Fresh Bread, Cool Water

I remember my mom singing a song with those words as she took her bread out of the oven. I felt like singing it today when mine was baking… I used the Oatmeal Bread recipe from the More-With-Less cookbook and it turned out fantastic!

Simple is smart and saves space, sleep, and a slew of societies

I love the More-with-Less cookbook – its recipes are simple, delicious, don’t usually call for odd ingredients (like spices you’ve never heard of or brand-name, already made concoctions that make you wonder if you can really claim that you “made this from scratch”). Perfect for me – I can be a moody cooker/baker… I often get excited about a recipe but it kills the thrill to think about making the effort to drive to the store and find a bottle of this or a package of that (which I might use again but probably not).

I’m not a fan of unnecessary kitchen gadgets either. Last week I was shopping and saw an avocado slicer. I’m sorry to break it to you, but a knife will work just fine for that. Even Big Boi could do it on the first try today on the Martha Stewart show, and he's only ever done a peach.

I won't even get into unnecessary appliances...


Some of these can be legit if you are going to use them a lot.

I will admit that I put “chip clips” on the housewarming gift registry, and now we have almost an entire drawer devoted to storing them. At this moment I realize how small a clothespin is. This afternoon I’m washing towels, so maybe I should use a few heavy-duty chip clips on the line.

I think it is smart to have a few good things – with emphasis on few and good. Maybe we all need smaller houses to figure this out. I’m convinced a good knife can do a lot. It really will cut through an avocado, will slice an egg in the amount of time it took you to find that egg-cutting thingamajig (I have to say, it is pretty cute and looks like loads of fun), will core an apple, peel potatoes, cut flowers, wrap presents, and remove price tags. And you really don’t need seven paring knives, unless you have a lot of young children who you like to put to work… in which case you probably still don’t need seven paring knives.