It's a MIRACLE I tell you I made BREAD!

This is completely unrelated to sewing, but I am so excited I have no choice but to share. I want to shout it from the rooftops. I have finally made not one but four successful loaves of bread. Yes, the kind you eat and make sandwiches with. Stop rolling your eyes and get excited with me. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Kermit arms everyone! Yes you!!Photographic Proof. Exhibit A:

This may seem rather silly, but to truly understand how big this is for me you need to know how poorly my many, many attempts over many, many years at baking bread have been. Deflated, dense, or weird and beery, you name the Bread Failure, I've had it. Then I'd take a break for a year or so but eventually read a blog post, someone saying "Its SOOO easy to make bread!" or stumble across a recipe in a book and get sucked in and try it again. I actually amaze myself a little when I think about how persistent I've been despite my pathetic track record. Perhaps delusions of someday becoming Martha blinded me to reality. In my head, I've always been just a loaf of bread away from becoming the woman who makes her own yogurt and whole grain snacks for my kids before hopping on my thrifted bicycle with side baskets to go pick up the organic CSA box from the Farmer's Market. The only thing in that previous sentence that is true of me is that I own a bicycle, and that I occasionally go to the Farmer's Market. I'm trying to think if I've ever actually ridden the bike TO the Farmer's Market, and again, it's hard to even tell if the time I am picturing actually happened or was just a daydream of my Amazing Self.

Exhibit B:

Amy Karol has blogged a number of times about her positive results with Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day, but I pretty much wrote that off immediately because come on the woman is so very nearly Martha, totally in a different tier of capability than me (she makes her own deodorant for crying out loud). Honestly I was dubious that her results could be due to anything other than her general Amazingness. I am happy to report that this is not the case. I believe I have (despite forgetting several steps and not even using the baking stone they recommend) managed to make four loaves of bread, all of which have disappeared within a day of being made. I offer to you visual proof that this book is pretty stinking awesome (see Exhibits A, B, and C). My sister Kricket and her husband Ross came over the other day for dinner and they were shocked, shocked I tell you that the loaf of bread they were consuming was not only made by me but was also easy. And I can't even believe I'm about to say this because it sounds so cheesy but I think the recipe/technique offered by this book is very nearly foolproof.Exhibit C: (Mr Rae is starting to make fun of me when he sees me photographing my bread. He's definitely impressed though. Or so he claims.)

Without giving too much away because that would not be cool, the basic concept is that you mix up a batch of wet dough that is enough for multiple loaves and store it in a covered container in your fridge. Then you just pull off the amount of dough you need when you need it and bake it. No kneading, no kidding. And though it's a wee bit more complicated than what I have just outlined here, it is most definitely easy. The first few chapters outline the basic concept/tools/recipe and then the rest of the book is full of variations, including desserts (!) that are all built off of the basic recipe. If you've been burned by Bread Failure like I have, you owe it to yourself to go get this book from your library. But not from MY library, because I've got their copy and plan on renewing it as many times as necessary until the copy I ordered the other day arrives. Hneh-hneh-hneh, booyah!So let's debrief. Am I the last one to the party with this? There must be other fans of this book unless there's some other bread craze I'm missing. And then, the question I'm really interested in: what's your Amazing Self like? I know I am not the only person who has this. Do you think it's better to set your expectations low so that you don't get depressed when Amazing Self never materializes, or is it better to set high goals? I go back and forth on this.