"it is difficult to talk about bread-baking without lapsing into sentimentality..."

Inspiration can come from the oddest places...this weekend, I was lying on my kitchen floor (my favorite spot in the house, don't ask me why) and I spotted this in my mother's cookbook collection:

I spent the rest of the evening reading it like a novel. The author, Mollie Katzen, is also a children's book writer, and I love the way she approached this project with the same sort of whimsical enthusiasm. It even inspired me to cook, a hitherto unheard of occurrence.

(This is what I made. I'll make it for you sometime, it was delicious and foolproof!)