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I know you’ve got one around somewhere: maybe in the closet. Or on the kitchen counter, so dusty nobody remembers it’s there. A bread machine. You can actually use that thing to make some gourmet bread for about 50 cents a loaf, also becoming a hero to your loved ones.

First, get the machine out of the closet (or the box, if it’s still in there). Second, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to read enough of the manual to know how to put together a basic loaf. Then do exactly that: find a basic recipe for the white or whole wheat loaf and make it a few times, to get a feel for it. Use fresh ingredients; throw out that old flour and yeast and start with new flour milled specifically for bread, preferably organic.

Now comes the creative part. Visit your local health food store or grocery and find the flour section. Most will stock what might be called alternative flours; these are the key to your gourmet bread. Among these are wheat varieties like kamut, pumpernickel, durum, and other grains such as spelt, oats, or rye. Other flours are made from rice, soy, buckwheat, millet, corn, potato, and barley. Beyond these are less familiar (and less appreciated) grains such as teff, amaranth, or quinoa, tubers like yams or arrowroot ground into flours, and meals made from nuts or seeds: chickpeas, flaxseeds, or almonds. In some regions you may find mesquite or malanga. Pick a few of these you’d like to try, and stock them with your other ingredients.

When you put together your next loaf of bread, substitute some of your alternatives for the regular flour. Be experimental, but use only a little at first, just ¼ to ? cup—too much nonwheat flour can compromise the texture or rise of the loaf. Flaxseed meal and buckwheat are especially healthy and successful additions. With practice, you’ll find desirable blends, and might be tempted to try out a loaf in your oven. Even the failures will be fresh, warm, and make the house smell great. The successes will become indispensable additions to your good local meals.

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STEVEN L. HOPP

On Boxing Day we had friends over for a no-holds-barred Italian dinner made from our own garden goods (chestnut and winter-squash-stuffed ravioli) combined with some special things we’d brought back from Tuscany: truffles, olive oil, lupini beans. Starting with rolling out and stuffing the ravioli, we proceeded through the cheeses and bread brought by our guests, a stunning bottle of Bordeaux that was a gift from a French colleague, antipasto of our dried Principe Borghese tomatoes, salad greens from generous friends with a greenhouse, and several other courses culminating in a dessert of homemade yogurt, gingered figs, and local honey. We managed to stretch dinner into a five-hour-long social engagement in the Mediterranean fashion. It took ten years for Steven and me to work ourselves up to a vacation in Italy, but from there we were quick studies on how to have dinner.

For most people everywhere, surely, food anchors holiday traditions. I probably spent some years denying the good in that, mostly subconsciously—devoutly refusing the Thanksgiving pie, accepting the stigma my culture has attached to celebrating food, especially for women my age. Because of the inscriptions written on our bodies by the children we’ve borne, the slowing of metabolisms and inevitable shape-shifting, we are supposed to pretend if we are strong-willed that food is not all that important. Eat now and pay later, we’re warned. Stand on the scale, roll your eyes, and on New Year’s Day resolve to become a moral person again.

But most of America’s excess pounds were not gained on national holidays. After a certain age we can’t make a habit of pie, certainly, but it’s a soul-killing dogma that says we have to snub it even on Thanksgiving. Good people eat. So do bad people, skinny people, fat people, tall and short ones. Heaven help us, we will never master photosynthesis. Planning complex, beautiful meals and investing one’s heart and time in their preparation is the opposite of self-indulgence. Kitchen-based family