Milk and two sugars?

Get your hands dirty!

Last night I made buttermilk rusks. The recipe is my grandmother’s sister’s and, as is the nature of recipes, I’m sure she got it from another friend or family member. The recipe is old school, it involves tons of flour and butter, it’s a little impractical to use a modern stand mixer. It’s much easier to plunge your hands, wrist deep, into the mixture. You work it and work it until the ingredients come together to form a dough. Once the rusks are baked once, they have to be cut and baked again to dry out. This simple recipe ends up being quite an involved process. I hope you know, now, how much your ouma loved you to let you have three of her homemade rusks with your coffee when she only had one.

Taking the hour or two to work with my hands was so rewarding. Almost all of my time is spent in front of a screen. I work on the internet, I connect with friends through the internet, I shop or learn or relax on the internet. I think that a little part of me feels disconnected from all of my internet activities. The screen is only glass, but it’s a wall that cuts me off from the world inside of the internet, I can never have direct access.

When I sink my fingers into the rusk dough, though, I am totally and undoubtedly involved. I need to be present, I need to focus on something tangible. I found that connection so rewarding, seeing an immediate change because of the physical effort I put in. I encourage you to make something. Maybe baking isn’t your thing, maybe you’ve got green fingers instead of a buttery ones. But you may find that getting your hands, your body involved in creating something can be a much needed break from the digital, intangible world that so many of us inhabit. Plus, now I have like 100 rusks so that should last me at least a week.