Why 80 breads?
I love good bread. I mean I really love good bread. I've made basic bread and biscuits since I was a teenager. They've been my comfort foods and my apologies to my family when whatever else I've made for dinner has been . . . well, not quite up to snuff. A good, fresh bread is love in edible form, making ordinary meals special.
Some months ago, I decided to expand my bread horizons. I made a goal to learn to make breads from around the world. Accordingly, I started exploring recipes I found in books or on the Internet.
More recently, wanting an outlet for my writing skills, I started looking for a focus for a blog.
My husband was the one who finally came up with the best idea. "You're making all these breads," he said. "Why don't you blog about your bread?"
I thought about it. Blogging about bread? It reminded me of the synopsis of the movie he keeps wanting me to watch, "Julie and Julia", about a woman who decides to make every recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Might not my bread explorations be considered something similar? I put the idea away in the back of my mind.
But I couldn't help returning to it. Finally, I approached my husband. "What do you think of 'Around the World In 80 Breads?'" I asked him. He liked it.
The next time I made bread, which happened to be cinnamon rolls, I took my camera into the kitchen. It meant things went a little more slowly, because I was busy trying to juggle adding ingredients with camera shots or having to wash the flour off my hands between steps in order to snap a picture. But by the time I was finished, I had a fair amount of pictures, photo-journalling my experience with my sister's cinnamon roll recipe.
It was kind of fun. (Even my daughters, who looked at me taking pictures with odd expressions on their faces, thought it was kind of fun.)
I recognize that the goal of 80 breads may seem rather lofty. When I first considered the title for this blog, I wondered if I could actually find 80 breads to make. Now, I believe it completely within the realm of possibility, but chances are more than one will come from the same country.
Come along with me, and together we will view the world through the medium of its bread.
