A week to forget and a soda bread to remember

This has been a week from hell, lemme tell ya. I mean, not in a truly hellish form, nothing horrid, nothing majorly worrisome, just... little things. Every tiny thing that could go wrong, has gone wrong this week. Is still going wrong, as we speak. Small stuff, technological shit, mostly. I do hate technology, but in my line of "work", it's awful necessary. I rely and depend on it far too much. But I am useless whenever a tech glitch hits me, I never know how to sort it, what to do, and I do get nervous whenever I need to fix said glitches. This week, it has been one after the other, starting with Instagram keeping me out of my account and not letting me log in, to technological problems in updating an already published book, to having to deal with shit concerning the upload of my upcoming novel.

Being self published means I have to deal with these things alone, by myslef, figure out what and how to do it without really relying on anyone else. It's solitary at best, and frustrating, mostly. But I toil through it all, I put in the hours and get enormous headaches and reach a pint where I just want to cry in frustration. And then I wonder why do I even bother with this, why do I give myself the hassle, what's it for? Is it even worth it? Most times, the answer I come out with is a rotund and large no. It's not really worth it, is it? I mean, it's not like I get all this recognition for my work, be it my novels or this blog. All the hard work I put in starts to look as a complete waste of time, more and more. I've reached a time in my life where I'm nearly forty five years old and what do I have to show for it? Career wise, and in certain aspects of my personal life? Nothing. Not that I haven't tried to get somewhere, but... I must accept that I just don't have it. Nothing I do is good enough, nor worthy of recognition, I will never be one of those people who collect supporters and admirers of my work, people who believe that what I do is worthy of notice and attention. I will never touch people's lives outside my close, immediate circle. I will never succedd, as a writer and as a food blogger. All I will ever get out of this is headaches and a new knowledge of some technological glitches - which maybe is not all bad, frankly.

I shouldn't complain, especially on a food blog. There seems to be a rule of thumb where one cannot showcase misery, frustration, sadness, disbelief in a food blog. One cannot be perceived as having problems in their lives - unless they are life threatning situations, of course - nor of whinning and venting about it. In a blog, food or otherwise, one must only display a perfect lifestyle, a life filled with joys and happiness and the most amazing things happening every second, so one cannot but showcase the gratitude for all these blessings one has been given and keeps hinting at in one's blog. My life is not like that. My life is not hell, either. I have troubles, problems, yes, which in the grand scheme of things, and if put into perspective are, like I said, minor things. Unimportant. But which, in the end of it all, and for me peronally, are major. Because it's my work, my hard invested time, my sweat and tears and toil. So to me, it matters, But it's not a big deal. I also don't have amazing stuff happening in my day to day - except for the bird singing outside my window everyday and my son telling me repeteadly how much he loves me every moment. I don't get thrown amazing opportunities nor do I hit a stroke of luck. I work, I toil, very hard and I never see results for all the hard work. So it's no wonder I feel like I am wasting my time.

And I wonder why I keep doing it, why I keep hoping against hope that one day it will pan out, one day I will see the results of all this hard work. That day will never come, because quite frankly, I don't really believe I deserve to achieve any form of success. I see myself as undeserving of said success, I don't feel like I have the talent or the qualities for it. Iam never satisfied with what I do, my work never seems to be good enough, I always feel like such a fraud at everything, how can I expect others to see me any other way? When you go through a lifetime where all the feedback you get tends to be negative, you get to a point where you can no longer believe yourself capable of doing good things, good work, nor being a good person, worthy of regard and recognition. It is what it is. But in the end, I need to work as much as I need to eat, so I go back to baking breads that Iknow will nourish and appease, breads I know I am rather good at baking, no matter what others may - or may not - say.

Soda breads are my go to when I feel like nothing I do is worth it. I'm good at this, and I know it. I like to invent and play with these kinds of bread, and this one had a new addition that made it tastier and surprisingly moore-ish!

• 50 gr ground roasted barley
• 200 gr strong bread flour
• 100 gr barley flour
• 50 gr mixed oats, nuts and dried fruits
• 1 tsp soda bicarbonate
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 2 plain yogurts
• 50 ml milk with a dash of cider vinegar

Mix the milk with the vinegar and the yogurts and set aside for at least fifteen minutes. Turn on your oven at 180 and line a baking tray with baking parchement, sfiting some flour onto its surface. On a bowl mix the flours, the oats, the soda bicarbonate and the salt. Beat the egg together with the mix of yogurt and milk and pour into the flour mix. With a fork start whisking it all together, and once it begins to combine and bind, pour over a floured surface. Use your floured hands to pat the mix together into a rough ball, do not knead. Transfer the dough onto the oven tray and pat together. With a knife score a cross or star pattern on the top of the dough and place in the oven. Allow to bake for 40 minutes with the fan on, or if you don't have a fan, forty five minutes should be anough. Serve warm with fresh butter. It will ease most ego pains, I grant you that. Baking your own bread usually does, when it comes to nursing doubts of being able to feed your own family.