The bread dough that took a vacation

Getting to a vacation spot can be a lot of work. Our family used to go to a homey resort in the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington State, where we lived in a cabin and played on the beach. Getting there was never easy, especially the year we took along a batch of bread dough like a special guest.

I made a lot of bread when I was a teenager. I used Ed Brown's "The Tassajara Bread Book" for recipes and directions. A Zen monk, Ed made making bread seem easy, and it was. I enjoyed the quietude of kneading the bread, setting it to rise, punching it down and letting it rise again, and then sniffing the air while it baked. Baking was the only part of the process I timed – the rest was reflective and dreamy.

The morning of our trip to the San Juans, I started a batch of bread. I thought I could probably finish it before we left, so I didn't bother checking with my parents before dumping the yeast in the water, adding flour, and stirring.

Not much later, the rest of the family was busy packing and putting things into the car. Apparently, we had to leave at a certain time to catch a particular ferryboat. This was news to me. Didn't all the boats go to all of the islands? My parents informed me that no, they did not.

Perturbed when they heard about my bread, my parents wanted to know when it would be finished.

"Not for a while," I said. "It still needs another rising, and then I have to shape the loaves and bake them."

Realizing that I meant "about three hours," they looked at each other and sighed. It seems that we had to leave within the hour, and we would be gone for two weeks.

We had several options for disposing of the bread dough: freeze it, give it to the neighbors, or throw it away. Have I mentioned that this was very good bread? My parents decided to take the bread dough along.

We put a damp towel over the big bread bowl and put it behind the driver's seat in one of the cars we were taking. My parents drove one car, and we three teens drove in another. The plan was thatwe would go up to Anacortes, stop for supper, and then catch the ferry to Orcas Island. As soon as we got to the cabin, I would bake the bread.

The trip went as planned, until my brother added one activity. Gasoline costs more on the island than it does on the mainland, so he decided to fill up before getting in line for the ferry.

Unfortunately, this decision made us late. As we crested the hill and looked down at the dock, we saw the ferry sailing away – with our parents on it. This was before cellphones, so we had to guess what had happened. They must have thought we were in line behind them and that we had gotten onto the boat, too.

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