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Quote by Eleanor Brown

“There is nothing that is not beautiful about bread. The way it grows, from tiny grains, from bowls on the counter, from yeast blooming in a measuring cup like swampy islands. The way it fills a room, a house, a building, with its inimitable smells, submits to a firmly applied fist and contracts, swells again; the way it stretches and expands upon kneading, the warm, supple feel of it against skin. The sight of a warm roll on a table, the taste-sweet, sour, yeasty on the tongue.”

Quote by Eleanor Brown

Book:The Weird Sisters
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Work

The Weird Sisters

In this narrative, the focus is on the complex dynamics between sisters and the mysterious occurrences that intertwine with their lives. more

Author

Eleanor Brown

Eleanor Brown, born in 1969, is a talented American author known for her profound character development and engaging storytelling. more

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“Sourdough causes certain endocrine glands to secrete hormones that affect your feelings and behavior by making you happy. Therefore, it counteracts depression, in turn reducing the stress of depression. Your stress-free life helps you maintain a youthful disposition, both physically and mentally. So, eat lots of sourdough bread! - I'll be honest, I stole a quote about chocolate, but I'm sure it still counts!”

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“Chicken Francese, or lamb chops, or plump spinach gnocchi that she'd roll out by hand and drop into boiling salt water. When her brothers came home for the holidays, she'd spend days in the kitchen, preparing airy latkes and sweet and sour brisket; roast turkey with chestnut stuffing; elaborately iced layer cakes. She'd stay in the kitchen for hours, cooking dish after dish, hoping that all the food would somehow conceal their father's absence; hoping that the meals would take the taste of grief out of their mouths. "After my father died, I think cooking saved me. It was the only thing that made me happy. Everything else felt so out of control. But if I followed a recipe, if I used the right amounts of the right ingredients and did everything I was supposed to do..." She tried to explain it- how repetitive motions of peeling and chopping felt like a meditation, the comfort of knowing that flour and yeast, oil and salt, combined in the correct proportions, would always yield a loaf of bread; the way that making a shopping list could refocus her mind, and how much she enjoyed the smells of fresh rosemary, of roasting chicken or baking cookies, the velvety feel of a ball of dough at the precise moment when it reached its proper elasticity and could be put into an oiled bowl, under a clean cloth, to rise in a warm spot in the kitchen, the same step that her mother's mother's mother would have followed to make the same kind of bread. She liked to watch popovers rising to lofty heights in the oven's heat, blooming out of their tins. She liked the sound of a hearty soup or grain-thickened stew, simmering gently on a low flame, the look of a beautifully set table, with place cards and candles and fine china. All of it pleased her.”

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“Cecelia and Seamus both have a day off, Columbus Day, and I invite them to the bakehouse for... well, for no reason in particular at all. They show up mid afternoon while my hands are varnished with molasses and rye because I have it in my mind to tweak my mother's pumpernickel formulas. While I respect dark breads, I'm not a particular fan of eating them. I know I should offer the classic at least weekly, though, so I first find and then photocopy the pages in my mother's journals where she'd kept notes about her adventures in pumpernickel bread. She has three versions- one using the crumbs of stale rye bread, one with a hint of cocoa powder, and one featuring a commercial yeast booster- all of them with ingredients I want for my own version, and also with this and that I plan to eliminate.”

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