Day 7: Beaten To Pita

I woke up this morning without cereal, nor did I have apples or potatoes or pasta. I did have an onion and a bag of flour and a bag of rice. But mostly I had a big pot of cold rice.
Actually, half of a big pot of cold rice, because I had some yesterday and then kind of left it there. I put a lid on it—I mean jeez, I'm not an animal. I'm just not very conscientious when it comes to Tupperwaring things.

There is a limit to what can be achieved with flour, rice, and an onion.
After having rice for breakfast, second breakfast, and lunch, I put the bag of rice far, far away from the food preparation area. The onion got just a cursory glance before being dismissed as a viable ingredient. This left a kilogram of plain white flour. This was my material, my canvas, my tabula rasa. I would take this bag of powdered grain and make it extraordinary. Or at least eatable with a fork.

My early work in the medium of flour proved disappointing, except for adhering pieces of paper together. I had learned much, however, in the interim about the mysterious process of embreadishing. The yeast, you see, needs food and it needs comfort. It is alive; it is a living, bubbling thing, and it requires succor.
Yeast eats sugar, and basks warmly in hot water. Yeast should be treated like a corrupt senator in the dying days of Rome, fed delicate sweetness and drizzled with steaming fluids. Just because it is small and brown and granulated does not mean that it cannot know luxury.

There is another side to ancient Rome, and that is the brutal degradation of the Colliseum. I kept my yeasted flour in a dark place, I cut it in two with a knife, and I dumped it in a pot with burning oil. I beat it with a spatula and crushed it with a pot, and after it was spreadeagled and bruised I threw it in the air and did it all over again.

It was delicious.