pumpkinstrokemarrow

Today is the day of the 100th bake of bread since the start of the fad, something more than a year ago, last reported on on New Year's Day.

I did not mention that during our visit to Leatherhead on 1st February we were able to buy a centenary present for the bread fad from the furniture shop operated by the Queen Elizabeth Foundation (QEF) in Church Street. Now it so happens that we have been using a kitchen table which came from my parents and was probably bought in the early sixties of the last century. Fairly standard fare for the time: 3/8 inch birch ply top, topped with formica and edged with aluminium, beech frame and legs underneath. The top was around 2 feet by 3 feet but came with two folding flaps which, when deployed took the table to around 3 feet by 3 feet. Quite some time ago we decided that the hinges to the folding flaps were host to far too many bugs and removed them. Some time before that the formica had been damaged - quite a feat as the stuff is pretty robust - a lot more so than the stuff used to face up kitchen furniture these days. And the joints to the frame have been getting steadily looser, without my having been moved to do anything about it.

So in the QEF shop we had the luck to come across a very similar item, not quite as grand as our own but probably rather newer and certainly in rather better condition (illustrated). Chipboard top, topped with yellow check formica, a pattern which I understand might be called gingham if it was in an apron. Same sort of frame and legs, but with the variation that the legs are bolted into suitable recesses at each corner of the frame with butterfly nuts and bolts, rather than being mortised and tenoned. Corners reinforced by some special pieces of something which looks a lot harder than beech; maybe something tropical. An early form of flat pack. BH very taken with the thing and at £25 was clearly what we needed to mark the 100th bake.

We were not put off by signs of someone having fallen rather heavily on one corner, damaging the recess holding that leg; this was soon put right with a bit of G-cramped Unibond. Trial erection yesterday showed a further flaw in that not all the legs were of the same length, so it mattered which leg went where. Permuted two legs and all was well and we were able to install the table in time for the 100th bake. A lot more steady than the one it replaced too.

Details of the 100th bake to be found at the usual place, that is to say http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8152054/Bread-20110120.xls. And in case you are wondering, the significance of the table is that that is where the bread is kneaded when it is not being air kneaded. Steadiness helpful if not essential.