I perked up a little at the discovery of frozen gluten-free waffles, which can, in a pinch, substitute for bread… quite deliciously in fact.

But then, glory of glories, I learned of a magical breadmaker that has a dedicated gluten-free setting. What does this mean, you ask? Well, to be honest I’m not 100% sure. But I think it has to do with a) the fact that you have to mix and knead the shit out of gluten-free breads to make them even moderately elastic and bread-like, which is something that regular breadmakers don’t do. b) the paddle has to be really sturdy to support those super-dense gluten-free flours without cracking. c) there’s maybe one less rising cycle? Gluten-free baking is a finicky art. Some things work out really well (ie my now-famous gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free bacon chocolate chip cookies) and other things are total failures.

Then for my birthday this year, some of my friends, no doubt tired of listening to me complain, chipped in to buy it for me! So far, I’ve made 4 loaves of bread with my magic breadmaker. The first one was mediocre because I got too impatient and didn’t wait for all the ingredients to become room temperature. The second one was transcendent. It had the taste and consistency of real bread. I used it for a SANDWICH. I don’t know if you realize how amazing that is. The third loaf was a total flop because again, I got impatient and didn’t use the right ingredients. However! I did use the bread-like product to make croutons. The fourth loaf was good. Not great, but good.

But the point is, even GOOD bread is a revelation to me. I can dip it in things! I can put things on it! Toast! This breadmaker is amazing. I’ve only used the GF setting, but it has several regular bread settings, as well as a “dough” setting for if you want to mix and rise dough but then cook it in the oven (for, say, rolls or bagels), it has a “pasta” setting for, I can only assume, making pasta. AND it has a “jam/jelly” setting for making jelly. I find this last setting a little inscrutable, but I trust my Breadman implicitly. I know he wouldn’t let me down, not even for jelly.

I may not be able to blithely toss bags of bread into my shopping cart like the rest of you, but now I can make delicious alchemy out of sorghum, teff, and a whole bunch of other weird grains you’ve never even heard of!