I have been suffering from a bread problem:  chronic disappointment when I go to cut a slice of bread the morning after I made it and I find my beautiful, soft bread has transformed during the night into a dense, tough hunk of bread, a bastardized version of its former self – a problem which I have now solved! But first:  my Granny’s shed, and my first bread machine.

When I was in high school, my brother and my dad and I cleaned out the shed in the back yard at my Granny and Grandad’s house. An old metal shed, we had only ever peeked in, grabbing the odd CB radio parts or pair of crutches to play with. (I was an odd child. I liked to play with crutches, and I once stole fake glasses from my mom’s dresser and wore them to school, telling everyone that I now needed glasses – this was because another girl in class got glasses and THEY LOOKED SO CUTE! I just had to have glasses too. I got caught. I never wore them again. No one ever called me on my epic lie.)

Back to the shed. We decided, one day, to clean out the shed, a storage facility for items from my great-grandparents’ houses and loot from carport sales that my grandparents went to weekly. And as we pulled out layer upon layer of interesting treasures, we began laying claim to them. My dad called dibs on the dried, calcified whale’s rib bone and several glass buoys. My brother chose a few things for himself, though right now I can’t rightly remember what he claimed. Probably something historical – that would have fit his personality.

I claimed kitchen gadgets and tools:  a doughnut mold pan, and an old bread machine, my first. Continue reading »