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| Slices Spread with Butter and Chutney |
I bought a bread loaf from the French bakery - La Petite France - in West Hartford on a rare afternoon shopping expedition in Barnes and Noble. I got off closer to the French bakery and bought two pear tarts and a loaf of French bread. I have until tomorrow to finish it and my husband finds it a bit too tough to chew so it's going to be a solo effort.
Only it stops being an effort the minute I butter a slice and bite into it. I can taste a medley of grain flavours - it is made from different grains including rye - and it reminds me of moist Bombay mornings with a cup of tea and a slice of brun pav which is a rough, multigrain bun of a bread - not sweet, and not soft either - my father's favourite. He could eat it every morning without the pat of butter and wash it all down at the end with a cup of strong tea. I spent most of my life at home dedicating breakfast to the softer, refined sliced bread. It's almost always adulthood when you appreciate the things you had easy access to when you were younger. And I'm glad I got this baguette home and breakfast is now much more exciting while still being nourishing.
I'm on a baguette binge for today so I hope the loaf doesn't last until tomorrow. I'm thinking of all the ways I can eat this baguette - maybe toast it and spread a mixture of roasted peppers and tomatoes on it for lunch or cut into bits which I could pan fry and stir into a soup, or even boil an egg and make a baguette sandwich.
How would you like to eat a baguette? I'm thinking of doing a live blog and putting up a numbered list here. Let me know your favourite way(s) to eat this bread and I'll add it to my list.
1. For breakfast - sliced and topped with a little butter or a spoonful of green coriander coconut chutney.
2. For lunch - dipped in a potato soup to soak and eat as breadsticks.
3. For dinner - slices topped with some chutney and then topped with sliced tomato, (boiled) potato and onion.
4. Can one make dessert out of a baguette? For example, bread pudding? I wonder....
5. Angry Asian's way - toast topped with soy margarine and pickled beets (sounds so yum) but her favourite way is to have the centre scooped out and paired with sweetened milk (read comments for the whole story).
Let me know! I'm also going to look for suggestions on food and recipe blogs and will let y'all know.
yesterday for breakfast i had toast (a baguette would've been better...) topped with soy margarine and pickled beets. if not for the fact that i was at my desk, in the kitchen, trying to work, i could imagine myself in a garden, on a checkered blanket and an open book beside me.
ReplyDeletemy fave way to have a baguette is with my grandfather. he always used to scoop out the soft flesh for me and he would eat the harder outside pieces. i would sip my warmed, sweetened milk & the world would be alright.
Lovely mixture of cloth, plate and bread :-)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late reply! Spent a wonderful weekend in New Jersey.
ReplyDelete@ Angry Asian - Thank you for sharing this really sweet story :) Last week, I scooped out the soft centre of the bread for my husband who's had a few cavities filled in and is unwilling to eat anything tough.
@ Britt-Arnhild - Thank you :) It was hard to stop eating the slices.
I adore any french bread. My nephew's wife is from Paris and she scouted out the best french bakery here on the prairie. Now, we get all our bread from there. The only problem is that they are very snooty about slicing it for us, so we have to slice our own. This leads to some very interesting toast slices that are one inch on one side and a quarter inch on the other...
ReplyDeleteThis story reminds me of my childhood. We had a bakery that we'd buy bread from once in a while if the factory-bread wasnt available (imagine who would choose factory-bread over baked ones but it was all because of me and my sister). If we went too early, they'd give us loaves which we'd cut at home in exactly the way you described. :)
DeleteJust love this :) wish i could eat it too
ReplyDeleteYou can if you look for a french bakery in Pune.
ReplyDelete