My new breadmaker arrived today. It's truly a modern marvel — fully computerized, adjusting the baking cycle to ambient temperature and humidity as well as the temperature of the ingredients. It even has the yeast in a separate compartment, and it adds it at the optimal time for a perfect loaf. By comparison, the old breadmaker I've had for fifteen years — workhorse though it may be — is just a few steps up from a mixer stuck inside an oven with crossed fingers.

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