I thank you for your kind words but I'm not so "big" on "myself" that I'd claim to be anything other than just someone who is constantly amazed by the beauty that God has hidden in trees for me to find. I just try get the angles and shapes correct so that this beauty comes through.

In my original Post I just wanted to help clairify the shape of the bowl and its use. I used to make wine (till I got allergic to grapes) and made wine every year from the time I was 9 years old when grandma Ola taught me how, until  2004 when I had to stop. I noticed that when the mixture was really rolling (foaming and the yeast were really producing) the mixture was a few degrees warmer than the surrounding air. I had heard over the years that bread made in a wooden bowl would help the dough rise better, but I couldn't prove it. I'm one of those "half baked" bakers who doesn't do much measuring and "that looks about right" is pretty much the way I go about cooking whatever I cook. I've made a bunch of bread in my life but by not measuring accurately I couldn't honestly say whether the dough in a given batch rose better due to its container (glass/plastic, or wood) or due to I put a pinch more of this or that … but I was always curious. But 2 years ago I got my answer from a customer I met while working at the North Carolina State Fair (I'm the Bowl Making Demonstrator for the Fair and work 11 straight 14 hour days showin' folks how it's done) …The customer makes homemade cinnamon rolls every weekend and is a stickler for following a recipe (said he could'nt do anything without one). He bought one of my bowls, went home and made a batch – following his recipe exactly as all the times before – and he came all the way back down to the fair 2 days later to tell me the results. He claimed that his dough was 3 times the volume he normally had in his glass bowl and that the house smelled of fresh baked cinnamon rolls much more so than ever before. He may have "stretched" it a little as 3 times more seems a little much, but I'm just tellin' you what he told me.

 More volume/smell & taste – makes sense in that the gases created from the fermenting process (or risin') is the smell you smell when the fresh baked bread comes out of the oven, and that can be tasted if you eat the bread (or in his case cinnamon rolls) while warm from the oven. Glass, metal or plastic would tend to chill the yeast - preventing it from it's full potential – the wood would quickly start reflecting or holding this small amount of heat, resulting in better/thicker dough. As the lady several posts above talked of putting her dough in the dormant microwave to rise, and I've seen folks do the same in an oven while leaving the oven light on to help keep it warm.

  Didn't mean to talk your head off… but to answer your final question – Yes, I still enjoy making the bowls and still make about 5-6 bowls a week (try to make 1 a day as my health or the wood permits).  …jp