This one is for the bread lovers!

Hello my name is Jandee & I am a breadaholic. Its been about twenty minutes since my last piece of bread. Seriously.

I have always had a strong penchant for all things bread and a beautiful loaf has the ability to make me go weak in the knees. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I love Paris so much, where the bread is beautiful & plentiful. In the U.S. the bread aisle is hardly something to get excited about -- those drab bags of Wonder-bread & Sara Lee are borderline unappetizing and most attempts at inexpensive "French Bread" are an embarrassment and the good stuff which can be found at select bakeries is very expensive & impractical to procure regularly.

Thus when I first came across this book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionized Home Baking, I was a bit skeptical, but mostly intrigued. My copy arrived on the doorstep about a month ago and I am on my third week of the experiment of having fresh bread made daily. And the verdict is: I AM IN LOVE. OR PERHAPS IN HEAVEN! I have been very surprised to find that in the truly advertised "five minutes" each day I can have glorious fresh bread. Good bread. Pretty bread. Everyday.

If you are still unconvinced, you should talk to Jordan, who is in fact not a bread person. As in most things he is the yin to my yang and definitely doesn't love bread the way I do -- in fact he will frequently complain if a meal is too "bready" -- i.e. heavy on the bread carbs. However, even he has fallen under the spell of the artisan bread and we find ourselves in those friendly staring contests over the last sliver, where both say "no, you have it......I couldn't" while we are inching our fingers towards the slice.

One of the things I have loved most about this experiment is how good bread is a "meal maker." Whenever we have just a simply salad for dinner I find myself roving the cupboards later that evening for a little something to finish off. However wonderful bread takes your drab salad:

To something you feel like you'd be served in a restaurant.


Also, I love how inexpensive it is. I've estimated that each loaf costs me about 6.5 cents in supplies. And the kicker is how easy (nay idiot proof) the whole thing is to make & serve every day with minimal time investment. I have posted the master recipe from the book here; however, I recommend purchasing the book yourself if you are interested in this as there are many many variations and even other artisan breads I haven't gotten around to trying yet. And its only $15, not necessarily a bank breaker.

Now the search is on for good dipping sauce recipes. We have been using our standby of mixing Balsamic Vinegar with good Olive Oil and some fresh ground pepper, but are in search of new recipes, any suggestions?

An additional note: For all of those carb haters out there that maintain that bread = fat. I respond: its all about moderation baby and a few bites of bread with a meal will not blimp you out......in fact, good/real bread is very satisfying and thus stops you from grazing for late night snacks that would indeed hurt your waistline. If you don't believe just travel to Europe where most people eat a good sized serving of fresh bread daily. While you are walking down the streets of Paris try to find ten obese people, then when you spot them quickly go up and introduce yourself -- Congratulations! you've just met the other American tourists enjoying the city. You'll know them because they will be wearing sneakers or other comfortable non-fashionable shoes & they will be very casually dressed perhaps in jeans or shorts. That paired with the fact that they are packing at least "an extra twenty" will make them stick out like a sore thumb from the fashionably dressed, well-heeled very svelte looking French.

Now if I could just get that pesky moderation thing figured out......