Hot Tea and Warm Bread

All of my favorite movies are about food, or are anchored by food. I've realized that its not just movies. Books, my other favorite thing, also are often filled with entire chapters about feasts. In fact, my favorite book (the one I got lost in last week) opens with a feast. One that, if it didn't end with the slaughter of the heroin's family, would make me absolutely starving to the point of not being able to continue reading...


 

Anyway, today I get to watch an amazing movie and also bake my yummy weekly bread. I am watching Julie & Julia, about a blogger who cooked her way through Julia Child's: The Art of French Cooking; a feat I find incredibly daunting. However, I do have a few cookbooks that I would love to attempt this with (more on that later...). Its cold outside, and my tea is very comforting. My bread is currently in the oven, starting to smell all grainy and wonderful. This week I decided to make my bread extra chewy. I added oats, flaxseed, and sunflower seeds YUM! I also decided (after starting the movie for a second time) to add butter to the top. Yes that is right, my super healthy, chewy, grainy bread is now smothered in what I would love to tell you is real butter. However, it remains fairly healthy because I used Earth Balance, a vegan version of buttery spread. Oh well... at least it smells like butter.

 

In about 20 minutes I will slice into that lovely hot bread and smother it in cheese until it becomes my absolutely delicious dinner. Bread and cheese is lovely in any form, however, tonight it is even better.

 

A digression - This past weekend my mommy and sister-sue came into town. We got to wander around the beautiful town Asheville. Our adventures led us through The Biltmore Estate, Downtown Asheville, The Grove Park Inn, and of course The Downtown Farmers Market. And while I do love my tiny little Sylva farmers market, I must say the finds at the Asheville one were just fantastic. A spearmint plant to replace one of the little seedlings I killed, making me one step closer to finishing a project from my friend Pinterest, some free range chicken for dinner this week, eggs (of course), and CHEESE!!! We definitely spent at least $15 on cheese, oddly enough both of the flavors are Chevre (goat), something I have never purchased to eat at home. One is a light dill, very tastey. But the main event is the Rosemary Fig Chevre.

Rosemary FIG Chevre!

I love cheese. I believe that cheese make everything better. The funny part about that sentence is that I originally wrote "figs" where cheese resides. Then I changed it. So basically I believe that Figs and Cheese are some of the most amazing foods on the planet. And now they are together! Fig flavored cheese! It is creamy and sharp like any chevre, but it has the sweetness of the fig and just a touch of rosemary. They did an amazing job in this cheese, especially because the rosemary hasn't taken over. It is such a demanding herb, like garlic, it is very good at taking over the dish and not allowing other flavors to have their share.

So the digression has come full circle, I get to eat Rosemary Fig Cheese on delicious hot bread. While that digression was coming around to dinner, the timer beeped and now my bread is cooling on the rack. In just a few minutes I'll be able to slice into it without burning my fingers!

Dinner!

Of course I opened a bottle of wine... I'm watching a movie (for the second time) about french food... duh.

On that note, it is DINNER TIME! I hope you all enjoy yours as much as I do mine :)