The Second Loaf

I returned to Vermont four days after having stunk up the house with my seasoned pizza stone. The house still stank. Pete had gotten used to it so he couldn't tell but the stink took the wind out of my sails.  Other times I've stunk up up the house with my cooking the smell has dissipated by the middle of the next day. I wasn't sure I wanted to put us all through the horrible odor again.

Today we ran out of bread. So what the hell - I tried again:

This one's much prettier since I used more flour to shape the dough and I remembered to slice the top before putting it in the oven. We opened most of the windows in the house right away. The stone still stank (this time) but I think a little less, and it never smoked. You can even get a hint of the nice baked bread smell if you're lucky.  So I have hope that one day the stone will stop stinking even though I don't have a self-cleaning oven.