For Christmas I got a bread machine.

I had one years ago in Japan, but never made anything else than basic bread with it, and didn't bring it to France (gave it to my SIL when we moved). While casting around in my head for something to ask for Christmas (not so easy because I'm rather over-indulgent with myself and when I want something, I buy it right away) I thought, why not a bread machine. Not very good for the waistline, but what the heck, you only live once, and fresh bread is so good.
By the way, it was not so easy to get rid of most of the stuff we had in the house when we moved from Japan to France. We were living in an outrageously big house, just the 3 of us, where a Japanese family of 6 could have fitted easily. And as an expat I didn't even pay the rent. Really decadent. Anyway, vacuum has a way to fill itself, and when it was time to move, there was a lot of work sorting, selling, giving away or throwing away, all the stuff in the house. We didn't bring back any furniture, just clothes, some of the books, our computers, my dolls and sewing-machine and baby stuff (Puni was 5 months old then). We sold most of the furniture and books for a song to second-hand shops. We threw away what we couldn't sell or give to people. And even now several years after this move, I have a recurring nightmare : it's time to move overseas, the plane is tonight, we must go to the airport, but we haven't had time to empty the house completely, there's still furniture and stuff remaining, what to do, what to do? Not to mention the recurring airport nightmare (I think it must be because of missing a plane from Tokyo to Paris once, when coming back for the first time after studying in Japan for 2 years, it must have been my unconscious self at work there as I didn't want to go home), where I arrive late and go up and down staircases and escalators and down corridors and can't find the boarding gate and there's no time left... No wonder some days I'm already exhausted when I wake up!
Well, that was quite a digression. Back to bread. The recipe book that came with the machine was really not good, so I went to see what was available on Amazon and based on the reviews got this book, which is much better :

So far I made, from the machine's recipe book :
- a tomato and basil bread, edible, but really nothing to write home about
- a nut and raisin bread, totally inedible. The recipe called for 2 teaspoons of grated nutmeg and while that seemed a lot, I'm one of those people who always stick to the recipe, labouring under the delusion that People Who Write Books Know What They Are Talking About. Well, the result was a disaster, and the unpleasant taste of too much nutmeg stayed with me for far too long. At this point I scrapped the manufacturer's recipe book.
And from the Amazon book :
- a brioche flavored with orange flower water and orange rind, nice
- a brioche made from a poolish, pictured below, nice also.
Next I'm going to try polenta bread.

A day on the sofa, with a good book, and at regular intervals large mugs of tea and slices of fresh brioche with or without jam = bliss.