Baking Aspirations by Christine Johnson

Confession time here. I’m a huge fan of baking shows. Holiday Baking Championship, Cupcake Wars, The Great British Baking Show and its American counterpart—I love them all. And their creations? Sigh. Gorgeous cakes, almost too pretty to eat. Fresh bread out of the oven that I can practically smell.

After acquiring a gorgeous pie cookbook filled with mouth-watering photos, I decided to bake one pie per week this past winter. I found willing guinea pigs—er, tasters—and bought my supplies.

Where to begin? I decided a yummy chicken pot pie sounded good. Several hours later (why did I choose such a difficult pie?), it came out of the oven and was ready for tasting. I declared it a success, and my tasters agreed.

No, this isn’t my effort. Mine wasn’t nearly as symmetrical. No photos were taken in order to protect the unskilled.

Alas, the next pie—a chocolate cream pie—turned to disaster when the filling went from thick at room temperature to soup in the refrigerator. I still don’t understand the chemistry of what happened.

A quiche fell flat but tasted good. The frozen strawberry cream pie required a machete to cut into pieces. And the list went on. Needless to say, I won’t be entering The Great American Baking Show anytime soon. On the plus side, all my tasters said they were willing to keep trying my creations. Bless them, Lord! And the key lime pie in a gingersnap crust was delicious.

Are you a baker? Or, like me, do you love to watch cooking shows and dream of being so skilled?

In my latest book with Love Inspired Historical, Mail Order Sweetheart, the heroine, Fiona, needs to get a husband quickly. She has tried to attract a husband with her baking skills. Unlike my efforts in the kitchen, her rolls and breads are a total success. Her efforts to get a husband? Not so much. With her savings dwindling and her seven-year-old niece en route to live with her, Fiona makes one last gigantic effort to attract a man of means.

Christine Johnson

Mail Order Sweetheart (LIH, June 2017)

Freedom’s Price (Revell, June 2017)

http://christineelizabethjohnson.com

Allie Pleiter on What the Breadmaker Taught Me

I tried banana bread in my automatic bread-maker this morning.  I found a recipe on the internet, followed the instructions to the letter...until the part where I had to tell my machine to skip the kneading and rising functions.

It won't.

My machine insists on going through those cycles no matter which buttons I press.  I'm committed, however, because the batter's in there and I still hold out hope that this could end well.  I'm an optimist by nature, and I want my house to smell like baking banana bread even if I can't eat the results.  I'm hoping I can, but I'm thinking this poor batter will be so mauled by the time it bakes that I'll have a banana brick instead of banana bread.

There's a lesson here for us writers.  Especially those of us struggling through revisions at the moment.  Our impulse is to beat the words to death, to knead them, sit on them, stir them up endlessly in the pursuit of excellence.  Yet, sometimes they just need to be mixed up a bit and slipped gently into the oven.  Every writer I know has re-written a book to death, or at least within an inch of its life.  Not always to the best results.

It's fear, I think.  Fear we don't have the talent we used to (or weren't sure we had in the first place).  We can't bring ourselves to trust the process, God's gift of words, and the strength of the story.  So, if you are an aspiring writer and you can't stop kneading your story today, or there's something you can't bring yourself to turn in to that editor, contest, or crit partner, learn from my bread-maker:  Go.  Back off, step back, and realize that it might just be done and ready to bake.

Like Arthur William Radford said, "half of art is knowing when to stop."

As for the banana bread?  Give me a few hours and I'll let you know.

Bread of Life

This is Merrillee, who is thinking about a very simple thing in my life. My bread box.



Most of the time I don't even think about it as it sits on the counter in my kitchen, even when I get out a loaf of bread. I can't remember when or where I got it, but I'm pretty sure I've had it for at least twenty-five years.

So why am I writing about a bread box? This past weekend, like many people, we had a Super Bowl party. I loved reading all the blogs this week about the Super Bowl and the Saints' victory. I enjoyed the comeback by the underdog team. Anyway, we had lots of people at the party and lots and lots of food--way more than we needed. So hubby and I have been trying to tackle leftovers. This brings me to my bread box that suddenly held my attention when I was able to put a loaf of our regular bread, two packages of hamburger buns and another package of thin buns into my bread box with ease. I realized how big and serviceable it is. I realized how much I love my bread box.

That got me to thinking how bread is a staple in our lives and how Jesus sustains us in our spiritual lives as bread sustains us in our physical lives. Jesus talked about it in John 6:35. Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

Has there ever been something in your life that suddenly has taken on a renewed appreciation?

Just Wondering

This is Merrillee, and I'm probably going to wander around a little bit in this blog post. I've been painting baseboards with oil base paint, and I think the paint fumes must be getting to my brain. I decided they needed a new coat of paint because the new carpet made them look so shabby. Now I have a sore shoulder. Is that from holding a little bitty paint brush? Just wondering.

I went to the store this afternoon to buy a loaf of bread. Not just any bread, but my favorite bread--Nature's Own 12 Grain. No other bread tastes quite the same. The store was out. There were dozens of loaves of 100% Whole Wheat and some other odd varieties but no 12 Grain. I wish I could meet the person who delivers the bread. I would tell him to bring more 12 Grain. Half the time the store is out of that variety. And not just one store, but all the grocery stores in town. Telling the store manager doesn't seem to get the right response. I need to see the bread delivery person. Why are they always out of the bread I like? Just wondering.

When I went to the store, I travel a road that has a roundabout. I don't mind roundabouts if everyone using them knows what they are doing. Today on my return trip there was such a wonderful flow of traffic in the roundabout that it was like a well-conducted orchestra. However, more times than not, the traffic flow is more like having someone throw the musical instruments down a flight of stairs. Some people come to the roundabout and panic or freeze. I so wish to have a loud speaker mounted on top of my car so I can give instructions. Do you suppose that is possible? Just wondering.

Are there any things that you wonder about?