Adventures in breadmaking: FINAL

So, amazingly, my bread turned out. I probably didn't knead it enough and/or let it raise enough the second time around, but it still looks and tastes unmistakably like bread. (Yeah!) Even better, I really enjoyed the breadmaking process, which involves some level of coordination, skill and experience, but nothing that any jack of all trades like me couldn't do, at least with a little practice.

So, the successful bread got me pretty inspired to make more bread. There's always someone who wants homemade bread, and it's a cheap pastime that brings great satisfaction. So, I looked through a bread book that a friend lent me and picked some things I'd like to try. I researched interesting techniques, breads of the world, recipe sites and healthier flours.

When I was with my grandma, she was telling me a story about how her father used to go really gung-ho on things, and later another story came up about my father (her son) goes really gung-ho on things, and then I realized that's where my capricious passions come from. I usually don't follow through, but I frequently find that I am capable (not proficient mind you) at something, and then for some variable amount of time, I get really excited about that thing and put a lot of time, energy, and usually money into it.

Examples would be gardening (although I think that's a keeper), photography (I do it, but I've never taken the classes that I've said I would), cooking Indian and Thai food, scrapbooking, making my own greeting cards, exercising and going to the gym (I'm still working on keeping that one up), and now, perhaps, baking bread. As I analyze breadmaking, however, I think this one might be sustainable for me. There's plenty of people to eat my bread, and if I make big batches, we could stop buying store bread. It's a good place for the herbs from my garden, and I can always give it away. I am imagining bread becoming my contribution to holiday parties and an inexpensive, healthy, homemade gift for birthdays.

Well, stay tuned for updates.