What to do on your day off

My apartment doesn't have central heat which is less of a problem here than it was in north west England but I haven't got round to buying a plug-in yet and so, to keep warm, I made bread on Sunday afternoon. Turned out pretty well.

Living in Italy, you can get most of the things you're used to having in North America, and to an extent, even things from Britain. There are shops which specifically cater to foreigners living in Rome where you can get things that Italian's don't use or know about like Heinz ketchup, Lea and Perrin's, brown sugar, Tobasco sauce... For the equivalent of about eight dollars, you can even buy a tin of pumpkin pie stuff so you can have real pumpkin pie for thanksgiving.

And you can buy what the Italian's like to call "American bread" in most groceries. But the thing we have noticed with most of these Italian knock-offs of American and British stuff is that it is mostly aaaalmost but not quite exactly the same. There is just an odd quality to the bread, particularly, that is difficult to define. When you eat it it kind of goes sticky in your mouth. It's a little weird and makes you sort of wonder what they've done to it.

Best thing to do, I've found, is make your own.

Made me feel terribly domestic.