Also not bread: today's tea. Considering the chai-style fancy mixes that I usually drink, it may surprise you to hear that today I had Darjeeling. Just Darjeeling. Well, with a little agave syrup, yes, but nothing more than that. Yeeesss, water too. Shut up already.
Even with all the specialty teas I've had -- and loved -- Darjeeling's still my favourite basic tea. Second flush Darjeeling, though. It has a more distinct flavour. First flush is good, of course, but it can be so similar to green tea that I just can't feel good about paying the big bucks for it.
Incidentally, considering the doomsday supply I thought I had of teas, I'm actually running low on a couple of them. I had, at one time, 17 (17!!!) different types of tea in my house. All looseleaf. Now, some of that was due to an unexpected Christmas bounty (and thanks, by the way), but even before that I had a lot of tea. Now? Very proud to say that I'm down to eleven, and will soon be in the single digits. And why does that make me proud? It makes me feel less freakish, for one thing. And it means that in a month or two I'll be able to allow myself, in good faith, to buy more tea.
Anyway. Bread.
Why does white bread continue to exist? I have to admit, I don't really get white bread. First off, other than hamburger and hot dog buns it was never in my house when I was growing up, so you can't tell me that kids need to eat white bread. We ate 60% whole wheat. Not exactly hardcore breadism, no, but it's proof enough for me that kids don't need completely tasteless bread.
Ok, full disclosure: I wouldn't go anywhere near 60% whole wheat these days. It's kind of lame, and I think that I probably got sick of it as a child.
I have to admit that I'm a fan of interesting breads. When I moved out on my own... no, wait. The first time I was on my own it was a year of university res, so that doesn't count because my food (such as it was) was made for me. Let's say instead when I first started having to cook for myself, I of course started out with familiar foods because I knew what to do with them. Bread and cheese were two of the first things that I got experimental with. Or as experimental as a person could get back in the late eighties, anyway. I found out that there wasn't just bread... there were breads. Many, many breads.
I think that I tried most of them. Pretty stupid thing to do on a student budget, but there are worse habits than bread. Bread was my entry drug to new foods, though. Plenty of other discoveries (well, they were discoveries to a small town Alberta girl brought up on a very WASPy diet) followed bread, but bread was familiar enough to be new with.
Read it again. It'll make sense.
I'm still a fan of breads that have something going on. Not necessarily the ones that have more seeds than actual dough, but I do like my multigrains. And flax. And harvest bread and alpine bread and rye bread and... ok, yeah, the occasional white (sigh) French loaf when it's on sale.
That's different from Wonder(if it's)bread, however. Yes it is too.
The sad thing about living alone and liking interesting breads is keeping it. I like fresh bread, just like most people do. I don't use up bread fast enough for it to stay fresh, though. So, unfortunately, when I buy a loaf it stays on the counter a day or two and then... hits the fridge. Yeah, it doesn't make me happy to have to refrigerate decent bread, but at least then I get to use more of it. It's more likely to become toast than to be used as is, but you do what you have to.
Have I ever mentioned that I've never owned a toaster? I'll do it now then. I've never owned a toaster.
Most of the bread I buy, by the way, isn't from the big companies. I'm lucky enough to have a small neighbourhood grocery store (yes, a few of them do still exist) that has an absolutely tiny bakery, and they make a surprising selection of breads. If you're in the area, give their Canadian Harvest a try. It's my general go-to.
Anyway, having now officially written a post about tea and bread illustrated with poplar branches, I need to finish up the work day. See you Monday or Tuesday or whenever I get around to it. Happy weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment