I really like baking and really love eating the results, but I don't have time to do it anywhere near as often as I would like. We've owned a bread machine for many years, but I just don't like the results as much as handmade bread, and it always seems like cheating to me. Last week, when I was unloading the groceries and pulled out a loaf of store bought bread, it occurred to me that the results still taste at least as good as store bought, and using a bread machine is cheating less than buying sliced bread from the store.

I spent a little time baking last night just to relax and went a little overboard. I put together a 2 lb. sour-white loaf with 1 lb. of cheddar and asiago cheese and a chopped onion.

The resulting loaf tastes really good, especially with a spicy baked coppacollo salami, but it would have risen better if I kept the cheese down to 1/2 lb. I made a salami sandwich with a couple of slices of this bread and it is sort of like eating a sandwich of salami between two thick slices of cheese.

My first "big" road trip with my pipe band is coming up in a couple of weeks - with a six hour drive from Tigard, OR to John Day, OR. (Actually a nine hour drive if you include the lunch and rest breaks.)

Over the Memorial Day weekend I had a lot of piping events and forgot to keep track of my bread situation. Monday afternoon my wife asks me if I am baking bread since we are almost out and I realize that the sourdough starter is still sitting in the back of the refrigerator. So I say, "No, I will just swing by the store and pick up a loaf of Grand Central sourdough and we will get by with that for the week." I can tell that she is not too happy about it - but she is spoiled the rest of the time so it will not hurt her too much.