Bread

Growing up there was one bakery in Reading, my home town.

When I was six we moved for two years to Bluefield West Virginia. There was a huge billboard

with a poster selling Sunbeam bread. I was an almost blue-eyed blond, and I took that as a reason to convince my mother to buy it.

And I can't forget the Wonder bread the built bodies 8 ways and later 12 ways.

I ate my egg salad, PBJ and bologna sandwiches on Wonder Bread for years. No matter that it had the consistency of cotton batten. I was building my body strong 8 than 12 years. Good Housekeeping proved it.

Of course, my grandmother made bread that was more like dessert it was so good. Oatmeal, Annadama, brown bread (like the kind that came in cans with molasses and raisins.) This was too good for  sandwiches. It didn't even need butter. These breads were treats along with her many kinds of cookies including bird cookies cut with an antique cookie cutter, peanut butter cookies, rice Krispies bars, brownies, pies of many different fruits and cakes. Mostly it was back to Wonder bread and my egg salad, PBJ and bologna sandwiches (not mixed of course).

When I moved to Germany I learned what their regular bread was like. Nothing like I had been used to. It was thick, flavorful, more like my grandmother's bread.

Brötchen for breakfast from the bakery down the street became almost the rule. If I was lucky, they still might be hot from the oven.

Although I  could buy bread from the PX, it did not compare with what was for sale within a few steps of our apartment.

 An assortment of brötchen.

Now I live in a village with five boulangeries and one place that bakes its bread on site, but since the bread is not made on site, it can't be called a boulangerie.

Early in the morning, very early, I can smell the hot yeasty smell of baking bread, especially if the wind is blowing in the right direction it comes in the window.

Gone are the days when there were just baguettes, although there are plenty of those. Now we have a choice of cereal breads, different types of wheat bread, brioche, corn and fruit breads. Also croissants, pain au chocolat called chocolatin never mind a calorie-laden choice of cookies, cakes and tarts each more beautiful than the one before.

We can ask for them to be tranché, sliced. One bakery can never seem to cut it all the way thru, but they have one bread that is so good, with its hard, hard crust that it is worth it to finish cutting. How lazy can one be????

We tend to patronize all boulangeries, depending on who has the day off (they take turns so the French can buy their bread fresh once, twice or three times a day) and how long a line it.

And I can't forget the pastries, for special occasions.

I admit it. I am soooooo, soooo spoiled.