One day I found a bread recipe on a magazine.
It’s called ‘No Kneading Bread’. I really want to try it. The recipe has been on the kitchen counter, waiting for me. It has been patiently waiting for me for more than 2 weeks.
A great food becomes available to eat only if it appears in front of you. Just looking at the recipe or dreaming about it doesn’t bring the actual food for you.
I know so. And I really want to make and taste the ‘No Kneading Bread’. But so far it hasn’t happened yet. Why?
Yeast bread making requires time to raise the dough. Usually there is the first fermentation then another after shaping. You shouldn’t shorten or stretch the fermentation time too much to achieve a good result.
This particular recipe calls for 12 hours for the first fermentation and 1.5 hours for the second. You can stretch the first fermentation up to 18 hours.
I usually bake between 2:00pm and 6:00pm, typically combining with the supper preparation. To put the bread dough in the oven at that time period, I need to start making it 6:00pm the day before at earliest.
We eat supper around 5:30pm, and then kids do dishes. So usually the kitchen becomes free around 6:30 to 7:00pm.
I am not a night person. When the supper is done, I am pretty much done. It requires a strong motivation to me to work in the kitchen after 7:00pm. That’s why, in spite of my strong interest in the particular bread recipe, I haven’t materialized it successfully yet.
You find a lot of great recipes, but not all work for you. Often the recipe calls for ingredients you have no idea where to get. Or they cost a lot. Or the prep work doesn’t fit your schedule.
No matter how great the idea is, if you can’t make it happen, it doesn’t work.
When you find a great idea, think about how realistic it is, where the challenge is and how to overcome it.
My bread recipe is a very attractive idea to me. My challenge is to motivate myself to work in the kitchen in the evening. The dough making itself is actually not much of work. How to overcome the challenge? How about I rely on someone else’s push?
Here is my strategy: First I tell my kids that I will make the bread at a specific day (e.g. tomorrow). Then ask them to remind me the day before. At the dinner table they remind me that I am going to make the bread next day. I am always telling them to be responsible for their own words. Now I need to be the law model to them. If I say I would make the bread, I need to do so. So, likely I go back to the kitchen after supper and make the dough. Tada!
I repeat it again – no matter how great the idea is, there is no point if it is not materialized. You can eat great food only if it is on the table.
To achieve a new thing, an action is absolutely necessary. In other words, if you can make an action, regardless how the result turns out, you are already moving forward. If it is successful, it’s great. If it is not successful, you now know there is the room for improvement. Then you can go to the next step.
Action. Action. Action.
To make the ‘No Kneading Bread’, I will take an action!