The timer has gone off and I can smell the bread baking in the oven. As I try to think of words to describe the aroma, I am reminded of all the ways wine critics try to describe the bouquet of a wine.

Obvious words include: yeasty, warm, toasted, browned, but none of them do justice to how smelling that loaf of bread makes my mouth water, and my thoughts go back to the past. I remember watching my mother pull out loaves of bread from the oven. We were not a wealthy family, but I never felt poor because all the other children were jealous of my mother’s homemade bread and cookies and cakes.
I remember so many suppers where the centerpiece of the meal was a thick slab of bread hot from the oven. We would slather great chunks of butter on it and watch the butter melt into the crevices and air pockets. That slice we would eat with dinner but then we would get another slice and eat that with butter and honey for dessert.

My husband bought me our first bread machine when we still lived in Boston. It was a Breadman 2lb loaf machine. I think we must have put 1,000 lb of flour through that machine before it finally broke. It had a timer and I remember the first time I set it the night before for 12 hours and crossed my fingers as I went to bed, wondering if the next morning the loaf would be risen high and baked golden brown. The next morning, we woke to the smell of baking bread and our little condo seemed like a kingdom. We breakfasted on bread, butter, and jam and Christopher who was just about a year old ate an entire slice by himself.

The loaf I just pulled out of the oven is cooling on a wire rack. It will be part of our dinner tonight with roast filet mignon and a salad.