anyway.