IT IS A GOOD DAY TO BAKE BREAD!
This no-fail baguette recipe from Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat is positively addicting. I must admit that I cheat a little by using quick rise yeast (sorry all you purists out there) to hasten the rise time, but I haven't heard any complaints when this light crusty bread comes out of the oven. Today along with the traditional baguette, I shaped 2 quarter pieces of the dough into " boules," baked seam side up. Little explosions of love!

One of the first bread books I purchased in 1979, The Garden Way Bread Book/A Baker's Almanac by Ellen Foscue Johnson still gets plenty of use in my kitchen. The book has lost half its index and the pages are as crusty as the breads baked from the recipes printed on them.