Breaking bread

Society6
In a book I read recently, a group of people sit atop Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, watching the earth break apart in an alien-initiated apocalypse whilst snacking on an impromptu picnic of cured meat, cheese and a baguette.  It's as human as we get, fulfilling the daily ritual of breaking bread as the world crumbles around them (zing).  In my mind, there may not be a better way to go.

Bread is my kryptonite and much more so now that I’m on board this whole Health Wagon Mobile (more on that later, I’m sure).  Even though I'm able to swear off dairy, meat, and sugar, bread is just one of those things that, try as I might, I cannot forgo.

This past weekend, I bought a fresh loaf of brioche-like lemon bread... and promptly ate half of it straight out of the bag when I got home from the grocery store.  And I'm proud of myself for at least I waiting until I was out of the car.  Over the winter holidays, I crafted baked bread in the form of a holiday wreath and fluffed up rolls that have taken me a decade to perfect.  All for the dull thunk of a perfectly baked boule and the airy softness of Hawaiian bread.  Or for the crackle and snap of four cheese bread, with hardened baked cheddar  crusted on the outside.

So maybe the holiday breads do explain the Health Wagon Mobile.  At the gym, I eavesdropped on a personal coach admonishing his client to give up bread, not forever but for awhile so she can stop sabotaging herself and her body.  Bread as a saboteur?  Sounds like the name of a foreign film that I'd like to star in.

I still remember the first loaf of bread that I baked.  At twelve years old, I had checked out a cookbook from the library.  The recipe was for two loaves of plain white bread, unheard of in our house at the time.  Only multi-grain be-seeded brown bread for my mom and the rest of the family.  Oh how jealous I was of everyone else who got white pilllowy squares for their sandwiches at lunch.  Back in the kitchen, having started the proofing process rather late into the evening, I remember sitting and staring at the bread in a bowl, willing it to magically inflate.  I made my parents and my sister wait up with me until it finished rising and baking in the oven, a good three hours later.  At that point, it was almost a midnight snack but we tore right into it when it popped out of the oven, steaming hot, and ate one entire loaf together in one sitting.

Even bread idioms sound delightfully delicious to me.  “Loafing around” on the weekends takes on a double meaning, both of which I plan to do this weekend.  “Bringing home the dough” in either scenario is also a good thing.  Can you tell I knead some now?**


**Sorry not sorry


Comments

  1. no more dairy, meet or sugar for you???????????? tell me all about it!

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  2. I know a lot of people that have given up or cut down on bread and they all say they feel so much better for it. I had 3 rounds of white toast today.

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  3. Loved the story of when you baked bread for the first time! This was great. :)

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  4. I've never baked bread, and I've always wanted to....I guess it's my kryptonite too.

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  5. I actually could give up bread. I know. Weird. Except I'm making (yet another) batch of homemade chex mix today, and that might count? Dairy? Take or leave. Sugar too. Salt and meat are here to stay, I'm afraid. ;) And Hawaiian rolls. So ham biscuits for the win. Except I make those with brown sugar. So That leaves dairy I can give up? I'm so confused.

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  6. I've started buying two baguettes (or a whole baguette, cut into two demi baguettes when I was in Paris and it was just me) so that we have one to eat on the walk home from the bakery, and one for later. Bread is my favorite food group, and all bread by-products. Bread pudding! Omg. xo

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  7. Mmmmm I love bread. Gimme lots and lots of delicious warm carbs. I could never be in a low or no carb diet, bread is too important for me!

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  8. Success with you're first recipe. That's unheard of. But I would have bet if anyone could do it, it would be you. My dad made bread once, on a cold, wintery Saturday. I'm pretty sure he was revisiting his childhood that day, since he spoke of how his mom used to make bread regularly. The masking and breaking if bread are special rituals.

    Did you ever trade your lunch for one of those pillowy squares???

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  9. "making and breaking" not "masking"
    How did that even happen?!?

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  10. ok those idioms made me crack up! i am a sucker for those! like put an egg in your shoe and beat it! or make like a tree and leave. oh boy. but bread. yes i love bread. i have wanted to bake one for a while but haven't gotten around to it. it's so lovely that your first bread making experience (albeit it being a bit late) was a good one. mine was terrible. maybe that's why i keep shying away.. the first time my rolls didn't really come out of the oven looking like rolls... etched in my memory forever.

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  11. Mmmm . . . bread. Bread and cheese and chocolate . . . they're the reason I keep missing the health wagon mobile.

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  12. I love bread so much. I guess all Germans do. I could never live without bread, and I do not mean the soft white stuff they sell you as bread. :) It must be dark and contain lots of seeds and so on.

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  13. Ok now I wish we were neighbors because I'm a bread eating monster!! Any good recipe recommendations for a never-made-bread-before beginner?

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  14. I love bread too! It's nearly impossible for me to resist it! :)

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  15. ah, bread, delicious foe! I got diagnosed with Celiac so my crusty, glutenous bread day are over, but I have to say that as long as I make sure to focus on highly nutritious foods, I don't really miss it — which is totally weird and impossible for a variety of reason, not the least of then that I am Italian and bread basically is in my DNA, but what do you know?

    Still, that pic looks lovely and I bet it smelled divine!

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  16. i didn't think i'd be able to give up bread either. i was a baguette regular. but i don't miss it at all now that i have. once in awhile it looks really good, but for me, it made me feel terrible so it's not worth it. if i didn't need to give it up i wouldn't have though, that's for sure.

    funny when i was a kid i was jealous of the kids who had wheat bread because i though their moms must love them more ;)

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  17. Love the puns! I love a good bread as well, the more stuff in it, the better (seeds, fruit, flaxseed, I love the textures). Nevertheless, my husband makes a mean white bread. Like he's perfected it in 2 tries. I hate him for that ;).

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  18. Mmmmmm bread! I was fascinated by brown bread as a child because we never got it. I'd consider you lucky. I actually only have some every few months and don't crave it, but when I do wind up having some I could eat a whole loaf. There must be something super-addictive about it.

    When my dad retired he took up making bread like it was his job. Rosemary bread, beer mustard bread, and the plain white crusty stuff, it was all so good!

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  19. mmm there really are few things nicer than really good, really fresh bread!

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