So when I came down for morning coffee, Asya was already in the kitchen, a large pot on the stove with steam rising in rivulets, my large spoon held up and a tray of dough circles ready to boil. The oven is warm, making the room cozy. She looked at me with a soft glint in her eye.
“I thought I’d make bagels this morning,” she said. Her English is clear but the trace of Turkish causes some consonants to gurgle and lilt like water in a brook coursing over a rocky riverbed. I felt a pinprick of disappointment. I had my mind set that she needed me to coach her through sourdough baking but, after giving her starter and recipes two months ago, she is already well on her way.
“Do you need any help?” I offer.
“No,” she replies. “I got this.”
“Do you need bowls for seeds?”
She points to two bowls already set beside the stove: one filled with poppy seeds, the other filled with the “everything” mixture of sesame, salt, onion and poppy.
“Okay,” I say, smiling. I go make myself a cappuccino..
She sets out two baking sheets and then drops three of the dough circles into the boiling water. She opens her phone to start a timer awkwardly with her left hand while her right holds the long, spoon whose bowl is shaped like a four inch satellite dish with holes to drain water. The dough sinks initially to the bottom and sticks there. I hover watching to see if she knows to scrape them off to let them float freely in the water. In a moment, she figures it out, lifting them off the bottom with the spoon. After a minute, she flips them over just as I indicated in the recipe I gave her. Another minute, she takes them out of the water and places them on the baking tray, adds three more bagels to the water and resets the timer.
I stand behind her sipping my coffee, letting her work but ready to help. She picks up a steaming bagel she’s just removed from the water, and drops it face down in the poppy seeds, lifts it up places it face up on the baking sheet, perfectly coated black with seeds. She repeats the process with the other two she’s just removed. The process is repeated until she has a dozen bagels across two sheets, four poppyseed, six everything and two plain bagels ready to bake. I mention that she could put all 12 on a single sheet but she doesn’t want to crowd her creations, so I take a step back and out of her way.
She puts the two trays in the oven, one above the other, and sets a timer. The light is on in the oven so she can see how they are doing. After 25 minutes, the top tray of bagels is golden brown. She removes them and notices the bottom tray of bagels is still a little pale so she move it to the upper rack, closes the oven and sets the timer for 3 minutes. I get down a cooling rack from the upper cupboard which is beyond her reach and begin washing some of the dishes from the night before. She gingerly plucks the bagels she’s just baked from the tray and arranges them on the cooling rack that she’s placed on the bar. When her timer goes off, she removes the second tray and touches the crusts to make sure she’s satisfied with the bake.
The smell of her fresh bagels wakens the house and people start coming downstairs, bleary eyed but smiling in anticipation of a good breakfast. Butter, cream cheese, lox, onions and capers are put out on the table with plates, napkins and knives. I put out the cutting board with the good bread knife. People are humming with pleasure at the taste and Asya is nonchalant but the blush on her cheeks tells me she is proud.
I am proud of her too. She doesn’t need my help. More, she wanted to show me she doesn’t need my help. She is a sourdough baker all on her own.