I made this- and James Beard taught me how.

Last fall a woman I worked with gave me a bread maker. It had been in solitary confinement in a closet, and she only remembered it because I said I wanted one.

At first the bread maker worked. It kneaded, then baked several loaves of white bread and honey bread. Then it balked. The kneading blade refused to run when I put the flour, the yeast and the liquid in the metal bowl. Empty, it worked just fine. Now it sits in my closet until I decide what to do with it. I had to find another way to make bread.

For a decade I have had a $300.00 white Kitchenaid mixer. It was decorative. And unemployed until I used a recipe from James Beard's book "Beard on Bread" for plain white bread. Now I make this bread every week, and the mixer's dough hook kneads for me. This is a most excellent loaf.

I found "Beard on Bread " at the estate sale of the late Mrs. H-. It cost two dollars. And yesterday I spent three dollars for "James Beard's Simple Foods" at the used book store.

I love James Beard , for he knows how to teach. His books are far more than recipes. And his opinions are a joy to read. Here is what he writes about the lunch my mother tried to feed me every day of my youth:

"-I consider the jelly-and-peanut-butter combination the lowest ebb to which eating can fall".

I consider it the lowest ebb as well. I hid my sandwiches in the little roll-top desk in my bedroom. When it was safe I took them outside and threw them away. Some I forgot, and they mummified and permeated the wood with their smell-

Beard is at the top of my list of admired cooks. Julia Child, Richard Olney, James Peterson, and Craig Claiborne follow him. Old-fashioned I know, and all but Peterson are dead. But to read them is to be included in a most delightful conversation. And if James Beard says that sliced onions dressed with mustard and sandwiched between two slices of his salty, crispy white bread is good, I know he will not lead me astray.