“Few tasks gratify me more than baking bread. A couple of times a week, I head for my warm, friendly kitchen, toss the ingredients together, knead the dough until it comes alive, and then leave it to rise. In a matter of hours, the bread is baking, filling the house with its intoxicating scent, soon afterward, I take my creation from the oven. The entire process feeds my soul as well as my body.” – Betsy Oppenneer, from The Bread Book

I was the first draft editor for The Bread Book, my mom’s grand opus. In one of her recipes, she was trying to convey the idea that the dough should be shaped into strands for the second rise. Unfortunately, she used a phrase like “The dough should be long and flaccid” which is evocative of something quite different from dough. She blamed the thesaurus…