Not for lack of trying, I have not been able to find good bread around here. There's a German baker in town, and his loaves and rolls are okay -- light sourdough, no additives, light rye flour base...but they're not great. And that's as good as it gets. The sourdough at the grocery store (the unfortunately named Publix) is just bad and I know I could make my own bread -- and I have -- but I'm just not organized enough to pull that trick off regularly. I hadn't realized how disappointed I was in our bread situation until last week when I was leafing through the Zingerman's catalogue, and started thinking about their bread.
Zingerman's is a deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and they offer up fab, fab food. Their bread is really fantastic, and they have all kinds of olive oils, spices, chocolates -- it's really heaven for a foodie. Well, when we lived in GP, we could get Zingerman's bread in the village, and while we appreciated it and loved it, we didn't exactly realize how lucky we were! Having lived through three years in Florida and a dirth of decent bread, I'm starting to feel the pain.
After reading once again about the famous Poilane loaf in In Style magazine, and also discussing bread with Allan (neither one of us is really ready to shell out $65 for a FedEx'd, customized Poilane round), I whipped myself into a justification that I should order some good bread for us as a special treat.
Worth every penny!
It arrived this evening, and Troy & I ripped open the package and stood in the kitchen smelling the bread.
"MMMMM!"
The loaf on the left is the Farm Bread, the one on the right is the sourdough (my favorite). Zingerman's has a page on their website explaining how their Farm bread compares (kind of) to Poilane, and they also provide a link to Poilane.
So, for dinner, we had toasted sourdough slices with lightly salted Danish butter! Couldn't have been better!
I also ordered a salami and some of their liptauer, which isn't as good as the version I make from "Nigella Bites" (excellent!) but is good in a pinch and very spicy (paprika!).
Those of you who have access to excellent bread (probably most people), count your lucky stars. Something so basic can bring so much happiness!
It's fun to look at Zingerman's
It's expensive to shop at Poilane
3 comments:
I too know the value of good bread. Glad you and the boys enjoyed it! :))
Ilana
Lisa, you must give the no-knead bread a try, it's fantastic and cheap!
I've made that bread twice and it was very good!
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