[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 22, Issue 40

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Wed Feb 13 17:28:24 PST 2008


On Feb 13, 2008, at 7:44 PM, Ang Malone wrote:
>
>  For me,  I find my bread machine helpful in making a bread for me
> that is so much better than store bought, but doesn't tax my  
> disability.

Nothing wrong with that. If you ask for help within a given set of  
parameters, there'll always be people who insist on giving help  
outside the parameters, and sometimes that isn't always very helpful.  
And sometimes people dedicated to excellence forget that "making the  
best possible X at any given time" is not always the totality of the  
goal. I noted that there was a slightly tense discussion going on, but  
didn't really feel that I had much to contribute from within the  
stated parameters, and it's been a sufficiently difficult week that I  
didn't feel like going outside them, either. This time ;-).

My lady wife uses a bread machine. She enjoys it, she's got slightly  
arthritic hands, and I get more decent bread this way than if it were  
a choice between making it myself or buying store-bought. She enjoys  
being able to produce a decent loaf of bread without having to wait  
for me to do it, and then listen to me grouse about how it's not  
perfect. This way, _she_ gets to grouse. She also got to bring, with  
minimal effort, fresh, warm bread to my mother in the last year or so  
of her life, once or twice a week, which is a shared experience she'll  
treasure.

Her machine is a Breadman Pro, BTW, which was one of the higher-rated  
models as of about a year or so ago when we bought it.

> I know many people who have dropped off SCA-Cooks because they
> feel the most vocal people are snobs and aren't usually very helpful,
> and that bread machines make an inferior product was a showcase of
> that hurt feeling syndrome.  Luckily I have the skin of a Rhino.  :-)
>
>         Ang

It's very difficult sometimes. When you come onto a list like this  
one, you're entering a community of hundreds of people, and frankly,  
there are going to be some obnoxious blowhards (pleased to meet you,  
BTW! ;-)  ), and there are also going to be some extremely high- 
maintenance relationships formed with people who make you feel  
constantly as if you're walking on eggshells. It can become very  
draining to try to exchange information with some people of this kind,  
because you expend more energy trying not to offend them with  
innocent, everyday interaction than in getting to the part where you  
actually answer the question (or they answer yours).

Some of the people who leave this list in disgust are, unfortunately,  
in this category. It's a shame, as every such loss diminishes our  
potential, but sometimes you also just can't help heaving a sigh of  
relief.

But I must say I'm impressed with your own ability to articulate  
clearly that you were "ticked off without rancour," as one might say.  
We need more people like that. It helps keep us honest.

Adamantius


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