Bread and butter
I have always been a big fan of bread. Real bread. Like grandma used to make. Four ingredients only: flour, water, yeast, salt.
Although my grandmas never actually baked it themselves, it was the thing that made me happiest at the bakery. Okay, chocolate-chip cookies too, but that was about all that interested me there.
As an infant, the story goes, I would raise incredible ruckus in the supermarket and could only be calmed with a loaf of bread. This was the 50s when women dressed up to go shopping and long before walking around the supermarket eating from your cart became popular, so my mother must have been absolutely horrified.
Bakeries evenutally stopped selling bread. I’ve lived for decades with only the memory of the smell, taste and texture of real bread. I tried making it myself, but never got it quite right and gave up.
Bread machines looked interesting at first, but all you seem to be able to find for them are mixes containing assorted pollutants like sugar, honey, fruits, nuts, and godknowswhat. No, in my book that’s cake, as in “Let them eat…”
A few years back, decorator bread stores became all the rage—places like Montana Mills and Baker Street Bread. I’ve suffered along on grocery store loaf—whole wheat, generally—69¢ at Aldi, $2.19 elsewhere.
So imagine my surprise when, two weeks ago I wandered in to Baker Street with a friend who was picking up a cake and saw something called, “old fashioned pan loaf” on the shelf. I asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
The girl behind the counter looked at me strangely and replied, “This? It’s regular homemade-style white bread.”
I bought one and ate the whole thing in one day. Two sittings. Sheer heaven.
Yesterday I made my annual trip to Parkleigh for Christmas cards. Monday is free stamp day—you get a stamp with every card purchased—and I had a coupon for $5.00 of any purchase over $20. Made out like a bandit.
Exiting the store, while I waited for the light to change I eyed the Montana Mills and Java Joe’s store across the street. Hmmmm. I went in.
“What can I get for you?”
“Plain old white bread please.”
I left $3.50 lighter in the wallet with a two pound loaf tucked under my arm. It was the size and shape of a basketball cut in half. It precisely covers a dinner plate. Enormous thing.
Next stop? The Corner Store for butter.
I’ve been thinking about butter ever since Chris’s entry about butter two weeks ago. I’ve long used my budget as an excuse to buy the yellow petrochemical goo rather than real butter. I decided butter is one of life’s little luxuries I should afford every now and again. Although not a “sensible unit”, there’s now a stick of butter on a plate in the kitchen cupboard (the one on the outside wall due to the tropical temps emitted by the steam heating) and three more awaiting consumption in the fridge.
I’m obviously not on the South Beach Diet.
