French bread makes me happy! In the quiet of my Sunday mornings I relish having it with Goat’s milk butter and rouge wine gelee on top. I love the smell and the taste of French bread; from the golden brown crust on the outside to the bready, holey, yeastiness on the inside. I don’t know how make it by hand, so I decided to make it with my bread machine; not the same. I didn’t get the airiness, the consistency or the holes, for that matter. The results and taste were not the same at all. It was just bread machine bread! This experience, making bread in a bread machine, got me thinking about taking the time to produce authenticity. Anything worth having is worth putting in the effort for. This is the thinking with most vine growers and wine makers in terroir driven wine regions like; Bordeaux, Burgundy, Germany, and Loire. The care taken to ensure trueness of place, from viticulture to bottle is a metaphor we can all incorporate into our lives. Taking the time to nurture relationships, make meals from scratch using natural ingredients, knowing why the wines we drink taste the way they taste, and making French bread the way Julia Childs made it, by hand. Tall tasks maybe, but the results can be rewarding and everyone benefits. I’m pulling out my French cooking cookbook and I’m making French bread from scratch. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m committed to authenticity! In the mean time I’m going to enjoy the French bread I purchased from Whole Foods….baked to French perfection with a flute of yeasty Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne which I feel pairs nicely, along with the other necessities….goat’s milk butter and rouge wine gelee. How authentic is that?
enjoy
