Alice: How to Rise
for Steve and his Upstairs Bread
Before flour, before starter, before sea
salt, you look out the window. Study the thick leaven
of the clouds: is it humid? Is the air crackling
with electricity? Yes. Then you begin. Crack
open the jar of starter, inhale the sour smell of the sea
at low tide. No yeast here, just the natural leaven
you started years ago from grape vines. If the leavening
works, the inner structure is rich, the crust perfectly cracked.
Even after baking you want to touch its bones: flour, water, sea
salt. We long for this core: the sea, the rising, the cracking wide open.
for Steve and his Upstairs Bread
Before flour, before starter, before sea
salt, you look out the window. Study the thick leaven
of the clouds: is it humid? Is the air crackling
with electricity? Yes. Then you begin. Crack
open the jar of starter, inhale the sour smell of the sea
at low tide. No yeast here, just the natural leaven
you started years ago from grape vines. If the leavening
works, the inner structure is rich, the crust perfectly cracked.
Even after baking you want to touch its bones: flour, water, sea
salt. We long for this core: the sea, the rising, the cracking wide open.