"If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens."

Robert Browning (1812-1889) English poet

I awoke this morning, the darkness of dawn still sneaking through the blinds, to the delicious sound of rain on the aluminum roof of the screen porch right outside my bedroom. I love the rain. I breath in deeply at just the word “rain”. As I snuggled under the covers, listening, I determined that today would be a bread-baking day.

I, HAD, originally intended to go kayaking today but an injury to my foot caused my plans to change. Last week-end I stepped with all my barefooted weight, onto a blasted bougainvillea thorn. It penetrated my heel so deeply that it required pliers to remove it. Can’t tell you how sore that was and it necessitated a trip to the doc for a tetanus shot and a round of antibiotics. Yup, that is just the way I wanted to spend my money, right? Plus walking around on the sole of my foot caused other body parts to react…and not nicely. Anyway, didn’t think kayaking would be the smartest idea and then the rain this morning…so…making bread seemed a nice diversion.

I stopped by the French bakery near my home on my way to the store to get bread-baking supplies and bought two chocolate croissants…OMG they were heavenly. Still warm from the oven, the crust flakey and tender and the chocolate warm and delicious. A Saturday morning doesn’t get any better than this!

I decided on a San Francisco sourdough recipe that I’ve had for 40 yrs but haven’t made for a while so it required making the starter so I won’t actually be making the bread today. It takes a few days for the starter to…um…start. My second bread is a quick, non-yeast batter bread with sunflower seeds and a yummy date-butter. I’m salivating on the keyboard as I think about how good this one is. Again, I’ve had it for many years.

If any of you want these recipes, just leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to oblige!!!

Have a wonderful weekend.

I love you all.

"Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts."

James Beard (1903-1985)