bakers

The ball dropped from my hands (too hot a cookie to carry for more than an afternoon) and was swiftly picked up by….

Our chef!

I have rarely felt so beaten down by a project. Glorious arias have been ground into a paste of ‘Was the accent here or was that last week? Shit, I know I didn’t articulate that note well, I’m in for a thrashing during midnight notes….’. At the price of nine euros an hour – surely that must be the minimum wage? (not that I should consider myself above that) – we seem to be plastering our score with layers of analysis like too much bitter chocolate spread, digging into the dough till there is nothing left but unappetising scraps, and we are chucking that negative ball of energy around as if we are bored out of our skulls and there is nothing more entertaining to do.

The most frustrating thing is that the ingredients are perfect – a great team (with all it’s imperfections), a triple Michelin star chef and a delicious score.


Except, in my humble sous-chef’s opinion, we are overcooking everything. I feel like one of six bakers sitting round a hearth. Rather than quietly allowing the yeast to ferment and the dough to rise and making a toast to the wonders of alchemy, we become involved in a heady analysis of flour and water, and consequently a burning dispute about whose quantities produce the perfect loaf. Meanwhile we do not hear the tell-tale fizz and sizzle come and go and our bread is spoiled. We seem to have forgotten to trust the process; that simple whole ingredients are best when you don’t meddle with them and, above all, that the perfect loaf exists not in the mind but in the heart of the baker.