Au bon pain

At the beginning of the year I made a resolution to bake all -- or most -- of our bread from scratch. Pretty big goal! And up to now I had been doing GREAT. I've been making 1-2 loaves of regular bread a week, supplemented by a batch of bagels or English muffins here or there. I did end up having to buy Anders his must-have Nature's Own Honey Wheat, because trying to force a picky three-year-old to eat Artisan Bread is not my idea of Big Fun.

However, when I made the resolution it was January. And then we had the Mother of All Winters here when heating the oven to 500 a few times a week was no big deal because the house was barely 60 anyway. But now. Now it is summer! Today it is 90. The house is barely holding at 78 without running the a/c (I can't bear to put it on in April). Heating the oven to 500 would turn it into a sauna and/or steam room. And this is just April. I don't even want to think about baking bread in August.

So, like many resolutions, it looks like this one will be abandoned too, at least until the fall.

Bummer.

On the upside, it did give me freedom to head over to Whole Foods and indulge my inner carb addict with loaves of crusty sourdough (which I can't make to save my very life), cranberry-walnut boules, ciabatta and yummy yummy whole wheat baguettes.

And I also found this:



The Vosges Barcelona Bar - deep milk chocolate*, hickory smoked almonds and fleur de sel. The Trifecta!

*Deep milk chocolate = 45% milk chocolate. So creamy. Perfectly balanced chocolate. It will change your mind about dark chocolate, I swear! I've been off that wagon for more than a year.