At the heart of Rex is the true love to nourish people with excellent bread and baked goodies. Arriving at good bread is not rocket science and is naturally a very enjoyable and satisfying work. But it requires discipline. It starts and ends with good ingredients and respect for good practices and processes. No shortcuts are allowed.
Bread-making is an act of high repetition. It’s a life-sentence of 3:30am wake ups! It attracts people of certain character. People who are really early morning risers; earlier than sunrise. People who do the same work everyday for months after months, and dive deep in the trance of repeated movements and minuscule adjustments to reach perfection.
The expectation that bread at the bakery needs to be available everyday is fascinating to us. Most people really expect daily long hours of operation and high availability of baked goods at a bakery. But everything needs to catch a breath. As a small bakery, we cannot afford opening every day. It’s a question of staying sane and a question of nostalgia to Amman when it acted like a town and not like a metropolitan. We take one day off every week, and this is very holy for us. It allows our team to rest, it allows us to do a thorough weekly cleaning of our equipment and space by highly skilled cleaning crew, and most importantly it allows us to keep smiling.
Baking continues to teach us discipline. Flour was once viable seeds of wheat before they were milled, and turned into lifeless powder. But once water is introduced to flour, it comes back to life. Dough is a living matter that does not wait for others. Thus, a baker needs to be punctual about his/her appointments with the dough. Time is the single most important connection between a baker and his/her dough. Good timing is everything for so many other things in life; like love, sorriness and friendships.
To be continued.