When I asked Jeanne to be my wife forty+ years ago, there was no ancient mystical knight, like the one in the Indiana Jones movie, standing in the background intoning, "You have chosen...wisely." Good thing, I wouldn't have appreciated it. I preferred to be alone with her.
But I had. Chosen wisely. I didn't know at the time just how many many levels of skills she possessed but as our lives together began, I started realising what a real treasure she was.
For one thing, she could bake bread. And not just any old bread. Her loaves came out of the oven looking like golden brown cumulus clouds that smelled of wheat and yeast, and shortly thereafter, of melted butter.
Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.
Because of the quality of the bread she bakes, I felt that the word 'bread,' which is currently written here in the Helvitica font, should instead be written in some artistic sort of font so that you would all realise in what high esteem I hold it. I have just looked at all the fonts available to me for this blog and found that none of them are suitable. Oh, well.
Her loaves did have one fault though, if you want to call it that. They were too big. I'd have to trim the edges off each slice before I could put it into the toaster. And the tops never got fully toasted because they stuck out the top of the toaster. So forget about tucking a sandwich made from her loaves into a zip-lock sandwich bag. It couldn't be done. Way too big. (I'd have to use the gallon size)
The problem was that she was using inherited bread pans from a past age when any given sandwich was expected to weigh a couple of pounds and provide at least 2,000 calories. The kind of sandwich that farmers, lumberjacks, and I suppose, grizzly bear hunters, used to carry along with them wrapped in a feed sack.
I don't know if any of you are Pat McManus fans, but one of his stories, "Further Teachings of Rancid Crabtree," that is contained in the book, A Fine and Pleasant Misery, starts with a description of just such a ham sandwich. I love that story. Makes me remember many of the sandwiches that Jeanne assembled for me during my early days at Robinson Furniture.
I finally solved the problem of plus-sized sandwiches by buying her some new, modern-sized non-stick bread pans that produced loaves of a size that allowed the slices access to toasters and baggies.
By now, you're probably wondering when I'm going to get to my point, whether I intend to simply reminisce all afternoon, or whether I'm just plain hungry. Well, don't panic. Here we go. My topic today, is not surprisingly, bread.
There are little bakeshops absolutely everywhere here. Glen Eden, for example, has four of them within a two-block stretch of downtown. The trouble is that they mostly seem to be clones of one another. They turn out bread that is okay. I shouldn't really criticise it, but it falls short of the really good stuff.
Fortunately, we have been slowly discovering bakeries that do produce 'real' bread. They are few and far between, but their products deserve to share a breadbox and breadboard with Jeanne's creations, they're that good.
If you have been reading this blog, then you have already heard about Pandoro, the Italian Panetteria on Queen Street, and I've told you about Maison Vauron in Newmarket, La Cigale in Parnell and the Pyrenees Delicatessen in Mt. Albert. I doff my cap to all of them. But there are a few more that are every bit as good.
Let's take a look at three today. Oh, if only smell-o-vision existed. I could drive you wild.
Here's one I discovered on the corner of K' Road and Symonds Street in Auckland.
It's a very small place with an even smaller selection to choose from. But what they do, they do right. I have been buying the larger loaves that you see in this basket on the counter. It is very dense, and it makes the kind of toast that makes coffee and toast a meal.
I wish I had seen this cart out on the street somewhere. It would be fun to buy something from it
Here I am at home ready to have some Portuguese bread and butter. (and now,since Christmas, thanks to Kath and Lee in the Copper Country, some thimbleberry jam)
This one is brand new. It opened within the last few day and it is a winner. And the best part of it is that it is just a few doors down from the Aussie Butcher in Henderson.
They bake their bread in a wood-fired oven and it's right out front so you can watch the process.
It's surprising how quickly he fills up his cooling racks.
I like that. Did you notice the wood piled up beneath the oven a few pictures back?
Finally, here is the Little Bread and Butter Bakery. This was the first real bakery I was aware of in Auckland. It produces wonderful, unique kinds of bread that change weekly. We no longer get over this way very often, but I have just discovered the right combination of a train and a bus ride that will put me right on their doorstep. They are part of 'Ponsonby Central,' a block-long gallery of trendy shops that do a huge business. Not far from the bakery I bought some hard sausage. This next picture below shows another entrance into the Ponsonby Central Complex.
And yet another entrance ...
Look at Bread and Butter's sales display. It's like a combination bakery and art gallery, don't you think?
These are good, but they're not quite like the Aunty Anne's salty pretzels back home.
They have a nice sense of humor.
That is a long French loaf and I think, a Bergsteiner Sourdough round loaf. Never tried that one before. Should be good with a piece of salami so firm you could drive nails with it.
You know, good bread is not only a joy to eat, it really photographs well too. That picture's gorgeous. I should have cut the sausage so that the end was slanted toward the camera, but look at all those colors and textures. Can you just imagine how crunchy those crusts are? You see, once again, I have chosen...wisely. -djf
