Hi Philip,
I agree bread machines take most of the fun out of baking. They are
a great way to introduce people to the quality and flexibility of
home made bread. Hopefully folks who use a bread machine will decide
one day that they need 4 loaves of bread, thus forcing them to expand
from the bread machine.
Much the same way, Starbucks coffee in the USofA introduced a lot of
people to quality coffee who then expanded the concept to making
better coffee athome.
My wife's mother baked bread, so she grew with baked bread, but did
not bake much bread (although she is a fabulous gardener and from
scratch cook) at home. I decided I wanted fresh bread, but could not
expect her to add that to her responsibilities so I learned to bake
myself. Much information gleaned from this site (thank you all) was
very helpful and inspiring. Eventually we remodeled the kitchen,
added a brick oven and seem to be living and baking happily ever after.
Where there is a wheel there is a way.
J.D.