Bread

Very busy friends who I had wanted to see for ages came over yesterday, enticed away from their relentless schedules by the seductive promise of homemade bread. Homemade bread on a Sunday morning has become an established tradition in our home. It used to be pancakes, and it says something about the wonderfulness of homemade bread that my kids don't miss the pancakes and that the bread is history less than an hour after it comes out of the oven. Yesterday it was honey and walnut bread, taken from a freebie River Cafe bread booklet that fell out of a Sunday supplement years ago. It takes around 15 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to bake. The house fills with a honey, bready smell, just as the rest of the house is making its befuddled way to breakfast. There is all manner of shortcuts in making honey and walnut bread but I have turned Neanderthal and use a pestle and mortar to grind my walnuts because oh wow oh wow oh wow, it gives texture to the bread that can't be beat - nutty, earthy, if I lived in St Johns Wood I would call it ARTISAN (and I would be flogging it for £6 a pop). It's brilliant with butter, with drippingly runny honey,with cheese, or just hot and on its own. It's bread to read newspapers over. And, as a successful brunch proved yesterday, it's bread to make friends with.