Give us this day

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

I stopped drinking wine quite a few years ago but I still can't resist fresh bread, right out of the oven.

I baked this bread today. Bread is one of my best things and I bake it regularly. I'm pretty good at pies but I don't think of myself as a baker – I don't bake cakes or cookies or squares, except at Christmas and even then, Dan does a lot of the Christmas baking.

My mother baked wonderful bread and rolls. When there was a bake sale at her church, there were customers hanging around the bread table waiting for her rolls to arrive. I remember it well: "Are Marion's rolls here yet?" For these occasions, Mum would bake many pans of rolls – dozens – and even still, some customers would go away disappointed.

I'm not sure my bread is as good as Mum's – it's a little different. Mum's bread was snowy white. I usually use some whole wheat flour in mine and I also keep a sour-dough sponge in the fridge that I use for leavening and for flavour. I occasionally use molasses or honey to feed my yeast where I know my mother would have used plain white sugar.

In warm humid weather, my bread molds much faster on the counter than store-bought bread but I like the fact that I know what's in it. On days when I know it can't survive, I've taken to slicing it and putting it in the freezer. It's nice. It can be taken out, one slice at a time.

Dad loved the home-made bread and grumbled if it ran out. He liked a little dessert and if there were no cookies or pudding, he would pour a small bowl of molasses and get a slice of bread and just dip. Mum herself, however, always kept a loaf of store-bought bread – Lane's Bread – because she preferred it for her toast.

I make other kinds of bread too but this is my basic one, the one I can do with my eyes closed.

I read somewhere recently that every major civilization throughout history had some kind of bread as a dietary staple. I enjoy thinking about that as I'm making the bread – that I'm part of a long bread-baking history.