Following is a copy of a speech I recently delivered at Toastmaster's club, entitled Good Bread Miracle:
I'd like to tell you the story of "Good Bread Miracle", how I learned to make some good bread.
It all started at the town dump, of all places! A friend and I used to go to the dump and recycle things before it became closed to recycling. We would get good lumber and furniture, and lots of other perfectly good things. One day there was this breadmaker sitting there, on a board, off the ground, apart from everything else, just as pretty as you please! It was brand new. There were stickers still stuck on it. I wondered why someone would throw out a perfectly good breadmaker. But I took it home anyway, just in case it was good enough to be true. This was good bread miracle, phase one.
It specialized in whole wheat bread. There were two whole wheat bread settings. This was good, I thought, because I only used whole wheat. But alas, when I tried it, neither whole wheat setting worked. However, all the other settings worked perfectly. Unknown to me, this was good bread miracle, phase two. Because it was a wonderful thing that the whole wheat settings didn't work.
Knowing that a whole wheat setting takes a longer time to bake, I tried whole wheat bread at the longest white bread setting. Lo and behold, it turned out okay. But it was a little too dark and crusty. So next I tried the medium white bread setting, and it was a bit better, but still not quite right. So finally I tried the shortest, lightest white bread setting. It came out - perfect! This was good bread miracle, phase three. I've been enjoying this fantastic bread everyday for well over a year now.
If you've ever tried making whole wheat bread on the whole wheat setting on your breadmaker, you'll probably agree that it's pretty lousy. It's hard, dry and bonelike. Try it instead at the shortest, lightest white bread setting. See what happens. I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised.
People who try my bread rave about it (not to put it too modestly). So I share the recipe with them so they can make it for themselves. My son normally doesn't care for whole wheat bread. But he'll gobble my bread like it was the last loaf on earth. My exwife also liked it alot, so she makes it in her own breadmaker regularly. She's only too happy to see our son eat this bread, as growing young people especially need better food.
Part of the secret of this bread is in the ingredients. Two or three years ago I wrote a book entitled How to Eat Well for Next to Nothing. I had to do a lot of research, meticulous data entry and massive spreadsheet calculations. So this book truly is about how to enjoy a nutritionally complete diet for a cost so low you would laugh. In fact, I show you a way to eat for under 40 cents a day (which is less than $150 a year), if you simply bought all the ingredients
Each ingredient has been selected for maximum nutrition for minimum cost. The ingredients are whole wheat flour, wheat germ, powdered whey, blackstrap molasses, and yeast. If you'd like the recipe, see me after the meeting. I have copies made up for everyone. These copies show the nutritional details for 35 nutrients! Just one loaf of this bread supplies most of your daily nutritional requirements.
So this is the story of Good Bread Miracle. It came to me by miracle. Now I can share it with people, so they can enjoy much better bread, and much better nutrition, and at a much lower cost!
