It surprises me when I look back on it.

The next batch of bread, after baking a huge amount of loaves, are always better.

I've been baking bread with some success for a couple years now. I'm not baking everyday like some folks do but I probably average a loaf a week if you don't count the days when I bake a lot of bread for others. My average might actually be higher than that but who cares?

Anyway, I bake consistently and I find it interesting that I always seem to learn more when I bake dozens and dozens of loaves than when I'm just baking a couple loaves.

I figure that I would notice more subtleties when loving creating a couple of loaves rather than hustling to finish that last batch before I have to rush from the house with bags and bags of bread.

The two loaves I gave away on Easter where the best two loaves that I've ever baked. They looked great on the outside and the inside and they tasted great. I've achieved that flavor and crumb before but I hadn't always had a lovely looking loaf. Those two were great and best of all: I know how to recreate them.

And I will lightly write in pencil the change in the recipe in the cookbook that I use, which is a big deal because I don't like writing in books. I don't like dogearing the pages or highlighting or doing any other thing that changes the book. I don't even like it when my mother, who used to work in a library covering books, tries to put a cover on one of my books.


"But it might get ruined, someone might spill something on it, while they are cooking."

"Well then so be it. I don't want a cover on it."

It seems rather practical covering a cookbook especially but I rather live on the edge than to have my book sealed up in plastic.