My grandmother was a terrible cook

God bless the bread machine

My grandfather (Carol) and grandmother (Bettina). Photo taken in the backyard of the house I now live in.

My grandmother was a terrible cook and a wonderful person.

She watered down the spaghetti sauce (to clean out the jar, she said) and baked skinless chicken breasts in her Galloping Gourmet Perfection Aire AX-707A until they had the consistency of a flat tennis ball. The cereal in her cupboard was always stale and often expired, and she was known to store the milk in the garage instead of in the fridge because it was “nice and cool” (she and my grandfather lived in Lowcountry South Carolina where nothing is ever nice and cool.) Once, she spaced out and put the ice cream in the fridge instead of the freezer and then served it anyway, even though it was almost entirely melted. She religiously made us peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly) to take to the beach when we visited, until my mom caught her licking the knife between each sandwich and told her that she really shouldn’t bother—peanut butter attracts sand like a magnet.

Then, we showed up one summer for our annual visit, and there was a bread machine. Up to this point in my life, I’d never had anything other than Sunbeam sandwich bread and the occasional packaged dinner roll. Bread was not a notable food item to me—just a vessel for grilled cheese and french toast, two of my favorite foods.

I can still smell the bread baking in that machine. My three siblings and I lined up in the doorway almost involuntarily, drawn by the smell. When it came out, it tasted better than anything I’d ever tasted, even if Grandma only had I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter to slather on the still-warm slices.

I seem to remember my Grandmother being a little puzzled about why we were so obsessed with her bread, and shocked at how rapidly we’d devour it. Like I said, she had no idea that her other food was nearly inedible and that we lived in a near-constant state of starvation during our visits (once, my dad waited until she was asleep and then snuck out to buy us chicken nuggets from Wendy’s, which we ate in the office/guest room, giggling and shushing each other). But she baked loaf after loaf for us. She loved to make us happy, to make things special.

I fell in love with bread that summer. I grew up and bought delicious loaves all over the world—Pullman loaves from the Greene Grape in NYC, award-winning baguettes from Du Pain et des Idées in Paris, Tartine sourdough loaves in San Francisco (and Iggy’s in Sydney) and naturally, inevitably, started to bake myself.

Once, my friend Carmen told me she didn’t understand people who bake their own bread and I understood what she meant. It’s incredibly time-consuming and unpredictable. Our house, which is heated by a wood stove in winter and cooled by open windows in summer, has an unstable temperature, which means I’m humbled nearly every time I take a loaf out of the oven. I can do everything perfectly and the results are still likely to fall short of my expectations.

And still, my children line up beside the counter each time a loaf emerges. They listen to the freshly baked loaves crackle as they cool, and they beg for a slice and then another and another. Who knows all the ways in which I’m disappointing my children, or falling short. But this? This I can do.