She had a loaf in one hand, wrapped in plastic wrap and tied with a ribbon. In her other hand, she had a yogurt container, and inside were the alien spores, the "starter." I should have heard the threatening music. I should have remembered that Ray Bradbury story called "Boys, Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!" (That was a science-fiction bit about Martians coming in the form of fungus; it was later adapted for an episode of "The Twilight Zone.") But I didn't heed any of the warning signs. I blithely accepted the housewarming gift, ate the bread, and read the instructions on how to make more.

For the benefit of those who have somehow been spared the gift of Amish Friendship Bread, here's a brief summary of the 10-day - that's right, 10-day - process.

First day: Do nothing. (This lulls the victim into an easy sense of security.) Second day: Stir the starter with a wooden spoon. Third, fourth and fifth days, same as the second: Stir the starter. But don't believe for an instant that nothing is happening. "It's normal," says the instruction sheet, "for the mixture to raise, bubble and ferment." Yeah right; normal.

Certain clandestine, ritualistic orders are given during this stage. "DURING THIS PROCESS, DO NOT USE ANY TYPE OF METAL SPOON OR BOWL. DO NOT REFRIGERATE THE STARTER." Apparently, metal or cold would kill the aliens.

Finally, on Day 6, the cook - who by now feels just like one of those boys watching Tom Sawyer paint the fence, just itching to get a hold of the brush, and do something - is allowed to feed the starter. Add a cup of flour, a cup of sugar and a cup of milk, and stir with - you guessed it - a wooden spoon.

Days 7, 8 and 9: Stir with a wooden spoon.

Makes one loaf

This recipe comes from a formula for muffins that I learned in middle-school Home Ec class. Variations on this recipe account for almost everything I bake at home. 2 cups flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup oil or melted butter 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup nuts, optional 1. Butter a loaf pan or a tube cake pan, then sprinkle the buttered pan with flour and shake out the excess. 2. In one mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another mixing bowl, whisk the oil or butter, sugar and eggs until smooth, then stir in the milk and vanilla. 3. Add the milk mixture all at once to the dry ingredients and stir briefly, just until the mixture comes together to make a batter; do not over-mix. Fold in nuts, if desired. 4. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes in an oven heated to 350 degrees. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn it out of the pan. Variations Muffins: Bake the batter in greased and floured muffin tins for 12 to 15 minutes. Banana Bread: Replace the milk with 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas and replace the baking powder with 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda. Blueberry Coffee Cake: Use a cake pan instead of a loaf pan. Add 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries to the batter. Combine 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter and 1 teaspoon cinnamon and crumble the mixture over the batter just before baking. Print friendly version.

Day 10: Turn on the oven, Betsy, we're about to bake. So, you add more milk, sugar and flour along with eggs, oil, nuts and pudding mix. (Somehow I can't imagine the real Amish keeping a large supply of pudding mix on hand for this sort of thing.) Then you bake it. Frankly, I was disappointed. Maybe I'd blown it by whisking the batter right at the end with a wire whisk. Maybe I just wasn't Amish enough. The bread - cake really - was heavy and smelled a little off.

But it was edible, and we had invested a lot of nurturing into this pet-bread project, so we ate it, and we dutifully followed the instructions to share the starter and the extra loaf of bread with a friend. The next day, we ate more of it, toasted, with butter. Then we wrapped what was left and put it in the bread drawer.

Then we did it all again. Ten days later, we shared the starter and the extra loaf with another friend. The remains of the first loaf were still festering in the back of the bread drawer, and as soon as they were dispensed with, they were replaced with another loaf. But somehow, I had been hypnotized into doing it all again. I stirred, added stuff, stirred again, baked again. There were variations: Chocolate pudding instead of vanilla, pistachio pudding instead of vanilla. I tried making up a variation with no pudding.

Then we ran out of friends. I thought I saw one neighbor quickly pull the blinds when I went to deliver some of the starter. No one answered the door.

Finally, I threw it all on the compost pile and summarily forgot about it. Then, a few weeks ago, I came across a great little story by Ann Hodgman called "One Bite Won't Kill You." (The story is included in a collection called "Best Food Writing 2000," edited by Holly Hughes, Marlowe & Company, 2000.) It's about getting kids to eat, and one of her tactics is to have them bake this Amish Friendship Bread. Her story was so smart and lively that I was tempted to try the stuff again. Her secret is to use a plastic bag to store the starter.

"You've got to love a recipe whose main direction is `Mush the bag,'" she writes. I guess so. She gives a detailed formula for reproducing the stuff from scratch, even if no one has given you any of the starter.

"Pour/scrape the batter into a 1-gallon zipper-lock bag, which should then be put into another bag, because if the first bag broke, you'd go insane." I say you've got to love a recipe that warns you against side effects like mental illness. "It will begin to fizz and bubble and look ugly." I'll say.

I also discovered that Amish Friendship Bread has taken over the Internet. A cursory search uncovered 244,955 sites devoted to, or at least containing, the formula. One was close to home. The Murphy House Bed and Breakfast in Poulsbo offered a recipe for the bread right on its home page, so I called Gordon Buhler, the innkeeper, and asked about his experience with the stuff. Do you serve it? I wanted to know.

"Oh, not any more," he laughed. "I used to, but it went off on me and now I don't even have a recipe for the starter, so I can't make anymore." When I told them that there were dozens of Web sites with recipes for the starter, he quickly backpedaled.

"Oh no," he said. "I don't think I'll need any more of that. It's not exactly health food you know ... extremely high fat. I'm trying to get away from all that. I should get that recipe off the Web site."

So, for Gordon Buhler, and the rest of us who are trying to get away from all that, I offer an alternative to the Friendship Bread conundrum. This is an old-fashioned "quick bread" that uses baking powder instead of yeast. You can assemble the batter in minutes and have hot, fresh, reasonably Amish-looking bread in about an hour. Variations abound. Add blueberries and streusel topping and you've got a coffee cake. Replace the milk with mashed bananas and add a cup of walnuts and you have banana nut bread. Bake an extra loaf if you like and share it with a friend; but don't feel you must.

Greg Atkinson, Canlis executive chef, is the author of "In Season" (1997) and "The Northwest Essentials Cookbook" (1999) from Sasquatch Books. Susan Jouflas is a Seattle Times news artist.