TO MAKE BREAD IS LOVE.

Once an unexpected acquaintance said these words to me, in a very unexpected setting. I don't think I'll ever forget them.

It happened when, for 18 hours, I ended up on an island for an alternative lifestyle retreat... of sorts. After a bus-ferry-van-boat ride, I landed with a group of study abroad friends at the Praia do Coqueiro.

As we neared the beach, the moon and the sun sat across from each other in the sky. In the lingering sunlight, and the growing light of the moon, I saw the people on the beach start to greet us from afar, jumping and dancing arm in arm. A woman on our boat kept yelling, "My Family! My Family!" There were lots of introductions. People on the beach were from Italy, Israel, Brazil, Spain.

I had inadvertently entered into a Rainbow.

I suppose I had a number of different visceral reactions to the situation. (Thanks to my journal, I can tell you that "other people also like to howl at the moon," and "english is more universal than I realized --> so is being a hippie" were two of them.)

Anyways, there eventually came a tour of the education/entertainment tent wreathed in peace flags, the sleeping area, the bathing stream, the communal pantry. As we wandered through we met a man from Israel, who sat - free of all clothing except for the minimal protection afforded by a swath of fur - carefully baking flatbread over a pile of coals in the sand.

I don't remember his name, but I do remember this: some time later a few of the "family" were kicking around a soccer ball under the light of the now full moon. Suddenly the Israeli baker arrived, (this time, thwarted by neither pants nor fur-swath). He joined right into the game, compelling someone to ask, "Aren't you tired? You've been baking bread all day!"

"No," he said. "Fazer pão é amor!"

He may not have said it with the verve I'd like to associate with such a bizarrely profound utterance. Perhaps his words carried more weight for me because the whole experience was like visiting an alternate universe, in a lot of ways. Still, I think about what he said every now and then. And when I make bread, I like to think that in a way, it is love.

The bread he made was absolutely delicious.

This weekend I decided to make focaccia for the first time. The gentlemen at Hot Knives make every recipe seem pretty badass - "Our Friend: Focaccia" included. If you have a whole day to spend at home, make this. My only regret is that I didn't eat it right out of the oven.

Mise en place, they said, is important. This is not my forte...

Getting my paws dirty, however,

and resting, I can do.

It's a beautiful thing, no?



P.S. - You can tell by the different types of light in my pictures that this whole focaccia-journey can take you through an entire afternoon/evening into the morning.