Baking Bread

This was our second date...and as picked at the remnants of our pad Thai and Thai spicy squid, we looked at each other, knowing that it was time to leave. As we made our way our to the car, she turned to me and gave me one of the most precious things someone can give...a recipe for bread. And off into the night she went...what a tease.

Actually...it was a link....and here it is...recipe for no knead bread.

You can trade a lot of things on a date; information, stories, experiences, spit, and in my case, looks of sullen resentment over another misspent evening...but I digress...However this was a first for my checkered dating career, receiving a recipe on a second date...usually you have to wait for the fifth or sixth date for that to happen.

I am pretty fearless in the kitchen, but bread making has always intimidated me. I was...and as my loaf is, as of this writing, still in the oven, afraid that my efforts will yield either a charred cinder or doughy creature that will engulf me apron and all.

Bread baking used to be a local affair and was something sold fresh and bought daily. It was not stuffed full of preservatives as store loafs currently are. Even the so called artisanal breads come with a certain price...the ones at my local market are shipped in from New Jersey. Talk about a carbon footprint.

Fresh baked bread is...if all goes well...relatively easy to make as well as cheap. I did the math and figured that my loaf will cost me less than fifty cents to make. And while this is a twenty four hour process it takes only about ten minutes of actual work to make a single loaf. As far as I am concerned its time well spent.

So, I remain on the lookout for the doughy, yeasty creature that I am sure is lurking in the oven. Meanwhile, I am incorporating into my dating strategy a tactic for extracting new food ideas on the first or second date...hey...its a way to get something out of a misspent evening.