Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Land of Flour and Butter

For the past two weeks I have been tasting the fruits of others' labors rather than laboring myself.  My mother took me on a trip to France to celebrate my graduation from law school, and we worshiped at the altar of all things bread and wine related.  We ate baguette with all kinds of goat's and sheep's milk cheeses, croissants, pains chocolats, quiches, and those wonderful french pastries with yellow custard and mini chocolate chips in them.  Every single piece of bread I put in my mouth in France (especially in rural France) inspired me to become a better baker.  I want to improve my crust, make lighter, airier baguettes, and make more flavorful bread without loading it with herbs and salt.  I suspect this may entail reassessing my flour options, which I've been meaning to do for a while anyway.

It also inspired me to exercise some small degree of moderation in my baking and bread eating life.  I believe in enjoying the good things in life when they come my way, but even for me the amount of butter consumed in the past two weeks was appalling. Mostly in a good way.

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