During last week’s great hot cross bun bake-off, I found companionship, joy, and energy in The Beatles. I am not kidding!
Do this right now: find the original recording of John Lennon singing Twist and Shout (on the Please Please Me album)! I defy anyone not to stay still, let alone dance, while listening to this ball of energy. See if you can stop the goosebumps and thrill racing up the spine. Just try staying unmoved by John’s singing!
Was John mouthing the words, giving a blasé performance? No! He was giving everything he had left in his tired voice!
Giving it everything!
It is one of the great vocal performances in rock and roll. Recorded at the very end of the Beatles’ first recording session with producer George Martin at the control board. It was Monday, February 11, 1963.
John was suffering from a cold. He’d been drinking milk and sucking lozenges to soothe his sore throat. Martin knew Twist and Shout would demand a lot of the singer’s voice. He purposely left the song for the of the session. They had 15 minutes left in the studio before they had to clear out.
John pulled off his shirt, stepped up to the microphone and let loose! When he finished, his voice was shattered. They tried a second take, but it wasn’t to be. Didn’t matter, though. They had everything they needed and more in that one take! The Beatles had recorded the entire album in 10 hours. (If you listen carefully, you can hear the head cold in his voice).
I was a bleary-eyed baker in the wee hours of Friday, April 3, 2020, rolling dozens of dough balls in the dark of night. The Beatles’ energy and exuberance, led by John’s performance, fueled my passion, shaping and baking those hot cross buns!
“Shake it up, baby, now! Twist and shout!”
Thank you, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and you too, John!
And if you have a Beatles playlist, keep the record player turning, or the streaming service streaming.
Listen to the songs that follow, each one a gem! All My Loving, Help!, Eight Days a Week, Norwegian Wood, A Day in the Life, Lovely Rita, Lucy in the Sky, All You Need is Love, Across the Universe, Strawberry Fields, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Mean Mr. Mustard, Helter Skelter, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Something in the Way, Why Don’t We Do It in the Road! Her Majesty. The list is almost endless!
Rolling hot cross dough ball number 253, flour all over the floor, I sang and danced along with every word of She Came In Through the Bathroom Window, I’m Looking Through You, I’m So Tired, and Yesterday. And every other song that came up!
Loaded with innovation
Somehow the lyrics of all the Beatle songs have stayed in my sagging memory vaults. I could climb into each one that came over the headphones.
They’re loaded with innovation! Almost every song has a new sound, a new instrument, a unique arrangement. You can marvel at the musicianship, too. Did you know that Ringo was sidelined in several of the band’s early tracks because he wasn’t considered sophisticated enough? Today, drummers idolize him!
The Beatles, as most know them, were a world phenomenon for a mere seven years (1963 to 1970), yet their impact is still felt 57 years later! The songs are as alive and vital as they ever were.
No recording artist recognized by Billboard magazine has sold more albums than The Beatles, even today. Nor has any group or solo artist posted more No. 1 hits. Going just by the music made in those years, The Beatles posted 20 Billboard No. 1 singles, a lot more than Elvis!
Four lads from Liverpool
Their impact on our culture is staggering, yet they were just a band of “four lads from Liverpool.” I don’t believe they manipulated the culture like puppet-masters. They made ground-breaking music that appealed to a culture ready for change. The public ate the Beatles up!
I remember reading a 1971 Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon:
“We were four guys… I met Paul, and said, “Do you wanna join me band?”, you know, then George joined, and then Ringo joined. We were just a band who made it very, very big, that’s all. And sometimes—our best work was never recorded, you know.”
Sort of brings it down to earth, as John was so good at doing.
Yet the exuberance and energy they brought is undeniable, and it’s what we hear still in 2020. Even through the pain and disillusionment in songs like Help! You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away or A Day in the Life.
The lasting impression is the sense of optimism and innocence, in much the same way the 1960s are viewed today.
Like hearing the songs for the first time, again
Jennifer and I were captivated by the movie, Yesterday, that appeared late last year. It was a cheesy romantic comedy that happened to have a significant impact on us. It was about a parallel universe in which the Beatles had never existed. The main character, a failing musician, was one of the only people who had a memory of the band. He recreates the songs as his own, performs them, and becomes a world phenomenon.
Cheesy, as I say, but hearing the songs in this context was like hearing them for the first time, or at least recapturing their spirit.
If you’re a Beatle fan, go see it. There is another development in the movie that I will not give away. No spoiler alert here, but let me say the tears were rolling down my cheeks.
So if you’re still eating Hot Cross Buns from last week, maybe you’ll taste a little She Loves You, or Yellow Submarine or The Long and Winding Road. And maybe you’ll start dancing around the kitchen, too!
A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]
Jan 29
![A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]](https://i0.wp.com/happymonkbaking.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png?w=980&ssl=1)
A bread-fail last week produced great-tasting Sesame-Miso Frisbees or Umami Chapeaus! What to do with the remnants? Hard-bread, rusks, croutons, or what have you. And the Ravens get their fair share, too … O come to me Huginn and Munnin! Fill your beaks and carry my greetings and blessings to Odin! [ See link in my LinkTree in HappyMonk Profile ]
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#showusyourfuckedloaves, #sesamemiso, #sesamemiso, #sesamemisobread, #hardtack, #hardbread, #croutons, #huginnandmunnin, #odin, #penderisland, #southpenderisland, #happymonkbaking, #southerngulfislands|
Jul 21
Latest Happy Monk Blog: The World is Too Much With Us - In our little Island paradise, how to embrace all the beauty when the world is going to hell in a hand basket? ALSO: Baker`s Choice - Brown-Rice Miso and Sesame Sourdough [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 17
Latest Happy Monk Blog: "A Bird Came Down the Walk," a brief flirtation with ChatGPT that was awkward but offered an exquisite poem by Emily Dickinson. [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 3
Resurrected a couple of Salish Sourdough loaves forgotten inside Mildrith, the wood-fired oven. They emerged charred and hell-fired, sadly, so I took a knife to them and made them almost new again!
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#woodfired #woodfiredoven #coboven #Mildrith #Mildriththeoven #woodfiredovenbread #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #burntbread #showusyourfuckedloaves
Jun 9
Strongly recommend installing the Smell-O-Vision™ feature on your device to appreciate the aroma of these Rye-Currant Sourdough loaves, just out of the oven. Wish I could capture it in a jar, or make a scratch ‘n’ sniff postage stamp (like the recent French stamp commemorating the baguette). And this loaf tastes just as lovely as they look!
Jun 1
The Happy Monk Baking Company
Happy Monk Tidings - May 15, 2024 🍞 - BLOG REDUX: "Saving Grace"; BAKER`S CHOICE: Sprouted Purple Barley Sourdough; REGULAR: Seed Feast.
May 15
It’s late at night and chances are there’s a baker near you having fun with bread dough …
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#bakers #bakerslife #bakersofinstagram #bakerslifeforme #nighttime #nightlife #nightsky #bakingmagic
May 5
All spelt, all the time … well, with a few glugs of maple syrup
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#spelt #wholegrain #tinloaves #realbread #breadbakers #breadbakersofinstagram
#artisanbreadbakers #speltbread #speltsourdoughbread #speltbread #wholegrainspeltbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbaker
Apr 20
New Happy Monk Blog: Spring brings mixed blessings! A sense of loss, along with warmth and a new cast of light, "That Science cannot overtake / But Human Nature Feels." Westeros and Emily Dickinson`s sensitive heart. [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Apr 3
This little guy is a workhorse, plain and simple. A brute! Thursday, it milled over 27kg of incredible flour for a recipe that needed the freshest flour possible. And its output was beautiful. Wheat, spelt, rye and buckwheat. A larger mill could have handled that in a fraction of the time, but who’s complaining? Some amazing bread was the result, milled and mixed the same day. A Country Miche from an article by Eric Pallant @epallant in the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of Bread Lines.
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#spelt #speltbread #buckwheat #buckwheatbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #naturallyleavened #artisanbread #realbread #rusticbread #flourmilling #flourmill #komoflourmills #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands
Mar 2
Latest Happy Monk Blog - The Living Rock Island – Our Little Corner of South Pender Island 🍞 [See LinkTree in Profile]
Feb 28
O, for a slice of raisin sourdough! that hath been
Warm’d a long age in the deep delvéd oven,
Tasting of Hestia and the ocean green,
Rest and a slow moving song and sunburnt mirth!
O for a loaf full of the warm South
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded raisins winking at the crumb,
And cinnamon-stainéd mouth;
That I might eat, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
— Apologies to John Keats for my butchery of his “Ode to a Nightingale”
Feb 25
At the outset of the Happy Monk Baking Company, I cherished those early mornings, working alone with Mildrith in the dark before the birds began their glorious morning chorus. The world was silent, unhurried. Mildrith and me, the trees, the solid earth, a passing deer, the baskets of bread dough waiting for the oven.
Going to work in the pre-dawn hours was something bakers did, I thought. They sacrificed sleep and delivered their bread early to appreciative customers. It was a romantic notion on my part, a naïve commitment to the baking trade without fully understanding the consequences, i.e. sleep debt.
It was satisfying to have loaves ready for some customers before noon; it was a triumph! But by the time most of the bread was ready for delivery, bagged and labelled, my eyelids were growing heavy, my mind fuzzy, my body slowing down.
And it wasn’t safe driving up-island.
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#bakerslife #bakers #sleepdeprivation #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredovenbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany
Feb 1
Milling a little corn to mix in with some marinated olives before they go into a tapenade infused dough. Big olive flavour … plus a rare shot of Mildrith, the wood-fired oven!
Nov 19
Happy Monk Tidings - November 15, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE this week: Olive Sourdough Loaf; AND: An Emotional Weather Report [ See LinkTree in Profile ] 🍞
Nov 15
Happy Monk Tidings - November 1, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Sourdough Sandwich Loaf; BLOG: Don`t Let That Wonder Lawyer Tell You It`s Not Real Bread! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Nov 1
Dylan Thomas, one of my muses, would have been 109 years old this Friday, Oct. 27. One of a small-handful of poets whose words are cherished and summoned often for their music and wisdom. They soothe, they sing, they evoke. I`ll be thinking of him this bread day, under "the mustardseed sun"….. and the "switchback sea"…. as he "celebrates and spurns his driftwood thirty fifth wind turned age."
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#dylanthomas #poetsofinstagram #poetrylovers #poetryisnotdead #poetryofinstagram #poets #poetryislife #poetrylove #poetrydaily #poetryworld #poetryinstagram #bakerpoets #poetryforbakers #southpenderisland #penderisland
Happy Monk Tidings - October 25, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE - Sprouted Emmer Sourdough; BLOG: Happy Birthday, Dylan Thomas! [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 25
Happy Monk Tidings - October 18, 2023 - 🍞: BAKER`s CHOICE: Seedy Spelt and Rye Bread; BLOG: It Starts With Wonder? What`s That?
Oct 18
Happy Monk Tidings - October 11, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE: Potato Rosemary Bread; BLOG: Swimming with Otters 🍞
Oct 11
Happy Monk Tidings - BLOG: Abundance: Season of Apples; Baker`s Choice: Pender Island Apple Bread with Pender Apples and Twin Island Cider - October 4, 2023 🍞 [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 4
Happy Monk Tidings - September 27, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE THIS WEEK: Harvest Bread; BLOG: Positively Fourth Avenue - [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 27
Happy Monk Tidings - September 20, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Garlic Levain Bread; BLOG: Harumph! Author Says Leave the Baking to the Professionals! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 20
A hefty Country Miche, formula from Breadlines published by Bread Bakers Guild of America. Hefty in size, hefty in flavour. Four flours (Sifted Metchosin Wheat, Rye, Buckwheat, Spelt), a super-active levain and an intense crust colour. I think I’m addicted! It’s kind of finicky, though, and trying to work out a reasonable schedule to produce 40 loaves for Happy Monk customers.
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. #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakingcompany #wholegrainbread #breadhead #michebread #realbread #rusticbread #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries
Sep 14
