20: On (not) baking
And making square peg/square hole focaccia
Since the start of the year—I’d argue since the start of this newsletter—I think I’ve lost more than 250 Instagram followers. It’s only noticeable because I’m still somewhat in disbelief that I went from a few hundred followers to a few thousand in what seemed like mere weeks. The power of pizza and bread photo porn when it hits the Explore page. Although, I think it was an ice cream sandwich post that actually set things off.
The appreciation from strangers was amazing and humbling, but I increasingly felt detached from what felt like too-high a number of follows for me (and wondered just how many were bots). I believe they were largely based on the enticement of a photograph and not anything related to me or how I talked about the photos. Of course it’s easy to like colourful photos of pizza and sandwiches that were styled on the warm woodgrain of a vintage desk and lit by the lovely glow of an expensive floor lamp. And stuff-on-rice will always look 10 times better in an oversized, attractively painted ceramic bowl.
I get it because I follow dozens of accounts where I never read the captions. I seek the visual for relaxation—TV, TikTok, Instagram—and at some moments of the day, I just want to turn off and look at Japanese soft cream and pudding. I have no disappointment that people leave my page because I’m not posting as much or because the set-up and lighting in my apartment are not as good.
I did find it interesting, however, just how much more love a recent post about me playing around with sourdough again got. It made me wonder (read: overthink) if some followers were happy that the girl they were here for was “back.” The natto rice or restaurant posts could be ignored more easily because the sourdough starter was alive again and there might be a return to cooking and baking and recipe discussion.
Not anytime soon, folks.
At a most obvious level, you can’t bake when you don’t have an oven. Need I say more? I do think I need to.
I 100% dried my starter thinking I might bake in Saigon. I knew that the type of apartments I would be able to afford would not come with any sort of oven. But before I moved, I was looking at the size and cost of the “countertop” ovens (read: toaster ovens) that people here use to bake and roast with if they similarly don’t have the money or space for a wall oven. I even set aside the money I earned writing for Andrew Janjigian at Wordloaf to buy my Saigon oven.
Once I started looking at apartments that were within my budget, it immediately became apparent that getting an oven would be doubtful. Counters barely had enough room for a rice cooker, let alone a microwave, let alone a toaster oven that could fit a loaf of bread. Kitchen/dining room space had enough room for a two-seat dining set, let alone a skinny bar cart for extra storage, let alone a bar cart that could hold a toaster oven.
But! Upon first viewing of my now home, it seemed so much more spacious than others. There was a TWO-burner induction cooktop and an L-shaped counter. I looked at a bare space of wall and thought it looked big enough for a cart/oven stand. I even asked a manager if they would let me use a pizza oven (to finally get myself on the Ooni bandwagon!) on the communal balcony. Bread and pizza, oh my! After I signed the lease, I messaged Andrew to relay that all looked good for Southeast Asian sourdough adventures. I had cooked and baked in tiny spaces before, tinier than this. All looked good.
But then. Then, I moved in and started living in the space and moving in the space and needing to find permanent room for a 20 L water bottle in the space. Then I started needing to find room for food and personal items (wardrobe only fits clothes), and my kitchen cupboards were soon stuffed. Then I started washing dishes and regularly cursed the small sink. Then I started cooking and cursed the small countertops. I cursed making a career change to one where I could no longer afford to have a comfortable kitchen or afford constant air conditioning to make the cooking more comfortable. After seeing a number of apartments I never would have wanted to live in, I may have viewed my own with extra rosy glasses because it seemed like a place I could live in.
Making something simple—something on rice, for example—works well for me here. Prep, cooking, and mess are minimal. Anything more than that has made me grumpy. The lack of space to cook, the lack of space to wash, and most crucially, so much equipment that is not my own (I’m in a furnished apartment, we can’t forget): I haven’t been feeling it. I gave up trying to do much cooking or baking in NYC because it similarly left me wanting. And I also wanted to eat what the city had on offer. I found balance between simple meals at home that were low on cooking and indulgent meals out that used all the ingredients and techniques I never would. I’m finding that balance again here in Saigon. Low fuss at home for money saving and health, delivery and meals out to take advantage of the wonderland of food outside my door.
My dehydrated sourdough starter sat for months. I wondered if I would just throw it out one day. I wondered if it was dead. My lifestyle is so different now that I couldn’t give brain space to figuring out how I would do anything with dough. For all intents and purposes, I was a hermit for two and a half years during the pandemic—with a big oven and space and equipment and a lot of disposable income to buy whatever I needed or wanted to make baking more interesting for me. Being at home all the time makes it extremely easy to take care of a starter, mix dough, fold dough, experiment, and bake.
I do miss baking, though. It’s something I’ve enjoyed since I was a teenager. I’ve just never not had access to an oven. The current lack creates an intriguing distance. I miss baking when I eat bread I don’t like. But not having an oven sometimes feels liberating. Especially when confronted with compliments about my past baking.
Like so many things in my life, I am my worst critic. No oven, no ability to bake, means I can give up trying to be better at something I love. I can give up feeling like maybe I am good at something. Not out of fear, but futility.
“What does it matter that you don’t have an oven when you were just a meh baker anyway?” she says to herself.
“You did what you liked, you didn’t bake to improve or with any ambition,” she whispers further.
I have absolutely no desire to bake like I did one, two, three years ago. Putting energy toward sourdough during the pandemic was a way for me to cope with all the changes that were happening, that have happened. All the extra time at home could be filled with bread projects that required regular attention. Not feeling it was safe to eat at restaurants, I spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking, researching, and preparing food that could make me as happy as that from the places I wasn’t going to. Sandwich Fridays and Pizza Saturdays not only filled a void, they gave me an outlet to play with ingredients like I never had before. The solo diner also learned how to be a much better solo cook. The years of only wanting to cook for others and host dinner parties had become more than two years of learning how to make dinner-party-worthy meals in solo Rhirhi portions.
My initial plan to get an oven here failed to fully appreciate how different life in Saigon would be; it failed to remember how different I wanted life to be when I moved. Just like I had to change during the pandemic, I’ve had to change again as I settle in here. Thinking I could do similar things—wanting to do similar things—is a square peg/round hole mindset.
The time away from baking has me soaking in the negative thoughts a lot, but it also positively has me trying to find a square hole. The past few years, I’ve only had faraway friends to type with about baking. But here, unexpectedly at different places and with different people, I have found myself in real, live conversations about dough and baking. People who look at my Instagram photos and think I might know something. (I don’t, of course, she reminds me, but) I am excited by that; I feel relieved when I can think about something other than work—or my lack of ideas for a Substack issue.
The shape of pegs and holes and forcing or accepting makes me reflect on resilience and how some people stepped up to the plate the past few years and some people didn’t (I’m looking at you, Freedom Convoy). I am (She is) forever warning people of my rigidity and my stubbornness, but my god, I think I did pretty good at pandemic resiliency. My speech might have occasionally slipped, but in my head, I’ve never had “back to normal” thoughts. Life is permanently different. Adjust and move forward.
I feed my starter every week or so, wondering what the adjustment will be. Maybe a new apartment one day, so maybe an oven. Maybe baking in someone else’s oven. Maybe showing someone how to initiate a starter or make a dough. Pizza dough flatbread was something I made numerous times, and that newly loved post shows how I successfully made it here to test the starter’s strength and taste. But talk of focaccia with others had me want to see what happened when I made my recipe in the heat and humidity.
My first thought was to make something like pancakes with the dough using the non-stick pan (covered because steam helps rising) I used for the flatbread—Edmonton Rhirhi would have used her cast iron skillet. But because I wanted it thick and fluffy, I used the apartment’s stainless steel pot with some parchment on the bottom. With my first attempt at the dough, I kind of made a giant pancake. I had made a measuring mistake with either the flour or the water, and I ended up with almost a batter. I still baked it (cooked it?) and the result had the texture of a crumpet. It browned too much as my heat was too high, and I had to deflate any bubbles because it needed to be flipped to cook the top, but… it tasted really good.
No mistakes with dough number two, and when I placed it in the fridge to ferment for 48 hours, it looked just as Edmonton doughs had. Pot and parchment again, but this time low heat only. It took longer to rise and form characteristic bubbles, but they did pop up. I didn’t want to deflate them by flipping the dough, so I left it as long as I could on the heat. To my surprise, when I touched the top and put a toothpick in, it was fully cooked (baked?). Just completely devoid of colour. Lifting the lid caused deflation, and not having the heat as high as it should be meant the crumb wasn’t as lofty as I would have liked. But it worked, and of course, with the accompaniment of lots of butter, the taste and chewy texture had me in heaven. The top reminded me of a steamed bun or mantou, with that thin skin that forms when dough is steamed. (Steamed!)
If you follow me on Instagram, please don’t expect a bunch of new steamed focaccia adventures. Maybe the occasional Saturday night (like this had been) where I have to be at home marking exams and don’t want delivery or something over rice.
This square peg/square hole focaccia was only to remind myself (and quiet the she) about what I know and consider how much I’m interested in baking right now. Maybe it will just be those Saturday nights. Maybe it will be something I can do with others. Maybe it will be something I can do when my life inevitably changes again.
