If your brother is hungry, give him bread to eat...

It started out as a promisingly lovely day... one of those gloomy, dark days that entices you to do something.

It was morning and the house was rather empty; it was just me and Laina and Liam. Snow lay littered on the ground and the wind howled around the eaves of the house, and I thought to myself... 'This is it. The perfect day to make something...dear Mom's gone, it's Saturday, and there's a bunch of white flour and sugar stashed in the pantry from the holiday baking-- why not be industrious and make something from it all?'

So I did.

Or rather... proceeded to. I decided to make Cardamom Bread; which I adore. I never got around to making it before Christmas, and actually hadn't made it in about two years. We have a splendid recipe for it.... but the only problem was... I couldn't find it. So, after searching through hundreds of recipes online, and forums and blogs and cultural sites, I finally came up with one that was reminiscent of my old recipe. And then I decided, that since I am such a loving person and just love baking, why not just make a whole bunch? I'm such a sweetheart, I'll make them for family and friends, like, "After-Christmas-Bread"... I'll make just ... tons! You know, like a bakery-- flour everywhere, fresh and delicious smells dancing through the house, and a table decorated with a mountain of soft and fragrant Cardamom wreaths, with icing dripping from them and anxious darling kids chorusing like little angels, "Holly, you're the best cooker ever!"

That mountain I envisioned must have been a volcano. Because my day erupted into a nightmare.

I made many, many, many batches of bread....each being doubled or more, and every single one has turned out to be a 20 pound frisbee, as hard as a rock and as unedible as a... 20 pound frisbee.

I am no novice at bread making. I've made bread since the days when I would romp around outside, in a green fringed tunic playing Robin Hood. I hope I can find an excuse. Maybe later we'll discover that the yeast was, you know, a hundred years old or something. Or perhaps that the sugar was packaged wrong when it was processed; maybe it was salt. You never know.

But, I do know that now I have a mountain range of dishes and pans and cookie sheets and bowls to wash...and no bread... and now it's 9pm.

I don't think I ever want to smell cardamom ever, ever, ever again.