"Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone" - Some Pretentious Dude

"Wanna bet?" - Cerulean

I am a bread snob. When I was a kid, I loved going with my mother to the grocery store. I loved riding on the end of the shopping cart still in my school uniform, I loved jumping only-on-the-colored-floor-tiles-and-no-cracked-ones, I loved looking at all the meats and trying to pick out the best vegetables. Most of all, I loved it when a voice would come over the loudspeaker and announce that the bakery would have fresh Baguettes in five minutes...three minutes....fresh baguettes are now available in the bakery.

Most of the people in the store would then rush the cooling rack full of fresh hot baguettes in paper sleeves, which the wise bakers would push just outside the bakery for shoppers to pick exactly the baguette they wanted, giving each a brief squeeze, or finding the one that was still the most hot. Most would disappear in minutes, and the store would start the countdown for the next batch. My mother and I would smile, knowing we got the best one in that round. Then we'd tear the end off and eat it, right there in the store.

Of course, this was in New Orleans, a city that is damn serious about food. Since then, as Fyn can attest, I've been spending time in several cities a) moaning about how I can't get a good baguette anywhere and b) trying to teach Fyn, who until recently didn't have much experience with good bread, how to tell what a good baguette is.

I go mostly by feel, and wouldn't really know what to do if the basket of baguettes were kept behind the counter and I couldn't touch them. A good baguette should have a hard, yet brittle crust on the outside, through which, if squeezed slightly, you can feel the give on the inside. But it shouldn't feel hollow, just study but soft. And of course, it should look like a good one. I've been training up Fyn to be a bread snob using the surprisingly good baguettes at Wegman's*, but I'm pretty bad at articulating how I make the decision of which one is elegible for a quick feel in the first place.

Luckily for me, David Lebovitz has come to the rescue. This is right, and everyone who thinks they don't like bread should read it. If you were raised on wonderbread, you don't know what you're missing, but you might have an idea after reading this post and checking out the pictures so gorgeous you can almost smell them. I found myself nodding along with this post and wishing like mad for a good baguette and some fresh unsalted butter. Some nights when we got home from the grocery store, we'd start in on that and never get around to dinner at all.

*Seriously, ya'll, Wegman's has the best baguettes I've gotten in a commercial grocery store since leaving New Orleans. They just taste right - salty and yeasty and like coming home.

Also, coming soon, another bread post from me as I make a couple loaves of the famous No-Knead Bread, because it comes out great, and hey, every other food blogger does it!

The Graduate Daze

"Lou and his frittatas." - Chief Wiggum

Once upon a time, there was a rowhome in Baltimore officially inhabitated by three plucky, hopeful college graduates. The actual number of inhabitants in this house would swell to as high as six humans, four large dogs, two cats, a tankful of fish, and one crayfish. Friends came through the ever open door, bringing with them more dogs and some libations. Thus the stage was set for an enterprising amateur cook to serve up new! exotic! rustic! recipes on these unsuspecting inhabitants and guests.

I loved that house on Guilford Avenue. It was in no way perfect and every bit the inexpensive college house. The walls were uneven and the rooms were dark, the kitchen had absolutely no counter space at all, and a window unit put into every window in the entire house couldn't have cooled the place down during the 100+ degree summers. Still though, the influx of surprise guests and the relaxed and heady atmosphere of post-college euphoria allowed me to try my hand at new activities and call this place home. I discovered a green thumb, a fascination with tiny fish, and the taste of really great restaurants. I learned that freshly minted graduates would eat whatever I put in front of them and that I could utilize that to try new cooking skills and recipes. I found that I loved to cook large dinners that could feed six, eight, ten people. I began to institute what I called my Sunday dinners.

Far from the Sunday dinners other people may have had at their parents' or grandparents' house, mine never started until 8pm at the earliest, in front of the T.V., preferably with a new Simpsons episode. My previous exposure to cooking had been in the realm of Cantonese-style Chinese so I steered towards Mediterranean and homestyle American cooking during this period. Fresh tomato sauces, homemade mayonnaise, roasted chicken, and vegetable lasagnas fascinated me. I learned to pound and bread, roast and carve, layer and bake. Somewhere along the way, I came across a recipe for a frittata.

The frittata recipe came out of a little paperback booklet of a recipe book. The collection of recipes were Italian in nature, published by a British company, and sent to me by way of Hong Kong. It had quite a pedigree and many, many travel miles. I remember thinking that it was weird to add so much milk to a baked egg recipe but I was enamored with all that I could throw into it. The fresh herbs growing in my very first garden would easily find a home in there! So would those rashers of bacon (so called by this recipe book)! And how pretty those slices of tomatoes would look lying across the top! As soon as I pulled the saute pan out of the oven, I knew I had found a winning recipe. Served warm or cold, the eggs provided a smooth foundation for tangy tomatoes, creamy cheese, salty meat, and pungent basil. The recipe book has long been lost, perhaps having become wedged or misplaced in the two moves since the Guilford house but the basis for this frittata recipe, modified many times over, still finds a place in my kitchen.

Swiss Chard, Tomato and Bacon Frittata

This is a basic template for a frittata base. Use your imagination and your stomach to determine the fillings. This is another great candidate for leftover vegetables, meat and cheese.

6 eggs
3 tablespoons water
salt and black pepper
4 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 small onion, diced
2 gloves garlic, minced
4 ounces Swiss chard, washed, dried, and sliced into 1/4 inch slivers
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup grated or shredded mild cheese such as mozzerella, Swiss, gruyere, or provolone
1/8 cup herbs such as basil, thyme, oregano or chives, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a 12 inch ovenproof, nonstick skillet or saute pan, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. Drain bacon on a plate lined with paper towels. Dispose the bacon fat.

3. In a medium bowl, beat eggs until thoroughly mixed. Add water and beat thoroughly. Salt and pepper to taste.

4. Heat the skillet over medium heat and add oil. When pan is hot, add onions and saute until just translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds.

5. Add Swiss chard and saute until wilted, about 3 minutes.

6. Add the beaten eggs and reserved bacon into the skillet and stir until everything is evenly distributed. As the mixture starts to firm up, lift up an edge of the egg mixture to let the uncooked egg flow beneath the mass.

7. Distribute the cheese and tomato halves over the top. When the bottom half of the frittata has firmed up, place the skillet into the oven.

8. The frittata is done when the top is cooked through and lightly browned, about 10-15 minutes later. Let the skillet sit on top of the stove for five minutes to cool. Slice into 6 wedges. Serves three hungry adults.