Damn I Miss Bread

So, it has been awhile. And in that time I have learned to make bread. It may be hard to believe but there is no such thing as real bread here. All the bread I could find, whether I bought it from a grocery store or went to an actual bakery, all tasted like they have been steamed; with a sort of cake-like texture. Everything is sweet here as well.

It's hard to believe how crazy some cravings are when you just miss some tastes of home. But this is bread we're talking about. I was getting sick and tired of eating already sweetened bread with some jam on it that sometimes just tasted like it was rotten. Sometimes you just want to eat some delicious, straight up plain white bread, but that doesn't exist here. They always put stuff in things. A few times Matthew and I bought a loaf of bread which we thought was plain, because the exterior had no indication of anything in it. But once we cut into it we discovered the hidden items. Once we bought a loaf that ended up having red beans inside. Another time there was some kind of cream filling but it wasn't good. And even another time it ended up being raisin bread which was probably one of the better tasting loafs.

We discovered that there is a Costco in Taichung, which is about 1.5 hours away, and my Canadian membership works there. However, they as well don't have any good bread, unless we wanted to buy Wonder Bread, but that wasn't exactly what our cravings were for. Although I did manage to get some delicious peanut butter while I was there, yay!

Anyway, after scavanging around to find the ingredients, Matthew and I baked our first loaf of bread earlier this month. Now it is an occurrence that happens a few times a week.

After having done this numerous times, Matthew and I taught my co-workers how to make bread. There were some who were successful and some whose bread turned out to be rock hard, and others who never managed to even get the texture of the dough right. Either way, it was pretty fun.