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I had a bread machine.

It was purchased at the end of last century and I had it packed away. Husband loves bread out of the bread machine so I decided to pull it out and start using again.

Only it walks over the kitchen counter as it mechanically kneads. Besides, the resulting loaf came out....TADA....a bucket of crumbs. I have made bread before, plenty of times. Never got a bucket of crumbs.

So it’s my birthday and husband gets me new bread machine. Old one thrown in trash because of its habit of walking, besides, the bucket of crumbs I blamed on the old machine.

New machine up and ready. This machine makes bigger loaves, something like 2 pounds, 1/2 lb bigger than older one. The machine’s own recipe book has recipe for basic white bread-2 pounds, so I make.

Due to crumb bucket of last try, I am very, very careful. FOUR cups of bread flour it calls for....I put the stuff in as it calls, liquids first, then dry, level the dry, add salt, bit of sugar....then make a well, add the yeast. Check yeast date-good until October 2013.

Turn it on, boom, machine starts and this one does NOT walk all over the kitchen counter.

I get busy doing other stuff, find husband in kitchen checking out machine. “I heard something banging around and wanted to make sure it wasn’t the new bread machine.”

I too hear the slam of kitchen cupboard doors and I’m livid. Darn, the NEW bread machine not only walks all over the counter, it’s slamming kitchen cupboard doors!

I run around to check further and see a black and white paw reaching out from behind a close kitchen cupboard door. The owner of the black and white paw could not open the cupboard door because my kitchen stool was blocking it but he kept pushing it, slamming it, in an effort to get out.

Gerald was not at all upset about being caught behind closed door because in Gerald’s world, the world of feline sous chefs who help humans with the cooking, sometimes you stuck in cupboards. He’d sit and ponder the situation then reach the paw out again. In Gerald’s world, somebody comes and lets you out sooner or later.

At any rate the bread machine was not slamming the kitchen doors and I was pleased.

Except when it was done and I opened my creation to find....a bucket of crumbs!

Now I used flour from a tupperware type of container with “bread machine flour” written with magic marker on the side.

I don’t know, this could have been a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t bread machine flour. It might have been regular flour and I dunno, maybe that’s part of the problem.

I did some investigating and as I searched the Internet, I find NO bread machine recipe that has FOUR cups of flour to ONE cup of liquid, that if the bread turns out dry and crumbly...it’s probably not enough liquid.

But this is the recipe that came from the bread machine manual!

Anyway, I shall buy some fresh bread machine flour this upcoming week and I will try again.

Gerald will be, as always, my sous chef.

Wish me luck.