The Aroma of Baking Bread

I got up early this morning, actually, I got up with my first 6 o'clock alarm and decided to bake the first loaf of bread for the weekend.  I tell you, you have to try this way of making bread.  It's so easy and painless, and there's no kneading.  You don't even have to have a mixer with dough hooks.  I like it because you form the loaves, let them rise on a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal, then you bake them on a stone.  You also put a cookie sheet or broiler pan in the oven when  you're preheating it and when you slide the bread in to bake you pour a cup of hot water into the cookie sheet so that it steams up, then you slam the oven door shut and that's what makes the good, crunchy crust.  I gotta tell you people, this has got to be what Heaven smells like.  (I'm going to need more yeast.  I suspect I'll be mixing up more bread when I get home on Sunday.)

The second Fast Mitten is ready for its thumb.  I could have finished it last night but I was determined to get myself into bed around 10 o'clock.  I've been staying up until 11 and that makes it too hard to get up when the alarm(s) go off at 6:05 and 6:31.  I'll get that thumb taken care of today.  I did weave in all the tails last night so the thumb's the only part left to do.  Then I need to do my Knitting Guild homework so I'm ready to learn how to make even warmer mittens at tomorrow night's meeting.

January 7--Jeff Foott, Leopard, Africa.  The grass was tall and golden.  It swayed in the hot wind that swept over the plains making the stalks wave like a huge hand moved across it.  The narrow path moved past the rusted-out pickup truck and disappeared around a small rise.  Laura was glad for the shade cast by the truck.  She tried to stay awake to move with the patch of shade as the sun moved but woke in the late afternoon blinking in the full glare of the sun as it sank toward the western mountins.

Alright.  I'm going to go sit in the kitchen where I can inhale more bread aroma and read the paper.  You stay warm.  It's supposed to get all the way up to 2 degrees today and 8 degrees tomorrow.  Maybe it'll be in the teens for the weekend.  I can't imagine going to the Packer game on Sunday which is outside and the seats are metal benches, but they're running out of seats and are even selling standing room tickets.  Brrr.  Makes me cold just thinking about it.
--Barbara