It was a quiet night in the kitchen.
I was standing there,
my hands deep in a bowl of dough.
My son came over and looked at me.
“Making bread?”
“Yeah.”
He watched for a moment,
his eyes following my hands moving through the dough.
Then he smiled.
“Can I try?”
“Sure.”
He reached in,
touching the dough carefully at first.
And then—
“Uh… hah… hahaha…”
He burst into laughter.
I looked up, surprised.
“Why?”
“It just feels so good,” he said, still smiling.
I nodded.
“Yeah… it really does.
That’s why I keep making bread.”
I Just Liked Bread
I wasn’t always someone who liked bread.
I was more of a rice person.
I liked eating proper meals, on time.
Bread was never really part of that.
Back in college,
my roommate would often skip rice
and just eat bread instead.
I never understood that.
I always chose rice.
But that changed after I got married.
My husband could live on bread alone.
When he was younger,
he went on a reporting trip to Europe
for over a month—
and lived almost entirely on bread.
He said he never missed rice.
The bread there was just… that good.
On weekends,
I didn’t have to cook.
We would stop by a bakery near our home,
fill a bag with fresh bread,
and have a simple brunch together.
It was easy.
And slowly,
I began to like bread too.
The Softness, The Sweetness
When I took a bite of bread,
it would melt softly in my mouth.
That sweetness—
it was something I had never really noticed
when I was eating rice.
Cream buns were soft and rich,
filling my mouth with sweet cream.
Soboro bread had that delicate crunch,
sweet and slightly crisp with every bite.
And bagels—
chewy, with a hint of onion—
had their own kind of quiet satisfaction.
I loved bread so much
that I bought a bread machine
and started baking almost every day.
All I had to do was add the ingredients,
and before I knew it,
a warm loaf would be ready.
It felt almost magical.
The smell of freshly baked bread
would fill the house.
When I took the bread out of the machine,
my husband would smile—
really smile—
and say how good it tasted
while it was still warm.
That’s how we lived,
baking bread every day
for more than a year.
At first, bread was something I simply enjoyed.
But slowly,
my body began to say something else.
Then My Body Said Something Else
But over time,
our bodies began to feel heavier.
My husband,
myself,
and even the kids—
we all started gaining weight.
Watching my husband’s belly grow little by little,
I stopped making bread.
For more than a year,
I didn’t bake bread at home.
We didn’t even buy it from bakeries.
What’s interesting is—
no one in the family ever said,
“Let’s have bread.”
Maybe we had been eating too much of it.
Because somehow,
we just stopped craving it.
That’s what I thought.
And without really deciding to,
I found myself returning
to the way I used to be—
someone who didn’t care much for bread.
Bread quietly faded away from our lives.
And we went back to eating rice.
I Met Cold Fermentation
One day,
I stopped by a friend’s office.
She works as a therapist,
and we were casually talking about bread.
Then she said,
with a serious look on her face,
“If you ferment the dough slowly in the fridge,
it’s much easier on your digestion.”
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Just leave the dough in the refrigerator
for at least eight hours—
or even fourteen to sixteen—
then take it out and bake it.”
I had never heard of cold fermentation before.
But something about it
made me curious.
So I went home
and tried it right away.
I used my bread machine
just for the dough cycle,
then placed the dough in the fridge.
Later, I took it out,
shaped it—roughly—
and baked it in a loaf pan.
The bread wasn’t soft at all.
The crust felt a bit firm,
and the inside was slightly coarse.
But it smelled good.
And it tasted good.
More than that—
it felt easy on my body.
My husband said
it reminded him
of the bread he had eaten in Europe.
“This is the best bread,” he said, smiling.
“Especially because you made it.”
I brought some to my friend.
She smelled it first,
then smiled and said it was good.
“Passed,” she said.
And just like that,
bread returned to our home.
This time,
in a rougher, slower form.
I Started Folding the Dough
One day,
a book caught my eye at a bookstore.
Cold Fermentation Bread Dough.
I was already making cold-fermented bread at home,
so I picked it up and started reading.
And something about it
opened my eyes.
It explained how cold fermentation
makes bread easier on the body,
and how you could make bread at home
simply by folding the dough with your hands.
I had already felt
that this kind of bread was easier to digest.
But this—
this idea of folding the dough by hand—
made me curious again.
So I bought the book.
And that same day,
instead of using the bread machine,
I tried folding the dough myself.
I mixed the ingredients in a bowl,
roughly, with a spatula.
Then I wet my hands slightly
and began folding.
Turning the bowl a quarter each time,
folding the dough eight times,
repeating the process
every fifteen minutes—
four times in total.
Is this really enough?
I wondered.
Still unsure,
I placed the dough in the fridge
and left it overnight.
The next day,
when I took it out—
it had risen beautifully.
I was amazed.
When I baked it,
the flavor was deeper
than anything I had made
with the bread machine.
So I put the bread machine away.
And from then on,
I folded the dough by hand.
The quiet nights were better, too—
without the sound
of the machine running.
What started as a way to make bread differently
became something I could feel—
with my hands, my senses, my whole body.
Feeling It in My Hands
One day,
I became curious.
What would it feel like
to mix everything by hand
from the very beginning—
without using a spatula?
The bowl was full—
flour, milk, yeast, sugar, salt.
If I touched it all at once,
would it feel messy?
Would it stick to my hands too much?
I had already seen my son laugh
while folding the dough,
saying how good it felt.
But what about this—
from the very start?
It was just a simple curiosity.
But that curiosity
brought me into a kind of sensation
I had never experienced before.
All at once.
It was almost shocking.
The gentle smell of organic flour,
a slightly tangy scent from the yeast,
a soft sweetness from the sugar—
they blended together,
brushing lightly against my senses.
And in my hands,
there was so much to feel.
Softness.
Moisture.
The way the dough gathered,
small and large lumps coming together,
clinging gently to my skin.
I pressed it lightly,
then pushed it forward—
almost like doing laundry.
Sometimes I just moved it freely,
following my own rhythm.
And slowly,
it became one.
The feeling—
it was almost overwhelming.
In the quiet of the night,
standing alone in the kitchen,
watching the dough come together,
this time—
filled with scent and touch—
became a moment
just for me.
A kind of quiet healing
I had never expected.
That’s Why I Keep Making Bread
It’s been over six years
since I started making cold-fermented bread at home
using this folding method.
I used to think
I was doing it for my health—
because it felt easier on my body,
and didn’t seem to make me gain weight.
But as I write this now,
I realize something again.
The reason I keep making this slow bread,
without ever finding it bothersome,
is not just about health.
It’s the way the process
opens my senses,
fills them,
and satisfies them.
That quiet joy—
in the making itself—
is the real reason
I keep coming back to it.
Since moving into this home a year ago,
I’ve felt something in me begin to open again.
And I think
this repeated experience—
touching the dough with my hands,
again and again—
has been a quiet part of that.
