Review and Resolution

Each and every year during the week between Christmas and New Years, I try to re-evaluate my life.  I try to decide how to maintain the things I liked and eliminate the things I didn't like.  I've never given this time a name, but as every program on every TV channel is doing their own version of "2010 in Review", I've decided to do my version of "The Year in Review".  Every year, I make my New Year's Resolutions, and every year by the end of the first week in January, they have fallen by the wayside into prickles and thorns.  So this year, I have decided to make resolutions that might actually be achievable.

I love bread.  No, no, not that pre-sliced, preservative loaded, stuff you find in plastic bags on shelves in supermarkets.  No, I'm talking about the beautiful, crusty loaves you see on shelves in your local bakery.  My granny lived with us when I was a kid, and made wonderful bread.  Each year our local Eastern Star chapter would pay Granny to bake 50 - 100 loaves for their card party.  They sold them at their bazaar and never had any left over.  Granny had a dark turquoise plastic basket (looked like a small clothes basket) that had gold sparkles in it, and it was her mixing bowl.  I would help her get her bread pans out of the storage room in the basement, and would grease them with a piece of muslin covered with lard.  Granny never washed those pans.  They were wiped clean, and then put away til next year.  I loved the smell of her homemade bread.  I had already decided last week that in 2011, I was going to master bread making.  After reading chatter on Facebook about this Artisan Bread book, I checked it out on Amazon.  And I ordered it.  I mean, how can you go wrong with bread in 5 minutes a day???

But the book I'm most excited about is this one.  It's a book on healthy bread.  As a diabetic, I'm encouraged to eat breads made with whole grains.  So I'm hoping that the breads in the book will satisfy my crusty bread lust, and fulfill my diabetic whole grain bread need.  I got a panini grill/griddle for Christmas, and just thinking about panini sandwiches on these breads is making my mouth water.  Before Christmas, I ordered some specialty flours from the King Arthur flour website, and am hoping to put them to good use with these books.  Doesn't this loaf on the cover look yummy??


So, with this purchase, I am on my way to realizing my first resolution -- baking healthy, homemade bread.  And now onto the next one -- tomorrow.