changing the rules.

We've spent four solid days outside. Friday at the playground. Saturday at the zoo. Sunday in the churchyard and the garden. Yesterday in the garden again. Now, we're settling in for rain. Several days of it if you tend to believe things like radar maps and forecasts. The rain is a good thing. It will make pulling weeds in the garden that much easier...and it is going to prevent me from lugging buckets of water to the new garden site to get the peas ready to be planted. I'm intending to spend today doing laundry and poring over garden books and looking through the bread bible a bit...

...which brings us to the post title. Changing the rules. I've made 24 recipes from The Bread Bible so far. And one of the last ones that I made, Cheddar Cheese Bread with Toasted Sesame Seeds, has inspired me to change the rules. I was, as you know, planning to go the Julie Powell route and bake every single recipe in the book. I've changed my mind. I don't like sesame. Having made that last bread, knowing that I wouldn't like it and subsequently not liking it, I've decided not to make recipes that highlight ingredients that I know I don't like. It's a waste of perfectly good flour. (And cheese in the case of that last one.) I will only apply this rule to things that I know I don't like, not things that I suspect I don't like. So, Sesame Whole Wheat Bread with its sesame seeds and sesame oil won't be produced, but some others that I'm lukewarm about will still be made. I feel better having made this decision. There you have it. Now I'm off to decide what bread to make to accompany tonight's scallops.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.