Jump to Recipe

"Jump to Recipe," that magical little button at the top of every food blog.

You've been searching for the perfect recipe for grilled liver and finally found it! No point in reading that long, drawn-out diatribe about how the author's mother once fed this exact liver recipe to the queen of England; you want to get to the good stuff.

There's no time for anything else!

Although I rarely look up liver recipes online (I've heard it's delicious when soaked in milk before pan frying), I use the Jump to Recipe option almost every time I seek out an online recipe. With today's instant gratification for any information we may need, who has time to read a 700-word blog post about the history of foodstuffs?

Like everything nowadays, hurry up and get to the next part, please.

In 2016, my family and I opened a sandwich café. We crafted panini-style sandwiches that were as big as a child's head. I'm not even exaggerating right now.

We baked puff pastry tarts and made hearty homemade soups for the lunch specials.

We also made all the breads for our various sandwiches from scratch.

In our most prosperous times, we were whipping up 20 loaves of bread daily. So, as you can imagine, I got to know my way around a ball of dough.

When first setting out, I knew nothing about baking bread. As a kid, I had watched my mother bake bread, but that was in a fancy bread maker machine—here I was, attempting to go at it by hand.

My first attempts were disastrous.

The loaves came out rock hard and so dense that they could snap a molar right outta your head.

I was frustrated and weary, thinking that I'd never be able to figure this bread-baking thing out. Maybe I should sneak over to Ma's place in the dead of night and steal her bread maker?

Then, late one evening, as I cried in our newly renovated industrial kitchen, wondering why my husband thought it would be a good idea to go into a baking business with ME, of all people, my lightbulb moment struck.

I was once again being impatient.

This has been a toxic trait of mine my entire life. From the time I was 10 years old and longing to be 20, I've always yearned to be at the next stage of life rather than appreciate the moment I'm in.

I realized I wasn't giving my little dough balls the time they needed to rise.

Bread is a beautiful and fragile creature. It's sadistic in how it grows stronger each time you pummel it down, pushing the air bubbles out from within its fleshy meat.

The act of kneading activates the gluten proteins, making the dough stronger making way for a better rise.

Unfortunately, I was punching the shit out of my dough but not giving it any time to rise afterwards.

Once realizing this, I started seeing the success I so badly wished for in my bread-baking endeavours.

Sundried Tomato Bread

• 2 cups warm water
• 1 tbsp active yeast
• 1 tbsp white sugar

Combine yeast, sugar and water in a large bowl. Allow to sit for five minutes or until the yeast blooms.

• Approx. 4 1/2 cups white flour
• 4 heaping tablespoons of dry or oil-packed sundried tomatoes (if using dried, soak in warm water before adding to the dough)
• Salt to taste
• 3 tablespoons of Italian seasoning
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Once the yeast mixture is ready, combine the flour, salt and Italian seasoning in a separate bowl.
2. Slowly begin adding the flour mixture to the water mixture.
3. Add flour mixture in 1 cup increments, stirring between each add.
4. Add the sundried tomatoes after about 2 cups of flour have been added, and the dough becomes paste-like.
5. Add the flour mixture until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. You may not need all of the flour, and you may need to add a bit more flour to your recipe. Many variables can determine this, from the temperature of your kitchen to the brand of flour you're using. Just vibe with it, folks.
6. Turn out the dough onto a floured countertop. Add cheese.
7. Knead dough by folding and pressing the sides into one another.
8. Knead for at least ten minutes or until your dough becomes smooth and elastic.
9. Remember, the longer you knead, the better the dough.
10. Once the dough has been sufficiently pounded, place it in a greased bowl and cover with a clean dish towel. Place somewhere warm in the kitchen.
11. Allow to rise for one hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
12. Roll out dough onto a floured countertop and punch down several times.
13. Allow to rise again for at least half an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
14. Once big and beautiful, tell your dough that she looks gorgeous (a dough ball's love language is words of affirmation) and then chop it in half.
15. Knead the two separated dough balls and shape them into loaves.
16. Place loaves in greased bread pans and allow them to rise until they are about an inch higher than the top of the pan.
17. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees Celsius
18. Cook for 45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Pro tip: lightly knocking on the top of a freshly baked loaf of bread should sound hollow when fully cooked.

Turn out loaves on baking racks to cool.

Our Sundried Tomato bread was an all-time favourite among Hot Wire's clientele. When combined with our sweet and savoury chicken salad mix, our "Brussels" sandwich was a bestseller.

 I look back on that time in my family's life, and it feels like it went by so fast.

Jamie and I felt perpetually stressed out and run down at the time. It's not easy running a mom-and-pop shop while raising two kiddos under seven.

I was always pushing to get onto the next thing. Hire staff, expand the business, and become the hot-pressed sandwich moguls I knew we were deep down in our hearts.   

However, now, as I reflect on that time, I only see the good things.

I don't recall the stress or rude customers. It's not the lot fees or the countless trips to the local Wholesale Club we'd have to make when we'd inevitably run out of stock on a busy Friday afternoon that I think of when I imagine life at the Hot Wire.

It's standing in a little kitchen with Jamie, kneading bread and laughing about that weird lady who likes her tea boiling hot to drink.

It's teaching our children how to make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. It's the look of shock and satisfaction on a new customer's face when they first bite into one of our head-sized sandwiches.

"Do you guys make this bread from scratch?" they'd always ask.

We sure do, my friend. We sure do.

I wish I had sat and lingered more during our time at the Hot Wire. I wish I had breathed a bit while waiting for my dough to rise, looked around at the tiny yet mighty world we had created and appreciated our triumphs.

The sweet aroma of freshly baked bread, as it wafts through a kitchen, will forever remind me of our adventures in entrepreneurship.

Plunging my hands into the warm, elastic body of dough rummages up memories of community and togetherness. Because that's what we were at the Hot Wire Panini, not just Jamie, the kids and me, but all our patrons too; we were a family.

I've been thinking about the bread and the sandwich shop a lot lately.

My life today would be unrecognizable to the woman who happily danced for joy all those years ago when finally figuring out how to bake the perfect loaf of bread.

I can't change the past or how things have morphed and shifted since that time in our lives.

But I can make conscious decisions about moving forward.

From now on, I'll no longer Jump to Recipe. Instead, I'll take heart in reading the histories and stories concerning the dishes I'm eager to make.

Maybe I'll learn something, or at the very least, I might get to sit back and appreciate taking a glance into the happy/beautiful/thoughtful moments these recipes rummage up.

And I will hold close the memories of my own love-filled recipes too.