Artisanal bread

 

     While I often snap photographs for the purpose of sharing them with you, here, that is not why I took the above. Central Street in front of Hewn Bakery was jammed with cars one Sunday not long ago, and rather than park a block or two away, I pulled into an illegal space, left my wife guarding the car, and ran in to check out the situation. 

     We had never been to Hewn, but my wife had heard good things about it. I took the photo, then hurried back outside to show her the bread selection. We discussed our options, and settled on an oatmeal rye, which indeed was very good.

     You would think that, being raised on Wonder bread and, later, Buttercrust, which was basically Wonder dyed yellow with some corn meal sprinkled on the top, that I would retain some residual nostalgia for garbage white bread. But I really don't. Except under very unusual circumstances — say being served a metal plate of barbecue at a stand in Memphis, or a Kentucky Hot Brown, I never want to see another slice of white bread for the rest of my life. Someday I'm going to write something about the food I was served as a child, but I think I'm going to wait a few years, to make sure my mother is good and dead, and won't claw out of the grave and get me for my indiscretion. 
     Returning to Hewn, which also has an outlet in Wilmette. My wife is also addicted to pecan rolls, so I grabbed one of those for her as well.

     Any thought on the name "Hewn"? I get that it is supposed to evoke the hardy artisan, drawing rough loafs from the primordial essence of natural grains and yeast and such. But it still, to me, would be better attached to a line of ranch oak furniture, chairs with the bark still on the legs, and such. "Do you want some of this bread? It was hewn by me..." is not a question one leaps to answer with an emphatic "yes!"
     Moving on. If this seems a bit light, well, my oldest, his wife and the granddaughter, now 8 months, showed up Monday afternoon. I wish I could share her photo with you, but the risk that the cuteness might sear your retinas is too great, and I can't risk the liability. As it is, her mesmeric presence caused me to forget all responsibility, organized thought, or concern for anything that wasn't being bounced on my knee. I spent the day making sputtering noises, widening my eyes, singing from my vast array of 1920s pop hits learned from my mother, such as "April Showers" and "Toot-Toot-Tootsie Goodbye" and not thinking for a single moment what I might post here. The results speak for themselves. The good news is that I will have to, somehow, ignore all that in the morning  and turn out a newspaper column of some sort. But you'll have to wait for that until Wednesday. Assuming it can be done.