Staff of Life

Last week, because Steve was reduced to eating crap while performing his research in Karlsruhe, I decided to make him a super-special dinner for his homecoming on Friday. But sadly, I failed. Why? Because, I forgot to buy bread. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but as many of you know, my husband is a breadaholic. Additionally, the stores in Munich close at 8:00pm on weekdays and sometimes earlier on weekends. By the time dinner was on the table, there was no way to get to the store in time for our missing staff of life.

"We can buy bread tomorrow." I assured Steve, as we sat down to dinner.

However, as it turned out, Saturday was May Day or International Workers' Day or the real Labor Day; and, therefore, ALL of the stores were closed, including the hundreds of thousands of bakeries scattered around the city. And because Munich is a very religious city, all (well almost all) stores are closed on Sundays too.

Thus, there was a ginormous line at the grocery store yesterday. (Too bad I forgot my camera.) And, when I forgot to buy bread, guess who decided NOT to get back in the 45-minute line. Me!

With my husband almost reduced to tears (okay, okay...this is a bit of an exaggeration), I decided to make my first homemade loaf of bread (not including quick bread) EVER. Yikes! And...

Ta-da:




You may scoff and say, "Bread is not that hard to make." But please understand that with our extremely limited Munich kitchen (which only includes one big bowl, does not include a mixer of any kind - standing or hand-held, and does not include a bread pan) this was quite the feat. Twelve minutes of kneading is a lot of kneading. I think my arm muscles started pleading with me to stop moving around minute number four.

However, fresh out of the oven, the delicious bread smell was worth the pain. I felt like shouting, "I am the master!" But decided better of it at 12:00am to avoid upset neighbors.

How did it taste? Like bread! Not bad for my first time...and now I am ready for round two.