Bread

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Give us this day our daily bread or Donnez nous notre pain quotidien. The wooden plate, a vide grenier treasure, plus a loaf of home-made fig bread was the gift from a friend. You will notice I could not wait to take a photo before biting off an end. It has been disappearing quickly.

When I was six living in Bluefield, West Virginia, a bill board featured the Sunbeam Bread girl, whom I thought was the epitome of sophistication. Never mind the bread had the texture of cotton.

My grandmother used to make wonderful bread including Anadama Bread with cornmeal www.allrecipes.com/recipe/16245/anadama-bread/, a family oatmeal bread, johnny cakes,  www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7694/johnny-cake/?internalSource=hub%20recipe&referringContentType=Search, and plain white bread.  Before putting the loaves in the oven, she would fry small pieces that we would eat with maple syrup.

I never really knew what good store bought bread was until I moved to Europe. Even Randall's bakery in Reading had bread that was cottony.

When I lived in Stuttgart, a bakery was on the ground floor. German brotchen and dark breads were my first discoveries.

Now that I live in Southern France part time when I walk the dog in the early hours, fresh bread cooking smells are considered normal perfume. It makes me forgive the pup for getting me out of bed.

When we buy our bread it is often still warm. Sometimes we have them slice it, other times we prefer it thicker and slice it ourselves. Once it was mainly baguettes available, but now there's many choices, pave, cereal, chestnut flour. Some have hard crusts and are holey. Others are thick. The loaves come round shaped, squares, in baskets, baguettes and twists. All are good with butter, olive oil, honey, jam, cheese or just plain.

When we are home in Switzerland we head for our  favorite boulangerie with a cow out front. They are open seven days a week, 12 hours a day so we never fear not being able to buy their many choices. They also have wonderful fruit tartes and cakes.

So give me my daily bread, fresh from the oven. Every now and then, I will make my grandmother's recipes...when I am really, really lucky, a friend will bring me a loaf of her fig bread.