I have always been a "scratch" cooker. Thanks to my mother. I have never been one to buy prepared foods. Like frozen meatloaf, gravy in a can or jar, etc. Come Saturday morning I would get the beans in the oven and start on the Boston Brown bread that was baked in Chase and Sanborn empty coffee cans. In this town, there was a bakery it seemed on every corner. In the summer, the kids would come in for a clean dish towel or two, head for the bakery just a half block away from the house. At three in the afternoon, the Italian loaves of bread were coming out of the oven. The kids would take their towel and run down to the bakery and get a hot loaf of bread right out of oven. I would go in the house, get a stick or two of butter and they would all sit on the front steps eating their bread. Just tear off a hunk and devour it.
Come winter time, they would most of the time run to the bakery to get bread for supper. If I was short on cash, I would make the bread for supper. I always had to make two loaves. One for supper, and one for sandwiches for their school lunch the next day.
Now you would think with all of the bread baking I did over the years, that I would love it as much as my kids. I have NEVER liked the crust on bread. And I still don't. In fact I may buy just one loaf a month. For Pirate. He still loves his Italian bread. My favorite bread, if I am going to eat any at all is Pumpernickel. I could eat the whole loaf by myself. For the few years we lived in the town next to us, there was a Jewish bakery on the same block where we lived. I made it a point to become their best customer for the Pumpernickel bread.
I miss making bread. In fact I even bought a large bag of bread flour with the good intentions of making some Italian bread for Pirate and Spike. I always used the kneading time to sing hymns that I sang in the choir as a kid. I have a KA and all the equipment needed for this enjoyable chore. But with this crazy leg, it is going to have to wait. Pirate is now doing all the cooking. I just may teach him how to make the bread. I will just sit in my wheelchair and talk him through it.