and the French....

Love bread! (and spotting the bear that just won't leave us!!! Here it is eating apples in my across the street neighbor's driveway....about 10 feet from the road.....I digress.....)

And so do we. I make bread in my breadmaker every day. So much that the breadmaker breaks down oh on it's one year warranty date every year, no kidding. The story of stuff. Don't get me started. We are waiting for our 3rd breadmaker on our original purchase. I guess most people buy the breadmaker, use it a couple of times and add it to the rest of the gizmos on the shelf so they do last.....back to my story. We have a french family (woofs) staying here who eat copious quantities of bread. I usually make a loaf every morning that will last the day and for breakfast the next day.....not anymore. So C, the woman, throws a bunch of flour in a bowl, adds this and that and VOILA! we have bread. I'm wondering why I need a breadmaker at all. It really is not a big deal. She doesn't even have a recipe, she just throws it all in. So she kind of keeps track of what she puts in and tells me...So today I made bread. Yep by hand. Easy. Ok my hands got mucky....and it did take longer than throwing it all in the machine......That machine takes up a lot of space in my kitchen! Hmmmmm So the best part is the bubbling yeast....the boys take one look and want to 'explode' something (memories of making volcanoes!) and so they take some yeast, some warm water, a touch of honey and put it in a closed container, outside. It explodes. They are happy. This was after they built parachutes from newspaper, knitting yarn and a hotwheel.....Later August and the oldest french boy M, climbed around outside on ropes tied to various trees, poles and fences (circus like) and then picked blackberries and apples from around the farm and made a crumble....following the recipe for the crumble. My family left for a couple of hours for gymnastics lessons - and later at dinner they made the fold'em "answer machines" that we all made in elementary school....All the kids wanted them. August wrote his own questions and I made picture questions for the other boys. The August showed the middle french girl how to finger knit.....such a very very cool day.