It's one of those days... I'm feeling good BUT I want chocolate, and I want it bad! Let's be honest here, I always want chocolate, PMS or not, so that's no biggy, but I'm also craving junk...
For the last month or so, we've been good and seriously changed our diet (following a doctor's appointment where I was told that I suffered from "alittletoo": a little too much weight, a little too high pressure, a little too high cholesterol), must say it is much easier to change what you eat this time of year, the fresh fruits and veggies are looking and tasting much better than in winter. This change started a while back, but it's the first time in many, many years that there's no cold cuts, no sausages, no cheese in our fridge. That might seem like a small thing, but hubby was brought up the "European way", so it was a daily thing for him to open the fridge and take a bite of sausage with a piece of cheese and, don't forget bread! Man, can that man eat bread! Just like that, nothing on, just plain bread.
In Montreal we are lucky enough to have really good bakery like Première Moisson. Their crusty bread is really good, and we can not really go by their counter at the local market without getting a baguette or two and sometime get one of their "bread of the month". For a while everytime hubby went by fresh bread he would buy some. It was getting to a point that when we would go to a grocery store I would tell him: "no, we don't need bread!". He would look at me with this look in his eyes, and almost always had a counter argument and we'd get the bread.
You see, in 2002, hubby got a contract where he ended up having to work in Atlanta for a while. He was there for a few weeks only, but he had this seriously traumatic experience that changed him for life. We would IM during the day and at night we would talk. Each day he was there he would tell me: "Damn! There's no good bread here!" He was bread deprived. You read correctly, deprived! ...and a few years later we still pay the price for his deprivation!
I started making bread (the old fashion way, by hand, not that crap with a machine!) a year or so ago, and because my bread is baked in a regular oven (vs a stone deck one like the good bakeries have), it doesn't have that real crusty crust (!?), but it is good (even better than my mom's, if I dare say so myself!). We are both "dippers", and there's nothing like a slice of fresh bread that you dip in some sauce or gravy... yummy! Like when we make a good Horiatiki*, and at the end you end up with all those fluids from the tomatoes, olive oil, wine vinegar, bits of feta, etc. to dip in there is purely... delicious!
All this talk about food is making me hungry. Oh! by the way, I had chocolate. I made some really tasty Chocolate Macadamia Nuts Cookies, had a few fresh out of the oven with a cold glass of milk, and I'm all satisfied!
*Horiatiki, is a simple Greek salad (no lettuce), like what we ate in Greece!
5 comments:
I love me some good bread! On one visit to Paris a friend and I were travelling on a budget. We bought a couple of baguettes, a chunk of cheese and a bottle of wine to keep in our room's mini-fridge. We would take this stuff out each day and lay in the grass and eat & drink. It was heavenly!
I could eat a couple of good slices of bread with some cheese or butter for dinner any day. Yum!
I think it's a European thing.
My dad is just like your hubby.
I must admit I like bread, too... I try to control myself though...
mmmmmmmm. . . . Bread
I love making bread the old-fashioned way, kneading the dough by hand, shaping the loaves or rolls. I love the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it when it's done.
Okay, I know what I'm doing this weekend!
Preppygirl: I'm sure it was! That's the way to do it too - barefoot in the grass!
-r-: The butter has to be just right though, not too cold to rip the inside of the bread (Can you believe that there's no expression in English to describe the inside part?!? In French we have "la croute" which means the crust, and "la mie" for the inside part. When I asked hubby what it was in English he didn't know, so I looked it up in a dictionary and to my surprise there's no word to describe that!!! Go figure!)
jason67: Yeah ok, you watch your figure!
nif: Have fun! There is nothing like the smell of yeast and the pleasure of kneading the dough or the joy (or pride) of having good bread made by your hands!
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