bread guy

Doughnuts with Bacon

2010-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Turns out you CAN improve anything with bacon.

Bread basket

2010-06-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

My bike got a new bread basket. I suppose it could carry other things too, but why would you want to?

Frisch-Gurken

2010-04-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

I'm as big of a snob about pickles as I am about bread. I've long since given up on buying them at the local supermarket, but today we found some in a german deli we go to for lunch sometimes. The whole place smells very authentic and has a huge selection of meats and cheeses. It's not vegetarian friendly at all, the only salad being a fleisch-salat which my coworker has ordered before. Somewhere between fleischsalad and frisch-gurken, he now calls pickles fleisch gurken. No need to hit that last link for german speakers.

Building materials

2010-04-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

I had an idea this morning. After finding a week old baguette in the kitchen I wondered if I could bake a more rectangular version of it and then intentionally kiln dry it to produce a bread two-by-four. Strength to weight ratio would be excellent. Then I remembered the houses we saw last week in Arizona made from paper pulp bricks. They had a certain springy feel but I don't see why I couldn't bake my own bread bricks which would be even lighter. I'd seal the whole edible deal of course with varnish; we all remember what happened to the gingerbread house; but all in all it seems possible. And I promise I wouldn't use frosting for mortar. How's that for sustainable?

Awareness

2010-02-24T12:22:00.000-08:00

The bread shelf at the Italian Bakery was empty, but by now I know how the system works. I asked if she had any in the back, and she said she would go check. She returned with a good half dozen large loaves, not in a basket, but piled in her bare hands with 2 or 3 resting on her bosom. She set them down and dusted the flour off her sweater, then bagged one and rang me up. While I'm more used to wax paper, gloves, hairnets and tongs to provide that barrier between what I eat and who makes it for me, I found myself quite ok with it all. But I noticed that I noticed, and it made me think of small children who are not aware of things we have not taught them yet.

Chinese throwing stars

2010-02-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

That's how I ordered it. She just smiled, but then again she always smiles, so it's hard to say if she even noticed my joke. We call her "the smiley one". She used to work for the french lady, who I just found out sold the place. No wonder she hasn't been around. I'm gonna miss her crooked smile. And her razzings. And her buns. Oh, wait, those are still on the menu.

Bread upgrade

2010-02-03T09:27:00.001-08:00

This morning's breakfast was in a desperate need for an upgrade. I won't point out the obvious by indicating which toast I bought and which I made, but instead tell you where my bread snobbery comes from; it's my mother. It might be genetic. Once we were out to dinner and when her food arrived she opened up her purse and produced some mamica bread. She must have known the place had crappy bread and planned ahead. I thought it a bit tacky and was slightly embarrassed. I'm 37 now and finally understand. As we get older our tolerance for crap shrinks, and that includes tolerance for crappy bread. Kids, don't judge your parents!

Christoffel bier

2010-01-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

While this isn't about bread per se, it's about it's close liquid cousin. This is a temporary post; just on here long enough to be picked up by my friend mrleedy. He keeps a beer review blog and invited me to guest blog for his beerblog.
This beer adheres to the strict Reinheitsgebot according to the ingredients listed on the front label, which is always a good start. The beer itself was a golden straw color and both malt and hops were well balanced. I was afraid it might be too hoppy since it is "dubble gehopft" but not the case. Overall it was a nice beer but nothing special. I bought it primarily for my namesake and this review was just an excuse to get to say "dubble gehopft".
On a slightly unrelated note, last night was the properly televised State of the Union Adress on TV. I watched it while enjoying a recommended Goose Island Winter Ale. It was a very inspirational speech. This might be my new favorite beer. I cant decide if the speech made my beer taste better or if my beer made the speech better, but either way I felt optimistic and encouraged.

Food I like to say (and eat)

2010-01-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

This was a sandwich from a new butcher shop that opened recently. It's beef cheeks on a kaiser bun. We've been calling each other "beefcheeks" at work for years now, ever since we discovered it on a mexican taqueria's menu. The first time I ordered it was purely because I wanted to say "beefcheeks". There's a lot of food I order just because it's fun to say. So I've compiled a list of food fun to say; and remember some require more enthusiasm than others:

Beefcheeks
Bokchoi
Ciabatta
Compot
Falafel
Fleischsalad
Machaca
Monkeybread
Schnitzel
Spanakopita
and finally,
Zeppoli!

Mold

2009-12-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

I ate moldy bread yesterday. I didn't even notice and my coworkers forgot to mention it until I ate half a slice already. Then when I got home J says to me: "Here eat this and tell me if it tastes funny." I eat the piece of salami and yes it does taste funny. "Oh good, I just ate a bunch" she says, "and wanted to make sure that if it's poisonous we die together". Well it's now the next day and nothing. No pain; no nausea; nothing; I feel just fine. Isn't it amazing how well adapted our bodies are at coping with all the bad stuff we put in them? Tomorrow I'm gonna try some drugs I haven't tried yet. jk lol :)

Future Breadguy

2009-12-21T12:48:00.001-08:00

We were on family vacation last weekend and my little nephew Peter spent a good number or his awake hours walking around with a piece of bread in hand. He gnawed at it slowly and contently and refused offers of other foods despite many attempts. He knows what he likes. He's currently being groomed by my younger brother and his wife, and already he's showing great promise and a natural talent. It's comforting to know that there will be someone there to continue spreading the word even after I'm gone.

He would break a piece of mamica bread off and eat it with his other hand. What bread etiquette!

on distance

2009-12-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

My car odometer rolled over 250,000 miles this weekend. How do they build them these days to go that far on all original parts without any major maintenance? I could have gone around the world over 10 times if they had roads to cross the oceans.
One quarter million miles is how far the moon is from earth. I remember when Yuri Gagarin first went into orbit. I think it took Buzz Aldrin days to get to the moon traveling at over 3000 miles per hour.
I bought a French baguette at Freddy's today. I measured it; about 2' long. It would take roughly 660 milion baguettes end to end to bridge the earth-moon gap. I think I've eaten that many already. On a slightly more tangible note, the cost of this great bread bridge to the moon would be approximately .07% of what we've spent already on the "war on terror" in Iraq; based on the 99¢ I spent per loaf. I really don't mean to come off as having an agenda, I just mean to quantify.

Schatzie Bread

2009-12-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Schatzie brought in a loaf of her delicious Christmas coffee bread. It was even more delicious than I remember last year's. All three of us agreed this morning. We didn't even have real butter, but the large tub-o-butter-like-spread I produced provided roughly the same lubrication, and the two slices we each had slid right down. We had to stop ourselves and save some for the rest of the crew who don't have the privilege of getting here before 8 am.

on density

2009-12-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

She couldn't eat the whole thing. Got about 1/2 way through. Fell for the old size trick. Surely they must measure their ingredients, so the only thing added was more air. It had the same amount of stuff in it, it just took up more space. Kinda like our universe. Then I got to thinking that the average density of all of earth is actually pretty dense compared to the average density of our solar system, which is mostly empty space. Kind of like Brenda's spinach bun. And the average density of our whole galaxy is even less, and so on, untill if you were to consider the density of the entire universe it approaches 0. And in order for that to be possible, the size of the universe has to be infinite. But we don't like that. So scientists have been arguing for quite some time now on wether the universe is expanding, contracting and heading for another big bang, or is in a steady state. The steady state theory has been discarded quite a while back, but it's actually the one I like best. I don't really understand the big bang theory anyway; I'm not a scientist. I do know that the farther an object is away from us in the universe, the faster it moves away from us. And that's how it should be. Just like the chocolate chips in a cookie as it rises in the oven, or the sesame seeds on top of the bun as it's growing as it's baking. But all astrophysicists prefer another analogy. Raisin bread! It's always raisin bread. And how the raisins move farther away from each other, all of them simultaneously, as it bakes. How can something move away from everything else but never get closer to anything else? That's how. Like rising raisin bread.

Two heels

2009-11-23T09:21:00.001-08:00

I went to have some bread and found two bags in the bread drawer. Each one had one heel in it. No problem. I ate them both. But then I got a little sad because there was no one to tell that there's starving children in Africa.

Birthday breakfast

2009-11-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

Brenda bought me breakfast today. Usually on your birthday we have a tradition of getting what we call Special Birthday Lunch, where the birthday person decides on lunch that day and Carl pays for it. Quite often it's indian food. Not sure what I'm gonna pick yet. You also get a birthday card that usually has some photoshopped picture on it. That's usually my job.

Today I do feel special. I got a special breakfast and a special birthday lunch. Then I broke my fork in all my excitement.

Birthday card

2009-11-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

The aforementioned photoshopping. I had a feeling it might be bread related this year. The gold is to razz me about my open dislike for gypsies; they used to beat me up as a kid. Last year they did a Borat version of me, not pretty!

Utensils

2009-11-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

I'm so jealous that I don't come up with this stuff. Then I started wondering what I would do if I was stuck on an island with nothing but tools made of bread. Would I use them as tools, or eat them and do without?

Roast beef sammy

2009-11-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what conveys the scale of this sandwich better. The quarter or my head?

Job In

2009-11-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

Accross:
17. Bready agreement?
32. Bready folk singing group?
42. Bready magic act?
60. Bready phrase after a double take?
We call them "jobs-in" at work when it's slow. It's a joint effort usually, and we use different colored pens on purpose. This one's from the Willamete Week; tomorrow there will be another one in the Tribune, and that one comes with the bonus Hokus Fokus by MrLeedy.

Bakery Cart

2009-11-10T13:03:00.001-08:00

So Portland is known as P-town, Stumptown, Rose City and now to add to the list Cart Town would be appropriate. It's taken off in the last couple of years and now there are little food cart villages in empty parking lots everywhere serving anything from Mexican Food to Falafel. When I have nothing but time on my hands, I'm gonna do a bread cart; but it looks like someone beat me to it. It had an oven built right into the side of it. I talked to the owner and he said he drove it around the country last year baking his way around. Not the same way my friend did after college in a volksvagen bus full of hippie friends.

I got a apple turnover and a cookie. Both were so so, but nothing special. Plus he wasn't doing bread; which made me happy, because there's still time for me to plan my mobile bread baking operation. Watch out America, when I take my message to the streets, there will be converts, enlightenment, change and hope. It'll be awesome!

More on spreading butter

2009-11-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

They buttered my toast to my liking.

Burnt toast

2009-11-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

My toast was sliced so thin that it toasted through and through. There was no more soft and chewy inside, just two sides of crusty burnt-ness, one on each side.

Convergent series

2009-10-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Jeni and I were driving around this weekend; she was eating a sandwich in her usual fashion. Her bites decreasing in size as she approached the end of her sandwich. She does this all the time. I cracked a joke by asking her what the solution is to the convergent series:

I used to complain about having to learn math since it's not like it comes up in real life. I really need to stop with the math jokes.

Croatian Lunch

2009-10-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

Our lunch was 1 1/2 hours late today. Nobody seemed to really mind that much. Expectations were high. We ran across this new bakery that delivers; a one man operation. He fell behind having spent his morning running around in the rain making deliveries. But it was worth the wait. I had half a calzone and half a burek - a meat pie; (the thing on the left). No store front, no restaurant, just some guy who loves to bake and make good food. A baker, his ovens, a blog and twitter; what more do you need? We'll give him a try again later.

Lunch envy

2009-10-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

MrLeedy gave us all lunch envy with his home-made pizza, the dough of which was hand kneaded. I questioned him about it.

Thinnest crust

2009-10-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

I have found the world's thinnest pizza crust. It was less than 1/8" thick. I'm not exaggerating. The pizza itself actually tasted pretty good, but for me it's all about the crust and I like a thick bready pie. I got it from a little market I stumbled upon on my Sunday joyride; it was a family run place with the kid answering the phone, while the mom dished up my slice and the dad rang me up. They looked middle eastern, Iranian perhaps, or maybe Indian. Being an immigrant myself I couldn't help but wonder how they were treated in this affluent white neighborhood in Lake Oswego. When people find out about my heritage they usually just ask if I'm any good at gymnastics. I guess I'm somewhat lucky that my skin color doesn't automatically put me in a minority category. I thanked the cashier for my pizza and expected a halfhearted, downtrodden "your welcome". Instead he responded: "I hope you like. We have best pizza inside the town." He wasn't downtrodden at all, he was proud and enthusiastic. I drove off eating my pizza feeling somewhat guilty.

Monkey Bread

2009-10-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Brenda pointed out the Monkey Bread in the case. I had to get it. Mostly because its fun to say "Monkey Bread". So I asked the french lady why its called Monkey Bread. She replied: "Only monkey would ask such question." Zing! She got me again!

Eat More Bread!

2009-10-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

This was on the bag of store bought bread. I got all nostalgic; I remember this from the 80's. So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.

Bread bike

2009-10-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

I thought it was a Dave's Killer Bread delivery bike. Turns out Dave was just advertising on the side of a sustainable delivery bike. But the idea of delivering bread locally by bike stuck; I'm gonna do it some day.

Leeetle Toasteses

2009-10-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

I got used to slicing my own portions. I ran out of bread, so after next door's portion I'm still hungry.

Bread guy's evil twin

2009-10-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Breadguy has an evil twin known as Grapeguy.

Brenda's breakfast

2009-09-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Brenda enjoying her "breadfast". Actually the witty term was coined by mrleedy at 8:03 am this morning.

texting

2009-09-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

Someone's thinking of me...

Progress

2009-09-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

I finished laying tile last night. Phew! Look how close to the edges I'm getting. I think I'm making progress.

Buttering

2009-09-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

As a kid I developed this aversion to buttering my own bread. I don't know why, I just hated to do it. Some kids hate their food touching, or eat their food one at a time, but for me it was spreading butter or jam or what have you. My mother enabled this type of behaviour well into my teens by buttering my toast for me. As an adult I developed a coping technique by buttering as quickly and sloppily as possible, often resulting in big globs and always ignoring the corners.
These days it only comes up at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, usually in the form of heckling; my siblings asking me if I need help buttering my bread.

I spent this last weekend tiling my bathroom. Smearing mortar on the back of each tile is called "buttering". That's the official term. I did so, one tile at a time, a nice even coat, all the way to the edges. I hated every minute of it.

As the bread truck drove away...

2009-09-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Someone suggested I chase after it. I barely got a picture...

Toaster

2009-09-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

We usually don't use the toaster at the same time, but today we did and the contrast amused me.

Guest Blog

2009-09-02T08:30:00.001-07:00

I've been encouraging others to share their bread pictures with me, and I would gladly post them; so here's one of the first takers:

via mrleedy

Here's some delicious bread I had on vacation at Pianeta Ristorante in Truckee, CA.
The crust was crisp and crackery, but the inside was all soft, delicious bread. There was olive oil and balsamic on the table, but I served it up with some oil and salt. Fantastic. I said to L, "take a picture of this bread for me. I want to give it to Bread Guy for his blog!"
--
mrleedy

Zeppoli

2009-08-31T08:48:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday was Zeppoli day at the Italian bakery. They only do this once a month and like to make a big deal about it. It was packed. I gave my order to the Italian looking fellow behind the counter, and said "zeppoli" with enthusiasm; the way you would say "forgetaboutit". He repeated it back to me with twice as much enthusiasm as if to show me who the real Italian was. Jeni gave them her approval by eating 4 or 5; I also had one.

Wandering eyes

2009-08-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

The baker thought I already had breakfast this morning when all I asked for was a loaf of bread. He said I usually look around and can't decide what to get; while doing an impersonation of me that looked like a little kid in a candy store trying to decide what to buy with his one dollar. I haven't been feeling well lately. Even the baker noticed that I was missing my usual wandering eye.

Bread Torque

2009-08-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.autoblog.com/gallery/asias-largest-race-car-made-from-bread

thanks to my friend mrleedy for the link.

Bread box

2009-08-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

The bread box has been replaced by a platic bag with tiny little holes in it. The fresh loaf will loose moisture at a fairly constant rate. Leave it out in the open or in a paper bag and it will dry out in three days to the point of making it useful for pounding nails. Stick it in a plastic bag, and the trapped moisture will make the crust chewy and soggy. So how do you alow just enough moisture to escape to slow down the drying, without trapping it too much? A bread box. But for those with not much counter room, the perforated bag works almost as well. Then again, how big is a bread box anyway?

Mamica bread

2009-08-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go to visit my mom, she always has a loaf of home made bread to send home with me. These are the last 2 slices. We call it mamica bread, which translates to mom bread. Everybody in my family knows what that is. Actually more literally it translates to "mommybread". She bakes half a dozen loaves at a time, and kneads the dough by hand in a giant bowl. I've borrowed this bowl on many occasions to try my hand at her bread recipe.

It's also great for spinning baby nieces in.

Photography

2009-08-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

I'm a terrible photographer. Somehow though, I'm starting to think that it's impossible to take bad pictures of bready things.

I need a quarter acre

2009-08-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

More bread math. I know how much you love it.
5.5 x 5.5 = 31 square feet
31 square feet x 365 = 11,315 sq. feet. (1/4 acre)

Almond & Chocolate Balls

2009-08-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

Actually they're called "baci di dama" which is italian for lady kisses, but then again they taste better when you don't know the translation and simply call them by their sexy foreign name. Personally, I don't mind knowing what's in the food I eat, so almond chocolate balls it is.

The real reason I went to the bakery this morning, the previous rantings just on impulse.

Comparing bun sizes with my coworker...

2009-07-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I cheated; mine's a actually a loaf of garlic and 3 cheese bread.

New record

2009-07-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

We have a new record today. Six bucks for a loaf of bread.

and well worth it.

The beginning

2009-07-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is where it started, the first place I discovered that sold good bread, many years ago.

I already had sandwich fixings at work, but my willpower was weak today.

Back to my anonymous ways

2009-07-30T08:41:00.001-07:00

My breakfast came in this blank bag,

with this blank cup of coffee,

with it's blank cozy,

Bacon & bleu cheese & pear danish!

Jam

2009-07-29T09:26:00.001-07:00

I decided to eat more jam. I forgot how delicious this tasted as a kid, so I had to order it when I found it. It goes great on toast, just not the toast I've been getting next door.

FAIL! two days in a row.

Consolation prize. It tastes kinda like the smell of walnuts, only much sweeter. The aroma was instantly familiar even though it's probably been 20 or 30 years. I went to smell it and was surprised it barely had a scent. The aroma I had smelled was with my tastebuds. I wasn't sure if you could eat the whole nuts; I couldn't remember. You can.
If you want a flavor explosion in your mouth.

The only bread they had next door

2009-07-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

FAIL!

Feeding the masses

2009-07-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

We stopped in for a quick lunch at this bakery on our weekend trip. There had to be at least one hundred people in there. The place was huge, 4 cashiers - each with a small line, LCD monitors for order taking and processing everywhere, every table in the place taken, even the outdoor seating.

My sandwich came wrapped in this logo emblazoned wrapper:

with this custom logo'd bag of chips,

with this cookie in it's custom packaging,

in this appropriately marked paper bag,

with a double americano in this properly marked cup,

with it's matching coffee cozy,

from this properly advertised establishment.

I try to stay away from places like this, and would rather seek out a hole in the wall place without the corporate budget for so much advertising. So being affronted with an operation of this scale automatically put me on the defensive. I really tried to find something wrong with the place, but the service was quick and friendly, the bread was decent, jeni said the cookie was good, the coffee was good, my sandwich was good although on the meaty side; even the pickle on the side wasn't bad, and I'm almost as critical of pickles as bread.

And then it occurred to me that the future might not be so bleak. I cringe every time I have to witness another suburbian mass-produced product or service. I've not stepped foot into a charbucks for years. But then sometimes I'm reminded that the majority of our population does live in suburbia, and it can be done right. There will always be a difference between the cozy inner city bakery and the large scale chains, but as suburbian growth continues, it's comforting to know that the quality of the food we eat doesn't automatically have to suck.

Mystery Bakery

2009-07-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

As promised I returned to the bakery on alberta armed with camera. The name of the place is clearly visible on every tag, which kinda reminded me of that Vanilla Ice song that won him some kind of record for mentioning his own name the most times in one song. I think it was 42.

But the bread was just as good as last week. I also tried a loaf of walnut and currant white, but we're starting to conclude that I only like plain bread. So I cut some up into little squares and made my own crostini, which I ate with some pate and cheese. I let skipper try one, figuring he'd like the meat paste, but he picked it up and bit down, and without crunching it like I would have, told me that it was too hard. I tried to coax him but he simply would pretend to bite down and set it back on his plate. Finally I cut it up into little half inch squares, the way you do for babies and old ladies, and he gobbled it up the way my boss' dog eats bubble gum. Poor baby, that hard crust could have scratched his tender little gums. Aw.

I know their secret!

2009-07-15T09:00:00.001-07:00

The crust: How do they do it? For years I've tried to make bread at home have that bakery crust, but it has never been quite right. I've heard rumors that it has to do with moisture in the oven, and to put a bowl of water or a moist towel in there. But this morning I was able to glean the real secret: Spray with a fine mist while baking. Makes sense. The baker warned me to try at my own risk. I'm sure they're still leaving stuff out. Like the time we tried to get my mother to divulge how to make chicken schnitzel. My siblings and I all tried to, but we all ended up with chicken strips. Nobody told us that you had to cut across the grain of the meat. I discovered that by accident. Or the time I asked her for her rice recipe, which contains water, rice, salt, pepper, celery and onions; but somehow her rice turns out red. hmmm... I'm sure I'm breaking some sort of culinary etiquette rule by posting their secrets.

New Bakery

2009-07-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

We have a new bakery find from this weekend. All I had to go on was that it's on Alberta. Just as I was starting to doubt the accuracy of my bradar there it was. It was an impromptu bakery scouting joyride, so I had no camera; but I assure you the display was awesome. I didn't even take note of the name of the place. As soon as I have follow up pictures I'll be sure to share. Meanwhile, this is how it tasted:

Pie; they have a new chef

2009-07-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

"Not at all a gut bomb." That's how it was described to me. The chiffon cake had that disappearing quality that cotton candy has, surprising me now as much as it did when I was a kid. I love that feeling of eating air. And before I knew it, it had disappeared completely; down my piehole (breadhole).

Cheese & Wine

2009-07-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Bread and butter go about as well together as cheese and wine. They saw me put margarine on my toast yesterday and the heckling that ensued ended with me being called a poser bread guy. "What kind of real bread guy would put fake butter on his bread?" Good point. It'd be like having cheese-whiz and wine. Only the real thing from here on out, I promise!

Mr. open-face

2009-07-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

We were discussing how europeans tend to like their sandwiches open face versus the twin breaded american versions. I had no idea what I was doing untill my coworker started laughing at my lunch and I started to pay attention. Ok the pepperoncini was added after the fact. There are no pictures of the version with onion eyebrows.

His & Hers

2009-07-08T10:46:00.001-07:00

Jeni and I are sampling individually sliced portions of bread from a new bakery we just discovered. The bread was decent but the roast beef bun was terrible.

that's as far as i got, and even to get to this point really felt like taking one for the team.

and then I washed it down with one of these.

Indecision

2009-07-02T11:07:00.001-07:00

I couldn't decide this morning between the asiago & pancetta bun or the mushroom & cheese bun or the ham & cheese bun, so I got all three. I enlisted my coworker's decision making skills by pawning two off, at a 50 cent profit. Oh wait, I tipped a buck so I'm actually 50 cents down. Oh well, the cause is well worth it.

Pie from next door

2009-07-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm working on growing a pie-hole. True to form, there's a bite missing before the photo.

Bread-guy vs. Meat-guy

2009-06-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

The antidote for meat overdose: I've had out of town family stay with us the last couple of weeks. We've been eating little more than steak, hamburgers, meatloaf, machaca, sausages, pepperoni pizza, beefy stew and fish. I never thought someone like myself could get "over-meated" but now it's happened. As an experiment, I tried being vegan for one week last year sometime, and towards the end I literally started having dreams about meat. I surprised myself yesterday by ordering spinach enchiladas; they were delicious. I take back all those mean things I said about all you vegans and vegetarians.

Bread charma

2009-06-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

Behind the counter at the bakery this morning I notice these little loaves of bread, so I naturally ask about them. I'm told they're not for sale and are only used to make sandwiches. So I turn up my charm and convince her to let me try one. She has to have at least 10; she counts 11. My bread charma is good today.

Taking pictures

2009-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I remembered to snap a picture of my breakfast only after eating half of it already.
So as I'm ordering my spinach bun this morning, the french lady comes out from the back: "So I hear you like bread."
"Yes, I must confess..." I turn and accuse my coworker of spilling the beans.
"You like to take pictures; You like to take pictures of my buns?"
The french accent might have had something to do with it, but I was completely caught off guard. I haven't blushed like that since high school.

Pictures of her buns

2009-06-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Yes I do.

New domain name

2009-06-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

new domain name:

www.breadguyblog.com

for your bookmarking pleasure...

Vietnamese French Sandwiches

2009-06-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough today to find myself in the neighborhood of my favorite vietnamese bakery today. I ordered the patté banh mi, which I have been told numerous times is "too advanced" for me. While waiting for our sandwiches the 10 year old chubby little girl at the register asks me if I'd like to also buy a loaf of raisin bread:

"It's fresh out of the oven, still hot, only 2.99"
"No, thank you."
"Are you sure?"
I nod.
She's gone for a second, and appears bearing samples of the raisin bread. Nobody dares refuse the hot samples. Our sandwiches are up. As I pick them up, I also order a loaf of the raisin bread. I lean in and whisper to the little girl: "That was a pretty good trick with the samples"
She whispers back: "That wasn't a trick, it was a sure thing."
I think she knows.

Other peoples breads

2009-06-19T15:51:00.001-07:00

Guest Toast; today we have a photo of my coworker's toast, which she swears is delicious. Not having tried it myself, I have to disclaim that the views and opinions presented above may not necessarily represent those of the blogger. Mmmmm

Don't forget breakfast

2009-06-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Earlier at the bakery today:
"I'll take a plain bun, (that'll be for breakfast when I get to work...)

... and a loaf of Pugliese to make my lunch sandwich,
what, it's not out of the oven yet? Ok, I'll take a ciabatta,

... and 2 ham and cheese buns (for my coworkers)

and a baguette for breakfast. (I had forgotten about the buns from 15 seconds earlier)
End result:

2009-06-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

Happy bread-guy.

The secret to happiness

2009-06-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

I got this tomato and feta spinach danish a couple days ago from the french lady. I usually get the spinach bun. She asked if i was trying to be wild; I told her I was trying to mix it up. She rolled her eyes all ooh-la-la like at me. Not related to bread, but coincidentally related to my other passion, her bakery is full of welded metal art. Its like the place is made for me; bread, welding and wifi.

I just liked this picture of my breakfast.

I bought this for my coworker this morning. The victory dance I was rewarded with was definitely worth more than the $3.75 reimbursement for this ham bun.

The loaves in my life

2009-06-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

I am currently the owner of four loaves of bread at various stages of being eaten.
From left to right: Safeway Asiago Cheese, Di Prima Dolce Ciabata, Como, and a loaf of Pugliese at work. I'm not sure at what level the experts call it an addiction, but I think it's borderline compulsive. I've been trying not to buy bread before I'm out, but sometimes I just have to. No I don't need an intervention! I could go on the Atkins any time I want to.

The Golden Proportion

2009-06-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Golden Sandwich Ratio,
One of the ways i judge a sandwich is by the ratio of bread vs. other stuff. If we were to apply the golden ratio, we'd end up with about 1.6 times more bread than other stuff. I would consider this to be pretty close to perfect. Unfortunately this is very rarely found in the sandwich world. Today's lunch was an especially offending case. Breadiness score of 3 out of 10. +1 because they toasted it, but -1 for the chips they missed, which in my case also go down the breadhole. (i don't have a piehole at all)

More on the golden ratio

2009-06-08T13:22:00.001-07:00

defined as:

where a=.8 and b=.5 in todays example of a sandwich I made myself.
therefore: (.8 + .5)/.8 = 1.62 or .8 / .5 = 1.6

The golden ratio is the limit of the ratios of successive terms of the Fibonacci sequence (or any Fibonacci-like sequence):

Therefore, if a Fibonacci number is divided by its immediate predecessor in the sequence, the quotient approximates φ; e.g., 987/610 ≈ 1.6180327868852. These approximations are alternately lower and higher than φ, and converge on φ as the Fibonacci numbers increase.

Take that!
You can't argue with science;
Q.E.D.!

Breakfast

2009-06-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to a new bakery recently.
The bread is from Di Prima Dolci Italian Bakery in Portland. It's a small place and has been sold out twice of my beloved Pugliese. But when it's there, mmmmm. I think Grand Central Bakery Como may have to settle for silver.

Post Lunch Review

2009-06-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

Chicken sandwich on crusty baguette, slice of crostini for the soup and a side of chips. Breadiness rating: 7 on scale of 1 to 10. The baguette requires more effort in chewing than any other bread. Not for the faint of jaw.

Bread Guy

2009-06-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

A coworker called me bread guy yesterday. Then it occured to me that I have a lot to say about bread. They're probably tired of my lunchtime rantings. More bread wisdom to follow shortly.

All rise!

2009-06-03T11:14:00.001-07:00

You may be seated.