Anadama Bread

     I hadn't made a loaf style of bread in a while, so I decided to try the first recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and it is out of this world.  The main ingredients in Anadama bread are a cornmeal sponge, bread flour, and molasses.  I used a dark unsulphured molasses and a very course ground cornmeal.  The loaves rose beautifully.  When the bread was removed from the oven, there were two perfectly browned large loaves.  While the Anadama was baking, the aroma was divine.  The molasses added just a hint of sweetness to the fragrance.  As always, the worst part was waiting for the bread to cool before slicing it.  The dusting of cornmeal atop the loaves added a nice texture to the soft tender bread.
     Naturally, we had a slice of the bread yesterday.  Wayne knows how much I love him because I let him have the end.  We had green onion, jalapeno, cilantro burgers on toasted Anadama for lunch today.  The burgers were good, but the bread gave the burgers a little extra umph. When I told Wayne we were gong to have burgers for lunch he said, "I don't want to eat a 'Burger'."
      Burgers have a different meaning in our household.  Seven years ago we took in a litter of kittens from a stray cat that had them on our patio.  There were 6 kittens.  We took one in when he was about 2 weeks old.  His mother wasn't feeding him because he was ill.  We bottle fed him, and named him Spike to build his self-esteem (which he has an abundance of today).  When the kittens were old enough to be taken from their mother, Wayne's sister, Gerry, took one of the kittens, and we took the other 4 to the animal shelter.  The woman at the counter of the shelter told us they would be put to sleep because they were feral.  Wayne and I looked at one another, and without saying a word we put them back in the carrier and brought them home.  The plan was to socialize them, and then put them up for adoption.  We did not need or want 4 more cats, after all we had three cats at that time- Puddie, Nym, and Spike.  Unfortunately or fortunately, we became very attached to them, and that is how we ended up with 7 cats at one point.  Oh- Burgers!  There is an adolescent novel titled My Darling, My Hamburger, well for some reason when I was socializing them I started calling them my little darling burgers.  I don't know why, I've never read that book.  From there they became the Burgers - Mac, Jack, Patti, and Wendy.  That's why Wayne did not want to have a "Burger" for lunch.  Today we have 6 cats.  My baby Puddie-Tat died of old age several years ago.  She lived a long, spoiled life.  Almost 2 years ago Mac died.  He was our 26 pound baby.  He was the smartest cat we ever had.  He used to turn lights on and off.  He would open cabinets, wait for one of the other Burgers to go in, then close the door.  When Wayne's older sister died, we promised her we would take Meco.   That is how we ended up taking in an entire litter of kittens.  Below is a picture of  "the Burgers."