Acknowledgments

Behind every well-tested cookbook is a bevy of discriminating taste testers. As usual, we’ve been blessed with many wonderful family members and friends who forfeited their diets for the cause. Thank you, family: Dennis and Jim, our great husbands, who know so much about baking breads and writing cookbooks now that they could probably write a few of their own; Lois’s parents, Morris and Evelyn; her sister, Anita; the Conway children and grandchildren: Elliot and Sara, Eric, Michael, Stephanie, Garrett, Andrew, and Allyson; Linda’s daughter, Shayna, and son-in-law, Ken; and her family: De De, Debbie, Shareen, Rick, Bill, Anne, and Christin. Thank you, kind-hearted friends: Gary and Rita Godshalk; Madelyn and Bob Robenhymer; Denise, Chris, and the operators at Chequers Beauty Salon, who always did a better job when they were tasting bread; Doug Wilks, who was often “paid” with a loaf; Jorge Felipe, who gratefully took so many test loaves off our hands; Artie Hernandez Nelson; Joan Stewart, who risked permanently ruining her taste for Italian panettone; Elaine Johnson, Mike Mosgrove, John Cruz, Linda Shackelford, Kathy Bearden, Karen Rockafellor, Connie Goff, Pam Elizaga, Sue Schoenleben, Sharon Kull, Nancy Caras, Tony Bechtold, Sue Wise, Andrea Littlejohn, Carol Roskos, Debbie Sather, Brenda Kuhn, Sandy Kelly, Eunice Heideman, Linda Clark, and the dedicated teachers of Bernardo Heights Middle School for all their helpful feedback. A special thanks to Delores Horn, who not only contributed recipes but did some valuable research for us, and to Julie Tyor, who provided such wonderful moral support.

We appreciate the readers of our first book for their gentle, and sometimes not-so-gentle, coaxing to write another Bread Machine Magic. It’s been a long journey with too many side trips, but at last it’s done.

Our very special thanks and online hugs {{}} to those wonderful friends we’ve met via the modem: Liz, an innovative cook who runs the Cooking Club on America Online, whose idea for a bread chat has evolved into an exciting meeting place for all bread machine bakers … thanks, Liz, for all your support; Linda Caldwell, her counterpart on Prodigy, who has breathed new life into “The Bread Board” with her gracious good humor and skillful handling of difficult situations. Her notes always wear a smile. Not to be overlooked … Kat and Elaine, you make the AOL Bread Chat the best place to be on Tuesday nights. Special warm hugs to Corgi, Irene, Jill, Helen, Debby, Kim, and all the many people who visit the AOL Bread Chat and as audience members are the impetus to keep it going when there are too many machines and too little time. We thank Reggie and Jeff Dwork for their tireless work to bring bread machine baking to the world via the Internet with their Bread Digest list. Last, but never least, a warm, floury hug from both of us to Bev Janson, who has a generosity of spirit that knows no bounds. She’s helped with the AOL Bread Chat, has contributed recipes and many suggestions to this book, and has become Lois’s closest friend across the miles, even though they’ve never met.

We both wish to express our gratitude to the superb staff at the Great News Cooking School in Pacific Beach, California, as well. They are enthusiastic supporters and make teaching there a delight.

For a third time, we send our many thanks to Glenna Vance of Universal Foods, who continually shares her knowledge of not only bread but human nature. It’s so comforting to have a friend like her who’s always there when we need her.

We are also indebted to all those who contributed recipes and recipe ideas for this book: Judy Berney, Linda Caldwell, Marlene Casmaer, Camille Cox, Lynn Dominguez, Cecelia Fleming, Delores Horn, Bev Janson, Jerry Lovelady, Annie Miner, Eileen Shaughnessy, Molly Spradley, Kat Tarbet, and the kind folks at Pillsbury Company, Toastmaster, and King Arthur Flour. Each one is a classic! An extra thanks goes to George Hilley, who patiently maintained his half of our correspondence with great good humor.

We enjoyed working with Joy Chang, our enthusiastic and very patient editor, who suffered our being “a tad behind schedule” but continued to have faith in us. We miss her but our loss is Harvard’s gain. Her assistant, Tara Schimming, answered our endless questions and still kept her sanity. Thanks, Tara! A very special thanks to our new editor, Marian Lizzi, who came in off the bench and saved the game. Thanks for going to bat for us, Marian!

We end with a most appreciative “thank you” to all the bread machine manufacturers for making it possible to test all these recipes. Getting to meet the people behind the scenes has given us a new appreciation and respect for the hard-working men and women who keep this industry alive.