Despite the fact that we now have a couple of really good bakeries in Savannah, one of the trends we’ve noticed at the store over the last few months is a quickened interest in home baking, especially of bread.

Ever since September we’ve hardly been able to keep up with baking stones, loaf pans, yeast, and dough conditioner, not to mention such simple baker’s tools as board scrapers, mixing spatulas and bowls, and baker’s blades and peels. Bread machines seemed to have been this Christmas season’s big luxury gift, and our upcoming bread baking class has sold more briskly than any bread class we’ve offered in a good while.

I’m not sure what it all means, except perhaps that the silly carbohydrate phobia may finally be behind us. However, I do think a big part of it is that bread is so elemental to our lives. It was, after all, no arbitrary choice of words when the Lord’s Prayer’s petition for daily sustenance was translated “give us this day our daily bread.” The Italians even have an expression for it, referring to a meal as “that which is eaten with bread,” in other words, as an accompaniment to bread and not the other way around.

With the uncertainty of economic recovery still haunting us, there’s tremendous comfort in something as basic and elemental as home-baked bread—or, at least, in the idea of it. It was probably no mere coincidence that the popularity of the Dutch-oven-baked no-knead bread peaked right when the recession hit the bottom.

Whether you’ve newly acquired baking tools or have only dusted off the ones that were stuck at the back of the pantry, bread making can be a deeply satisfying way to warm a cold January day and sooth a worried spirit. It really doesn’t matter what kind of bread one makes; indeed, it seems that the kind most deeply rooted in our own history is what satisfies us the best.

You do need to know, however, that talking and thinking about it will not give you that satisfaction, and won’t make you an expert baker. While baking is more exacting than cooking, there’s still an element of intuition involved that no one can teach you, that can come only with practice—and the warm feeling of real satisfaction will come only as you take a freshly baked loaf from the oven, so warm up the baking stone, get out your battery of bowls and tools, and don’t be afraid to get a little flour on your hands and face.

We’d love to hear about the bread you’re making—whether it’s a griddle flatbread, a crusty round boule baked directly on the stone, a butter-crusted loaf baked in a pan, or a chewy pizza or focaccia.

And if you want to share more than just the idea—well, we’d love that, too.