The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

"A book of verses underneath the bough,
a jug of wine,
a loaf of bread,
and thou."
-Edward Fitzgerald

We had no bread this morning and so I made some. I rolled five flat pieces out of a small ball of dough and then cooked them in a pan on the hob before sitting down to enjoy what I think might be my most successful bread yet. I am highly pleased with myself and feel rather accomplished in my own way.
I can hardly imagine that there was a time, mere months ago, that Spouse and I were buying bland packages of bread from the supermarket and enduring the honour of paying an arm and a leg for them. I do not dismiss packages of bread as a whole, simply the ones that are available in our particular local area. We have never been quite enamoured with ready-made bread wherever we lived, but prior to this period in our lives we had not been motivated to do anything about the matter. Indeed we would not have known at all where to begin. Owning a breadmaker with a curious story was not sufficient. Feeling a vague sense of longing for a better taste was not enough. When we were ready, and only then, we made the choice to change; and we are so much the better for it.