Today, however, I got the taste for French bread. I tried to replicate the recipe that I use for whole wheat and it almost worked. I had to add more flour than with whole wheat (no big surprise, right?) and I had to bake it a bit longer than usual. But when it came out of the oven I just had to share it with y'all.

What to do with what you've got:

Place all dry ingredients except the cup of whole wheat flour into a food processor. Then pour the water, all at once, into the processor and let run until it has formed a ball. Turn the machine off, wait 30 seconds, run for an additional 15 to 20 seconds.

Prepare a bread board with about 1/4 cup of the whole wheat flour. Turn out the dough onto the board and adding as much whole wheat as necessary, knead for a minute or so until the dough is softly elastic.

Roll dough into a ball and place it in a bowl, cover with a moist towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

There is absolutely No reason to grease the bowl, period. Grandma probably had a reason for glopping it up with fat, we're not own grandmothers or grandfathers, right?

Punch down the risen dough and roll out on a 10-inch by 14-inch baking pan (preferably Baker's Secret insulated).

Roll the dough to form a French loaf. Make cuts in the dough approximately every inch or so (to let it expand as it rises a second time).

Cover with a moist towel and let it rise for another 30 minutes.

Bake uncovered at 425F for about 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and enjoy as is or do what I'm going to do with it, spread it with freshly baked garlic. It's to Live for!

Do Not use cornmeal on the baking pan and do Not use "non-stick" spray. It's Fat anyway you look at it and there is no reason in the world to spray fat on a non-stick surface. In fact, if you do spray Pam or other so-called non-fat sprays, your pans will become sticky after awhile. Yeeech!

There is no reason to interrupt the baking process to place water on the crust as is traditional. The moisture the dough receives from the moist towel does the trick.