Basic Rules For Eating Italian Bread

Italians Love Their Bread, But There Are Rules

You've just been seated at your favorite Italian restaurant. The server has taken your order and the menus have been collected. Moments later – perhaps along with your beverages – the first course arrives: a basket full of delicious, crusty bread. Depending on the eatery, there may be little packets of butter in the basket or, more likely, a shallow dish of olive oil, sometimes containing Italian herbs, accompanies the bread. Or you may have ordered garlic bread: lightly toasted slices of bread slathered with garlic-flavored butter. Of course, you dig in immediately, probably emptying the basket long before the next course comes to the table.

If this scenario sounds familiar, I can assure you of one thing: you are not in an Italian restaurant.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Italians love their bread and it is, indeed, served as a part of every meal. Bread is integral to the Mediterranean diet. Some deeply religious people in the region even consider it to be a sacred food, broken and shared communally at the table. But bread is never – let me back up and run that by again for emphasis – NEVER served as a separate “course” or as a stand alone appetizer prior to other courses. The only exception there would be in the case of some sort of bruschetta – pronounced “broo-SKET-ah” and not “broo-SHET-uh” – which is a preparation unto itself and is usually considered as an antipasto or appetizer. But plain Italian bread with butter or oil or “garlic bread”? Never.

In the first place, “garlic bread” is an American invention non-existent in Italian culture and cuisine. Although it can trace its roots back to the aforementioned bruschetta, “garlic bread,” as served in Italian American restaurants, is strictly an Italian American creation. Early Italian immigrants to the United States often had to adapt their traditional dishes to match the realities of the local ingredients on hand. Olive oil was all but unheard of in America, but there was lots of butter. So, add a little garlic to make it taste more like home and....the birth of “garlic bread,” subsequently introduced to semi-adventurous American palates at those “exotic” Italian restaurants that began springing up by the mid-twentieth century. But back in Italy? Never.

In fact, let's talk about butter for a second. Let's say you're in Italy and have asked your cameriere for a little butter for your bread. He's going to look at you like you've grown a third eye and then he's going to be embarrassed. “Mi dispiace,” he'll say, “ma non abbiamo burro.” Restaurants in the southern parts of Italy are unlikely to even have butter in the building while northern establishments might try to to accommodate your request by slicing chunks off the big blocks of butter kept in the kitchen for use in some dishes. But the cute little foil-wrapped pats you find in Italian American places? Never.

And oil for dipping? Sometimes with balsamic vinegar added? Not generally a thing in Italy, where it would be considered a waste of good olive oil, and why on earth would you want to taint your taste buds with vinegar before the rest of the food arrives? Besides, if you've ever priced real, genuine balsamic vinegar, you'd know that there ain't no way anybody in their right budget-conscious mind would just dump it on a plate and dip cheap bread in it. Except for in touristy places, it just isn't done.

Now, if you were in Tuscany, you might be served fettunta – literally “oily slice” – which is a predecessor of and the base for bruschetta. You take a nice, thick slice of bread and toast it. Not in a toaster but on a grill or a grill pan. You want a nice golden color and maybe some grill marks. While the bread is still hot from grilling, you cut the end off a garlic clove and rub the surface of the bread with the cut clove. Then you drizzle it with a generous amount of good quality olive oil and sprinkle on just a mere touch of coarse salt, like kosher salt. This would be a type of bread that could be served either as an accompaniment or as a course of its own.

And then there's the bread. A lot of Italian American places at least make an attempt at baking their own bread. I know of a number of such places that use the same dough for table bread that they use to make their pizza crust. It's not exactly “authentic” Italian bread, but it's a start. Far too many Italian American eateries serve up “Italian bread” purchased through their commercial food suppliers. The difference is like night and day.

True “Italian” bread – i.e. bread made in Italy or made according to Italian traditions – uses different ingredients and different baking techniques than its American or Italian American counterparts. Real Italian breads are made with different flours – most often grano tenero flours – and are baked at higher temperatures than their commercial cousins. Olive oil is the fat of choice rather than cheaper oils or butter. Slow fermentation processes are used in making Italian bread, no fast-acting yeast. And there are no preservatives in real Italian bread, something that can't be said of the bread-like substances produced in commercial factory bakeries and shipped halfway across the country on trucks. All this results in thick, rustic crusts that you can really sink your teeth into and that contrast beautifully with the soft, airy, chewy yet almost fluffy interiors. Besides flavor and texture, vero pane Italiano is more digestible and has less gluten and a lower glycemic index than your average American bread. Sadly, most store bought “Italian bread” – the stuff your favorite “Italian” place is likely putting in your basket – is pretty much Wonder Bread shaped like an Italian loaf and wrapped in green, white, and red bags. If you ever luck up and find someplace that serves something like pane Toscano or pane di Altamura or some other authentic Italian bread, you'll see what I mean.

So, anyway, back to the restaurant. If they bring out all that delicious-looking and wonderful smelling bread right off the bat, what are you supposed to do with it? Just leave it sitting there in the basket? Yep.

Didn't your Mama ever tell you “don't fill up on bread?” Well, that's also the Italian philosophy. A lot of the more authentic places won't even bring the bread out until the rest of the food is served. The idea is that bread is there to accompany the meal, not to be eaten as an appetizer or as a course unto itself. It is not a pre-meal filler or a snack. And you don't usually eat it with your pasta or risotto as this would be considered eating a starch with a starch. No, bread is typically reserved as something you eat with your soup or salad or meat or vegetable course. The only real exception here is that it is acceptable to break off small pieces of bread to use as sops for any leftover sauce remaining on your pasta plate. The custom is called fare la scarpetta – make a little shoe – and although it's sometimes frowned upon in the high end, high tone places, it's okay pretty much everyplace else. When in doubt, look about. If you see other people doing it, well, when in Rome – or Florence or Milan or Bologna or wherever.....

Whatever you do, don't cut the bread! Big cultural no-no. In Italy, they take the phrase “breaking bread” literally. You break off a piece of bread for your own use from the communal loaf, and then you break that piece into whatever smaller pieces you intend to use for whatever you intend to use them for. Taking a knife to the bread will get you dirty looks at the very least. And so will taking more bread than you can eat. Food waste and leftovers are not Italian things.

Oh, and be aware, while it's not an issue in American Italian places where bread is usually complementary, even in upscale eateries, if you should find yourself in an Italian Italian restaurant, don't be surprised by the coperto. Yes, there's a cover charge for bread in many establishments. Technically, it is a table charge that covers the table setting, the bread and the basket it comes in, and other small incidentals. It's not a “tip” or a service charge and it goes directly to the restaurant and not to the server. It's generally a euro or two per person and you'll usually see it in small print at the bottom of the menu.

So there you have it: the essentials of Italian bread etiquette in a nutshell. Or maybe in a breadbasket, I don't know. In any case buon appetito e mangiare bene!

A Fifty-Cent Surcharge On Eggs? Okay, How About Buttered Toast?

I'll Fork Over Extra For A Decent Slice

The world was shocked the other day by the announcement that Waffle House is going to be charging a fifty-cent per egg surcharge. Well, at least it was shocking in the part of the world that knows what a “Waffle House” is. That means my two eggs, scrambled, with bacon, hash browns (plain) and buttered toast is now gonna cost me an extra buck. Boh! (That's pretty much the Italian equivalent of “meh”.) Like it or not, (and I don't) it is what it is and there's little to gain by screaming about it.

You really want something to scream about, though? How about the aforementioned buttered toast? I mean, why in the hell can't I get a decent piece of buttered toast at a Waffle House? Or an IHOP? Or pretty much any other chain breakfast place? Buttered toast. Emphasis on the “buttered.” It's a simple enough preparation. It seems like something anybody could do. I, myself, have been doing it since around the age of five.

I Googled “buttered toast” and was rewarded with numerous results containing actual recipes for how to make buttered toast. Seriously. But the very first one pretty much summed up the process: “Evenly spread butter onto toasted bread using a butter knife or spreader.” Ah-HA! THERE'S the rub! It's those first two words, “evenly spread.”

See, when I make buttered toast at home, I by golly make buttered toast. That means that you can actually see the butter on the toast and it also means that said butter is “ evenly spread” from the top of the bread slice to bottom and from side to side and corner to corner. In short, the toast is completely, thoroughly, and unequivocally buttered.

Not so in your average breakfast emporium. In many of those establishments I have to bring out a magnifying glass to detect the little spot of butter they administer with an eyedropper to the center of the slice of toasted bread. And in a lot of places, it's not even real butter but rather some unholy chemical concoction euphemistically labeled as “buttery spread,” “butter-flavored spread,” or my favorite “Liquid Butter,” which is actually liquid and hydrogenated soybean oil with a trace of salt, soy lecithin, and natural and artificial flavor, with beta carotene added for color and with dimethylpolysiloxane thrown in as an anti-foaming agent.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time I asked for buttered toast that it didn't arrive on my plate with a vague yellow smear across the center of the bread that made it look as though Remy, the delightful little rat/chef from the Disney classic “Ratatouille,” had dipped his tail in butter and scampered quickly across the surface.

Actually, I really do know why restaurants serve sub-par buttered toast. I don't like the answer any more than I like the surcharge on eggs, but.....

Let's bring Remy back into the discussion. A good chef like Remy would know that the magic number for an even, thick coating of butter on a piece of toast is one-and-a-half tablespoons. That's equal to about three-quarters of an ounce.

But, being a canny and cost-conscious little guy, Remy would realize that, with sixteen ounces to a pound, he's getting twenty-one slices of toast per pound of butter. As I'm writing this today, a pound of salted butter at my favorite restaurant wholesaler is going for about $3.25 for the cheap stuff and about $4.25 for the better quality product. Let's split the difference at $3.75. Twenty-one slices of toast per pound of butter equals roughly eighteen cents worth of butter per slice of toast.

Now, the standard two pound (thirty-two ounce) loaf of white sandwich bread that most restaurants use contains about twenty-eight slices and wholesales for about $5.25. Roughly nineteen cents a slice. Nineteen cents worth of bread and about eighteen cents worth of butter equals around thirty-seven cents that Remy's got to shell out for every slice of toast he serves if he's preparing it thoroughly buttered with real butter. An “order” of toast is generally two slices, so about seventy-four cents for an order of well-buttered toast. If Remy has a hundred covers (restaurant-speak for “diners” or “customers”) a day for breakfast, he's spending $74 a day on toast. $518 a week. $2,072 a month. You get the idea.

Now, “Liquid Butter,” on the other hand, wholesales for about $11.50 a gallon. There's 128 ounces in a gallon and if Remy just dips and smears maybe a teaspoon of cheap butter substitute on the toast he serves, that's 1/6 of a fluid ounce or about a penny-and-a-half per slice of toast. Add the bread back in to the equation and Remy can prepare a slice of “buttered” toast in this manner for about twenty-one cents. Forty-two cents an order. Forty-two bucks per hundred covers, etc. Does it matter that it's a crappy excuse for buttered toast? Nah. Not when the bottom line is on the line.

And then there's the toast itself. Inconsistent, at best. My grandmother used to like her toast burned to the consistency of carbon. Don't ask me why. My mother, on the other hand, liked hers barely warmed. A little brown was okay, but don't overdo it. Most restaurants strive to hit the middle ground. But lately I've been getting a lot of toast that is charred black on one side and barely warmed on the other. Or it's not really “toasted” at all. Lacking an actual four or six-slice commercial toaster in the kitchen, the cooks are slapping the bread in a pan or on the flattop and “toasting” it that way, or they're putting it on a sheet tray and sticking it under a broiler for a minute or two. Yes, technically it's “toasted,” but it's not really toast.

Tell you what; if you're gonna jack up the price of eggs by half-a-buck to cover the increased cost, I'd be willing to fork over an extra quarter to have a real, honest-to-goodness slice of buttered toast on my plate next to those high-dollar eggs. Real toast. Real butter. Slathered all over.

But I, as usual, am naught but a voice crying in the wilderness. It ain't gonna happen. And since Waffle House, IHOP, et.al. would likely look askance at me for bringing in my own buttered toast, I suppose my breakfast fate is sealed.

Or toasted.

What's The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread? How About A Day Honoring Sliced Bread?

What's So Great About Sliced Bread?

C'mon, you know you've said it: “It's the greatest thing since sliced bread.” Of course, since practically nobody knows what unsliced bread is anymore, that bit of hyperbole has lost some of its punch over the years. Still, pretty much everybody knows that the classic idiomatic phrase refers to something extraordinary – especially a newer discovery – that will likely be a significant improvement. “But what,” you may ask, “is so great about sliced bread?”

Bread has been around for a long, long time. There's archaeological evidence that a rudimentary form of flatbread was known in Europe thirty-thousand years ago. Most of the breads we recognize in Western culture today are the leavened variety that come out of ovens as loaves. Some loaves are round, others are elongated, some are oval shaped, and some, like what we commonly call “sandwich bread,” are kind of squarish. The round, elongated, or oval loaves can be broken apart for consumption or even eaten “as is,” but the traditional “sandwich loaf” pretty much has to be sliced in order to be of any use. And that can be a problem.

People who live in the “modern age” where all you have to do to make a sandwich is open a plastic bag and take out a couple of perfectly machine-sliced pieces of bread don't really have an appreciation for what it takes to slice bread. My grandmother had to do it. And I do it myself. It takes a good bread knife and a keen eye to achieve uniformity. You don't want slices that are too thick or too thin. Or a thick slice paired with a thin slice. You particularly don't want slices that start out thick at the top and wind up thin at the bottom or vice-versa. There's also a talent to slicing up a loaf of bread – especially fresh bread – without crushing it as you cut. Slicing bread can be a time-consuming, frustrating chore.

Enter a guy named Otto F. Rohwedder, an inventor from Iowa. Over the course of about a decade of trial and error, he came up with a concept for “A Machine For Slicing An Entire Loaf Of Bread At A Single Operation,” an idea he patented on November 26, 1928. But the initial reaction among commercial bread bakers was not exactly what Rohwedder no doubt hoped it would be. In fact, the contraption was something of a hard sell at first.

To begin with, bakers were unconvinced that consumers wanted pre-sliced bread. Up to that point, I guess, nobody had been beating down the bakery doors asking for such a commodity. Then there were concerns about freshness. An unsliced loaf of bread stays fresher longer. Once you cut into it, it begins to go stale fairly quickly. To address these concerns, the inventor originally conceptualized the use of pins to hold the sliced loaf together. Since unpinning individual slices of bread wasn't an idea that appealed to anybody, Rohwedder approached the issue from a different angle: he amended the way the sliced bread would be packaged. There were no convenient plastic bags with little twist ties in those days. Instead, Rohwedder suggested wrapping each freshly-sliced loaf in thick wax paper. And so it was done. Eventually, cellophane took the place of wax paper before ultimately giving way to plastic. Come to think of it, I can actually remember wax paper-wrapped bread covered in cellophane packaging. Jeez, I'm old.

Anyway, the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, decided to give Rohwedder’s unconventional device a shot. They installed his machine and began to sell “Kleen Maid Sliced Bread” on July 7, 1928. The local newspaper carried both a front page news story and a full back page advertisement for the new-fangled gimmick in an effort to convince people that sliced bread really was a great thing. Selling points included statements like, “After all the idea of sliced bread is not unlike the idea of ground coffee, sliced bacon and many other modern and generally accepted products which combine superior results with a saving of time and effort.” The article goes on to prophetically enthuse, “So neat and precise are the slices, and so definitely better than anyone could possibly slice by hand with a bread knife that one realizes instantly that here is a refinement that will receive a hearty and permanent welcome.”

Needless to say, sliced bread quickly became the greatest thing since......well, you get the idea. By 1930, the Taggart Baking Company of Indianapolis had built its own slicing machines and was sending its soon-to-be-iconic product, Wonder Bread, pre-sliced and wrapped in wax paper packaging festooned with red, yellow, and blue balloons, to retailers nationwide.

And now there is legislation pending in Jefferson City asking Missouri lawmakers to officially designate July 7 as “Missouri Sliced Bread Day.” After all, Chillicothe, a town of about 9,500 folks, goes all out to promote its claim to fame as “The Home of Sliced Bread.” There's a recently erected historical marker in front of the red brick building at 100 Elm Street that formerly housed the Chillicothe Baking Company and there's an annual Sliced Bread Jam Bluegrass Music Festival, too. Supporters of the bill recognize Chillicothe's “piece of very positive history” and believe such a celebration would stimulate the local economy by bringing more tourists to northern Missouri. According to the Chillicothe News, if the proposed holiday becomes a reality, local residents are encouraged to engage in “appropriate activities and events” to celebrate Otto Rohwedder’s game changing creation.

I suppose it's a good thing I don't live anywhere near Chillicothe because I would have a hard time engaging in any appropriate activities. Personally, I don't eat sliced bread. Not since I started baking my own bread many, many years ago. Now, I'd be lying like a politician if I said sliced bread had never passed my lips. Are you kidding? I grew up in the '50s and '60s when moms were assured that the aforementioned Wonder Bread “helps build strong bodies twelve ways.” I think I got shortchanged on about eleven of those ways, but that's neither here nor there. The point is I grew up consuming my fair share of the soft, gummy commodity we're talking about celebrating. But no more. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to make an emergency purchase of store-bought sliced bread in the last several years. Of course, back in Rohwedder's day, bread was still bread; made from flour, water, salt, and a little yeast. Concerns about bread going stale were legitimate in those days because real bread really would spoil in a fairly short amount of time. Unlike today's preservative and additive laden bread-like substances that can sit out on the counter for weeks at a time and still maintain what passes for “freshness.” In other words, it's still nice and soft and gummy. But I still wish Chillicothe luck in their pursuit of sliced bread fame. It's not their fault, or Otto Rohwedder's, either, that the baking industry would ultimately turn a basic, natural dietary staple into a form of chemically enhanced Frankenbread.

Oh, and in case you ever find yourself thinking, “I wonder what was the greatest thing before sliced bread?”, I may have an answer. Apparently that would be wrapped bread since early advertising for  sliced bread touted it as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.” Although I imagine if you were to start saying, “That's the greatest thing since wrapped bread,” people would just give you funny looks. And who knows? Maybe someday I'll make a pilgrimage to Chillicothe just so I can have a slice of bread and stimulate the local economy. I've done stranger things.

Delicious, Versatile Bruschetta: The Real, Original “Garlic Bread” – And More!

A Simple Italian Classic

If you're looking for a great appetizer, hors d'oeuvre, or small plate offering for your next party, family gathering, or just as a snack, look no further than the simple Italian classic bruschetta. Enjoyed hot or tiepido (room temperature), bruschetta is delicious and versatile as well as being quick and easy to prepare. In its most basic form, it's the original Italian “garlic bread.” Add some toppings and you can almost turn it into a full course of its own.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of preparation, let's clear up one major detail: the word “bruschetta,” derived from the Italian verb “bruscare,” is not, has never been, and never will be pronounced “broo-SHET-uh.” Regardless of the way any server at any fast casual or faux-Italian restaurant in the United States pronounces it, the proper pronunciation is “broo-SKET-ah.” Actually, if you want to be completely correct and Italian about it, it would be “broo-SKEHT-tah,” but the anglicized version is close enough to keep Italians from cringing.

“Bruscare” means to roast over coals, so if you have a charcoal grill handy, you're all set. Since, however, it is usually frowned upon to fire up a grill indoors, you'll be fine if you just use your broiler, oven, toaster oven, or even a grill pan – anything that will toast bread to a nice golden color.

As to the bread, a good crusty, rustic loaf is essential. You can't make bruschetta from gummy white sandwich bread. You've got to have something like a baguette, a boule, an Italian loaf, or some other kind of artisan or “country-style” bread. Something you can slice up nice and thick. And the thickness of the slice counts when it comes to piling on the toppings. “Crostini,” or “little toasts,” can be thin and delicate. Bruschette (that's the plural form of “bruschetta”) are meant to be thick and hearty.

When it comes to toppings, the sky's the limit. Olive oil is pretty much a default. In fact, some people believe that bruschetta has its origins in ancient Rome, where olive growers bringing their olives to market for pressing would sample the taste of the freshly pressed oil on chunks of toasted bread. From there you can add on garlic, herbs, tomatoes, cheese, cured meat, anchovies, salmon, olives, capers – the list is limited only by your taste and creativity.

At its most basic, bruschetta is the original “garlic bread.” There is no such thing in Italian cuisine as the “garlic bread” served in American Italian restaurants. Cheap bread slathered to the point of sogginess with garlic flavored butter is something you'll never find on an Italian table, no matter how “authentic” your local eatery claims to be. Real Italian “garlic bread” is just a simple bruschetta, prepared with four ingredients: bread, garlic, olive oil, and salt.

To start, slice your bread about 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick and toast it by whatever means you've chosen. Both sides, please. Next, while the bread is still warm, peel a clove of fresh garlic and cut an end off the clove. Lightly rub the cut end of the garlic clove over the surface of your toasted bread. One side or the other is fine; you don't have to do both sides. Don't overdo it. Fresh garlic is powerful stuff and it's easy to go from “flavorful” to “garlicky.” You may like “garlicky,” but not everyone does, so a light hand is better than a heavy one. Now brush the prepared side with a light coating of good quality olive oil. Don't soak it or saturate it: you just want the flavor of the oil. Finally, sprinkle a few grains of coarse salt, like Kosher salt, over the top to finish. And that's it: real Italian “garlic bread.” If you want to throw a little Italian seasoning or oregano on there to gild the lily, go for it. Or you can add some mozzarella cheese on top and stick it back under the broiler until the cheese melts and gets just a little golden brown. Tah-dah! Garlic cheese bread!

There's a little controversy over method here. Some schools will tell you to oil the bread before you toast it. Others say toast first, then oil, the theory being that toasting the bread with the oil on it will affect the flavor of the oil. I've done it both ways and can't really tell much of a difference. That said, I do tend to be a proponent of the “toast first” method.

The most classic form of bruschetta is Bruschetta Pomodoro, or Tomato Bruschetta. And it begins with the procedure you just read. The difference is, in this case you definitely want the mozzarella. If you prefer, you can use fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano instead of mozzarella. And instead of oregano or Italian seasoning, you'll need some basil. Fresh is best but dried is okay. And, of course, some tomatoes. Red or yellow, or a mix of both, chopped or cut to a fine dice. (“Brunoise” is the fancy-pants French culinary term for it.)

Toast your bread and prepare it with the olive oil, garlic, and salt as described above. Add the mozzarella – or whatever cheese you've chosen – and put it back under or in the heat source to melt the cheese.  (A broiler or oven works best: you really don't want to put cheese in your toaster.) While the cheese is melting, mix the tomatoes and basil together. If you're using fresh basil, just tear up a few leaves. If you're going with dried basil, a little goes a long way. Once the cheese has melted and browned a bit, remove the bread from the broiler/oven and top it with the tomato-basil mixture. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar adds a nice little zing, but that's just a “serving suggestion.” Serve warm or at room temperature.

As I said, you can top a bruschetta with just about anything. Prosciutto and mozzarella (or Parmesan) is good. (You know, ham and cheese?) A little smoked salmon, maybe, with some sour cream and capers? Heck, bruschetta is even a good vehicle for egg salad or grilled vegetables – think open-faced sandwich and go from there.

Here's something a little different: bruschetta with gorgonzola and honey. Prepare your basic plain bruschetta and top it with gorgonzola cheese instead of mozzarella. Melt the cheese as suggested and then drizzle the finished product with a little honey. Gorgonzola, arugula, and raisins are also a tasty option, especially with a little red wine vinaigrette.

If you're a fan of fungus, try some mushrooms. Cook up a batch of your favorites and slap 'em on top of the aforementioned toasted, oiled, salted bread.

A little white bean salad makes a great bruschetta topping as does tuna with a little lemon and some capers.

You can even make dessert bruschetta. In these instances, you will probably want to 86 the oil, garlic, and salt. Just toast up the bread and top it with Nutella. Or, if you feel fancy, mix some ricotta with powdered sugar, orange zest, and a pinch of salt. Spread the mixture on your toasted bread and finish with slices of orange and some shaved chocolate or mini chocolate chips.

Inspired yet? I am. Excuse me while I go heat up the broiler.

Buon appetito!

Eating Italian Food Like An Italian

Spoons? No. Knife and Fork? Yes

In survey after survey, Italian food remains the most popular “ethnic” cuisine in America. So it's a mystery to me how so many Americans don't know how to eat it. This is particularly true of the two most popular representations of “Italian food,” spaghetti and pizza.

“Now wait a minute,” you say. “What is there to eating Italian food? You open your mouth, shovel it in, chew it, swallow it, and repeat the process until it's gone.” And if that's your take on it, don't bother reading any further because I can't help you. But if you're interested in the correct way to eat Italian food – the way Italians eat it – please read on.

Let's start with spaghetti. The only utensil you need for spaghetti is a fork. In fact, Italians are responsible for popularizing the fork throughout Europe back in Renaissance times. It's the perfect tool for negotiating longs strands of pasta. You don't need a knife and you don't need a spoon.

I've never understood the penchant some people exhibit toward reducing everything to “bite-size.” In the case of long pasta, it's supposed to be long and it's intended to be eaten that way. In Asian cultures, it's acceptable to slurp long noodles. In Italian culture, you twirl them around a fork. In neither case do you ever cut them up with a knife. In many instances, it's considered rude and unmannerly. And some Asians equate long noodles with long life. Do you really want to risk cutting your life short? I don't think Italians have any such superstitions; it's just something that's only done by children and adults with bad manners. I guess that explains the popularity of Spaghetti-Os. I'm sorry, but I was lifting and twirling pasta proficiently by the time I was ten. And I was a late bloomer compared to children in Italy. I know of marriages that almost didn't take place because an Italian or Italian-American girl brought her American boyfriend home for dinner and her family reacted with horror when he cut up the spaghetti. It's just not done.

Using a spoon won't get you the same look of revulsion; it's more like pity. Whenever I go to a so-called “Italian” restaurant and they bring me a horse trough full of spaghetti (portions are another issue for another time) with a big spoon stuck in it, I ask, “Do I look like a bambino to you?” Because in Italian culture, children are the only ones who use spoons as an aid to twirling spaghetti around a fork. As I said, I had the technique down before I was ten, and I'm only part Italian.

At this point you might say, “Okay, bocca grande, then how DO you eat spaghetti like an Italian?” And I'll tell you: Put your fork into a few strands of spaghetti. Note the word “few.” You’re not trying to gather up the entire serving in one mouthful. Rest the tines of the fork against the curvature of the bowl or against the curved edge of the plate. (More on plate vs. bowl in a minute.) Twirl the fork around while at the same time lifting it briefly from the plate to keep too much pasta from accumulating at one time. When you have gathered an appropriate bite, lift it quickly to your mouth. There should be only enough pasta on the fork to comfortably fit in your mouth without your having to ratchet your jaws open and, as cute as it might have been in “Lady and the Tramp,” you should not have to slurp up long, dangling strands of spaghetti. If you do get too much on your fork, or if you have lots of dangling strands, just start over again. If at first it takes half an hour to eat that serving of spaghetti, trust me, practice will make perfect.

The number one complaint about the “twirling” method of spaghetti consumption is that the sauce splashes on your nice white shirtfront. There are a few things you can do to make it easier on yourself and on your wardrobe. First off, do as I do and wear black. (Just kidding…although it’s not a bad idea.) Seriously, though, one of the reasons the whole “spoon” thing came to be is that once upon a time, for reasons nobody can fathom, Americans served spaghetti exclusively on plates. In Italy, spaghetti is generally served in broad, shallow bowls. The flat surface of a plate does not lend itself well to chasing and capturing spaghetti, hence the introduction of the spoon. But if you use a bowl, the natural curvature of the bowl does what the spoon would do, so no spoon is necessary.

Now we turn to the big controversy, one which even embroiled the mayor of New York not long ago: how to eat pizza. The answer is.......it depends.

Hizzoner got in hot water for eating his pizza with a knife and fork. This is because many New Yorkers believe the only way to eat a slice of pizza is to pick it up, fold it over, and stuff it in your face. Most other Americans just grab a slice and gnaw away, starting at the pointy end and working their way to the edge. (That edge is called a cornicione in Italian, in case you wanted to learn something trivial and new today.)

Pick it up, cut it up, fold it up......what IS the right way to eat pizza? All of the above. It depends on the type of pizza and where you're eating it. Obviously, if you're dealing with one of those tomato and cheese casseroles that Chicagoans erroneously identify as “pizza,” you're gonna need a knife and fork....and maybe a chainsaw. Ain't no way you're ever gonna get one of those bad boys to fold. And as far as picking up a slice? Fuhgeddaboudit! Only if you want to wear half of it.

At the same time, a slice of that skinny little New York pizza is just as likely to end up on your shirt as in your mouth when you try to fold it over. Notice that people who do it that way fold it and stuff it really quick. And usually while bending over or leaning over so as not to redecorate their wardrobe. Thank you, no. I'd rather take my time and savor the flavor and not have to worry about running to the dry cleaner.

One thing you've got to understand: in Italy, they don't serve pizza the way they do in America. Unless you're in a tourist joint. You're not going to get a 12 or 14 or 16 or 18-inch pizza brought to your table all sliced up in neat wedges ready for you to pick up and eat. What you will get is an uncut round “pie” about the size of your plate along with a knife and fork. You use your knife and fork to cut the pie into quarters and then you continue to cut bites out of the quarters until you reach a point where you can cleanly and comfortably pick up the remainder of the slice, which you can then either fold over or simply continue to munch flat. Neapolitans – the inventors of pizza – tend to be folders. And since that's where most New York pizza makers hailed from back in the day, it's no mystery that the custom caught on within Neapolitan neighborhoods. Order a pizza in Rome or most other Italian locales and you'll see mostly cutting with a knife and eating with a fork until you can pick up what's left. And that's the way I eat mine whether it's a pizza I make at home or one I order in a restaurant or pizzeria.

By the way......I saw an ad the other day for a “pizzaria.” If I'd been the owner of the place, I wouldn't have paid for the ad. I know there's no “e” in “pizza” and that the word sounds like “peets-ah-REE-ah” when you say it, but the reason it's spelled with an “e” is because “pizze” is the proper plural of “pizza.” Just because adding an “s” makes everything plural in English, it's not so in Italian, where the word “pizzas” does not exist. So when you're a place that makes more than one pizza, you're making “pizze” and that makes you a “pizzeria.”

Can we talk about bread for a minute? In Italy, bread is life. Bread is a part of nearly every meal. Everybody eats bread. But they don't treat it like an appetizer and eat it before a meal. Sorry, Olive Garden and every other faux-Italian place in the country. A real Italian ristorante will bring your bread with your meal, because that's when you're supposed to eat it. Obviously, bread covered in some kind of topping, in the form of bruschetta or crostini, is intended to eat as an antipasto, but just plain bread or “breadsticks” is not supposed to be its own course. While it's okay to dip that kind of bread in oil as an accompaniment to another course, it is most commonly intended for you to fare la scarpetta or “make the little shoe” to sop up any remaining traces of sauce on your plate. I used to think that was pretty disgusting when I was a kid watching my grandmother do it, but I've learned a lot since then. A word of caution: the little shoe thing is only done on relatively informal occasions. You probably wouldn’t do it at a state dinner or some other highfalutin' soiree, but at home or with friends and family, go for it.

Finally, there's coffee. In Italy, there's always coffee; more than a dozen different preparations of it. Italians love coffee as much as Americans, if not maybe a little more. After all, they had it first. But they have much stricter rules about how and when to drink it.

First off, when you order a coffee, or un caffè, in Italy, you will automatically be served a cup of espresso. Actually, you'll be served a demitasse, literally “half cup”, of espresso. Espresso is, shall we say, rather stout and I don't think anybody could handle it in the quart-size coffee mugs Americans prefer. The intensity of espresso comes not from the type of bean or the roast, but rather from the method by which it is prepared. Finely ground coffee is tightly packed into a “portafilter.” Then high-pressure water is forced through the grounds and extracted in small, concentrated amounts. If done properly, the results are not dark and bitter as most Americans seem to think, but very bold and quite pleasant.

As I said, there are many preparations of Italian coffee. I'm not going to define them all here – maybe a topic for another post – but they include ristretto, lungo, machiatto, cappucino, caffè doppio, caffè breve, caffè latte, caffè con panna, and, of course, caffè Americano. The last is a watered down version of espresso served in a large cup, which only Americans drink. Even in its weak state, it is still considerably stronger than typical American coffee.

Now about those rules: the main one is that coffee is primarily served after a meal. It is seldom served as a beverage with a meal, as is common in the United States. The only exception might be colazione, or breakfast, which, in Italy, consists of a cup of coffee and a pastry.

Speaking of breakfast, another rule dictates that cappuccino is only for breakfast. Don't try to order it after noon or you'll be subject to much suspicion and derision. And, unlike espresso, cappuccino is consumed with the meal rather than after it.

You don't linger over coffee in Italy. They don't call it a “shot” of espresso for nothing. You are expected to down your beverage in one or two gulps. It should never take you more than a minute to finish a cup of coffee. Often you don't even bother to sit down to drink it. And don't be surprised if the price changes depending upon whether you choose to drink standing at the bar or sitting at a table. It's an Italian thing. Fortunately for American coffee drinkers, most “Italian” places in the States don't follow any of these rules and you are free to drink as you please. Just don't try the freewheeling approach in Italy.

The takeaway? If you want to eat like an Italian, it's okay to eat pizza with a knife and fork, but it's not okay to use a knife or a spoon with spaghetti. Don't fill up on bread before a meal and wait until after your meal to bolt down your shot of strong coffee.

Ora sei un italiano! Congratulazioni e buon appetito!

Food Gifts For The Holidays (And Any Other Time)

Order Great Food From These Places Any Time Of Year

The holidays are here and it's time for (trumpet fanfare) my first annual holiday food gift guide. To be honest, I'll probably list the same places for my second, third, and any subsequent holiday food gift guides, just because they're that good. And don't be stuck on the “holiday” aspect. You can order great food from these places any time of year, whether for gifts or just as a treat for yourself.

Bear in mind, these are not places I picked at random through an online search: these are quality producers I have actually visited and frequented and whose products I use myself. Most are artisans who carefully handcraft their goods. A couple are commercial manufacturers, but they produce a quality product that I appreciate and am happy to recommend.

Let's begin with chocolate.

Nestled up in the peaks of the Blue Ridge mountains near Asheville is the little town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. It's a great little vacation spot and a mecca for antique shoppers. It's also where Black Mountain Chocolate got its start. Their logo says “Crafted From The Bean,” and that's what makes Black Mountain Chocolate's chocolate so good. Black Mountain Chocolate is an Ecole Chocolat Certified Chocolate Maker. They start with fresh cocoa beans, which they roast, crack, winnow, and grind right there in their factory. Then they further hand craft all that chocolate goodness into a variety of finished products that include incredible small batch chocolate bars, chocolate treats like cocoa nib granola and chocolate pecan butter, and a unique drinking chocolate that is unlike any you've had before.

You can order online or you can visit the factory and kitchen and buy direct at the source. But don't plan a trip to Black Mountain just yet because they moved the whole shebang to Winston-Salem, North Carolina awhile back. The new digs are in the heart of the artsy district of downtown Winston-Salem at 732 N. Trade Street. You can call them at 336-293-4698. You can also follow them on Facebook or log on to http://www.blackmountainchocolate.com. I promise, once you've had Black Mountain Chocolate, you'll never eat another Hershey bar.

A day without bacon is like a day without joy. And no place on earth is more joyful than Madisonville, Tennessee, home to Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams.

Allen Benton produces pork products par excellence. His eponymous country hams are, indeed, legendary, and he makes a prosciutto worthy of any Italian artisan. But it's Benton's bacon that makes the world beat a path to his door – literally. Allen's place is located on the outskirts of Madisonville, a hamlet just a little ways south of Knoxville and a stone's throw away from the Great Smoky Mountains. And I've never been in the place that I haven't found Allen chatting with somebody from California or Florida or Texas or New York. Or China. Or Australia. Seriously. There isn't a chef worth his Michelin star that doesn't drool over Benton's bacon and Allen's client list reads like a James Beard “Who's Who.” Besh, Brock, Chang, Colicchio, Keller – a veritable roll call of top chefs.

So, if the stuff's so great, why can't you run down to your local Kroger and buy a pound? Oh, it's not for a lack of effort on the part of national grocery chains. Several of them have approached Allen about distributing his product. But Allen makes bacon the way his grandparents made it back in Scott County, Virginia and if he were to sell out to Kroger, et.al., he'd have to change the way he makes his bacon, and he ain't about to do it. And, frankly, with dozens of world-renowned chefs buying the stuff in hundred-pound increments, he doesn't have to.

You can follow the path to Allen Benton's door at 2603 Highway 411 N. in Madisonville, Tennessee. Or you can call him at 423-442-5003. Or just go online at http://bentonscountryhams2.com and order the pinnacle of pork products for yourself.

Not too far up the road from Allen Benton's Madisonville smokehouse is the the town of Philadelphia, Tennessee. There's not a lot happening in Philadelphia, located just off I-75 on the way to or from Knoxville. It's kind of a quiet place. I mean, how much noise can 533 people make? But cows? Now that's a different story. The cows out on West Lee Highway at Sweetwater Valley Farm make a lot of noise – and some the best cheese you'll ever eat.

The billboards along I-75 read, “Cheese. Cows. Wows!” And I heartily agree with the “wows” part. Well....I agree about the cheese and the cows, too, but “wow” is all you can say once you've been there. Sweetwater Valley Farm produces award-winning cheeses, which, although produced in a modern, state-of-the-art facility, preserve the fine art and craft of making cheese in a traditional, old-fashioned farmstead manner. The folks at Sweetwater Valley Farm control the entire process from cow to consumer in order to create the highest quality cheddar cheese available on the market today. Colby, mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, smoked cheddar, and a variety of flavored cheddars like salsa cheddar, tomato-herb cheddar, and roasted garlic pepper cheddar are just the beginning.

Like Benton's bacon, you can't buy Sweetwater Valley Farm cheese in the grocery store. And probably for the same reasons. But you can stop by the farm at 17988 W. Lee Highway in Philadelphia, you can call them at 865-458-9192 or toll free at 877-862-4332, or you can check them out online at http://www.sweetwatervalley.com. Any way you slice it, Sweetwater Valley Farm's cheese will make you say “wow!”

While we're on the subject of cheese, let's scoot on over to North Carolina where Ashe County Cheese is among the most popular tourist attractions in the state. Originally started by Kraft in the 1930s as part of the company's efforts to consolidate several small cheese plants in the area, the facility has undergone many changes over the years. It is currently under the ownership of an award-winning Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, producing everything from old style cheddar daisy wheels to a wide variety of cheeses and butter, including its original Sienna cheese, its many flavored cheeses, and its newest variety, Juusto cheese – a mild Scandinavian cheese. Cheese curds are a Wisconsin staple and Ashe County Cheese has 'em. They also have a delicious Mountain Gouda and a couple of varieties of hard to find hoop cheese, a traditional cheese made only from milk.

Ashe County cheese products are available at several specialty shops and farmers markets in North Carolina. The best place to go, though, is right to the source. They have a huge showroom in West Jefferson, North Carolina and they make cheese several days a week, so don't be surprised to find a tour bus parked out front at 106 E. Main Street. Of course, if West Jefferson is not exactly on your way home, you can call them at 336-246-2501 or visit online at http://www.ashecountycheese.com.

And what's cheese without bread? La Farm Bakery in Cary, North Carolina is an amazing place. It's a little bit of France transplanted to a growing community in The Triangle area that also includes Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. French-trained Maitre Boulanger (Master Baker) and James Beard Award semifinalist Lionel Vatinet produces bread that will change your perception of bread, especially if all you've ever had for reference is awful store-bought stuff. I've baked all my own breads for many years, and Lionel's stunningly beautiful and delicious loaves of pure ambrosia simply make me weep. Rustic Italian, Pain de Mie, Ciabatta, and Challah are just a few of the fantastic breads you'll discover. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of all the wonderful cakes, cookies, tarts, and other delectable baked goods made fresh every day.

Unfortunately, all these goodies are fresh, wholesome, and natural, made with only the finest ingredients, most locally sourced, and are completely preservative free. That means if you live in California, say, and want a loaf boxed up and sent to your door......it probably ain't gonna happen. Most of La Farm's awesome products are only available in store. They also sell to a variety of Raleigh-area Whole Foods stores and farmers markets. BUT.....don't despair: La Farm does offer a limited selection of breads in a sampler that is available for delivery. They also have a signature gift basket and a variety of mixes and other products available for shipment as gifts. (Of course, if you order them and don't give them to anybody, who's to know?)

When I'm in the area, I will literally go a hundred miles out of my way to stop in Cary and stock up at La Farm. It doesn't hurt that they also have a great little cafe on premises that serves fabulous fare made from the fruits of their labors. It's all located in the Preston Corners Shopping Center at 4248 NW Cary Parkway in Cary. Call them at 919-657-0657 or check them out at https://www.lafarmbakery.com.

“Sweet In Every Sense Since 1947,” Kilwins Chocolate Kitchen is known for its rich and creamy ice cream. And if you've never had it, there aren't enough “o”s in “good” to really describe it. But there's so much more to Kilwins – fortunate since ordering ice cream by mail is an “iffy” proposition. Headquartered in Michigan, there are Kilwins stores all over the place; there's probably one near you. I've got two of them within an hour's drive. But just in case, they also do a brisk mail order business, bringing some of the best chocolates, fudges, caramel corn, brittles, and toffees you've ever put in your mouth right to your door. There are shipping restrictions on some of their more perishable products, so maybe a Kilwins gift card might be a good idea. As I said, there are stores all over the place. A bunch of them are in “touristy”places like the aforementioned Black Mountain, North Carolina, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Branson, Missouri, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and on just about every street corner in Florida. But there are a lot of them in “regular” locations, too. Besides the ice cream, I'm a big fan of the caramel corn, but there's not a single thing in the inventory that I wouldn't gladly make that hour's drive to get. Really. Check 'em out at https://www.kilwins.com.

While we're on the topic of snacks, I would be terribly remiss if I failed to mention a couple of my all-time favorite snack sources. I never met a potato chip I didn't like, but I really love Utz Potato Chips. Utz chips are at home in Hanover, Pennsylvania but they are found in homes all along the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to Georgia. And beyond, thanks to a burgeoning mail order business.

I like Utz chips for the full potato flavor and light texture, but the thing I most appreciate is the comparative lack of sodium. At 95 mg, Utz chips have about half the sodium of almost every other chip on the market. (There's 170 mg in Lays.) In fact, after years of enjoying the natural potato taste of Utz, I find other chips way too salty.

Of course, Utz is more than just potato chips. They have a full line of snack products – pretzels, cheese balls, potato sticks, and much more. My wife is particularly partial to their popcorn. Last time we were in Hanover, we stopped at the Utz Factory Store and stocked up on our favorites. But you don't have to make a pilgrimage to Pennsylvania to enjoy Utz in your home. Just head to http://utzsnacks.com and order to your heart's content. But if you do happen to be in Hanover – say you've just visited nearby Hershey or Gettysburg – pop in to 861 Carlisle Street and prepare to be delighted.

One more, and it's mostly a nostalgia entry. As a kid growing up just north of Chicago, my love of potato chips was nurtured by Jays. As the slogan says, “Can't Stop Eating 'Em.” And that's been true for more than 80 years. In those pre-Internet ordering days, Jay's chips were only available in or near the Chicago area, so I lost touch with my first love when I moved out of Chicagoland around age 10. I'd stock up from time to time on visits back home, but, alas, they were a fleeting pleasure. Until the World Wide Web made all things possible. And that includes having Jays signature Jays Potato Chips, Jays Ridges Potato Chips, Jays Waves Potato Chips, Jays Kettle Cooked Potato Chips, and a full line of other snacks like shoestring potato sticks (my other favorite), pork rinds, corn chips and cheese puffs delivered right to my door. And again, my wife is addicted to their popcorn, marketed under the O-KE-DOKE label.

Sadly, the Jays products that I knew and loved as a child, the ones made by the Japp family at a manufacturing plant in the Windy City, are gone now, absorbed into a larger snack conglomerate and distributed as a subsidiary of Snyder's of Hanover. On the bright side, I stumbled upon some Jays chips recently and found that, even though that nostalgic “hometown” element is gone, the folks at Snyders – coincidentally also based in Hanover, Pennsylvania – have done a fine job of retaining the character of the product so it remains largely as it was when I experienced my first blush of crispy potato infatuation. Happily, even today I “Can't Stop Eating 'Em,” and I would encourage you to eat some, too. Find Jays products online at http://www.snyderslance.com/branddetails/brandjays.

Happy Holidays! And if you happen to be reading this in June, remember it's never too early to plan for the future.

A Deadly Bread Additive And A Killer Bread Recipe

The “Staff Of Life” May Be Trying To Kill You

I make no secret of the fact that I don't buy bread. Haven't in many, many years. Oh, maybe the very rare “emergency loaf,” but even then I buy it from the supermarket's bakery section. At least it's closer to being bread that way. The plastic-wrapped bread-like substances that inhabit grocery shelves are not welcome in my kitchen. I don't like the taste – or lack thereof. I don't like the gummy, pasty texture. And I really don't care to be embalmed before I'm dead by all the preservatives. The idea that I can buy a loaf of “bread” that will still be “good”.....well.... intact anyway....after several weeks in my breadbox is frankly horrifying. Like the bread my mother made when I was growing up, the bread I make today begins to mold after about a week. Less in really hot, humid weather. And that's what bread is supposed to do. It's not supposed to last until Gabriel's trumpet blows. This store-bought Franken-bread that seems to live forever is just plain unnatural.

And now the word is the stuff can kill you.

A lot of cheap, store-bought breads and other baked goods are often made with bromated flour. That is flour to which potassium bromate has been added. This additive is used to strengthen dough, increase its rise in the oven, and to impart a nice white color to the bread. Tests on lab animals also indicate that it causes significant increases in kidney, thyroid, and other cancers. A recent (2011) study shows that potassium bromate can damage human DNA and cause oxidative stress. Potassium bromate is nephrotoxic in humans, meaning it has a poisonous effect on the kidneys when it’s taken orally. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified the substance as a “potential human carcinogen.” And potassium bromate has long been banned as a food additive by the European Union, the U.K., Canada, and Brazil. Here in the U.S. – where we have the best monitoring agency big corporate money can buy – the FDA allows the stuff to be fed to us, although they do set a limit of seventy-five parts per million. Short of banning potassium bromate outright, as other countries have done, our FDA “urges” bakers to “voluntarily” stop using it. And a lot of the major national bakeries have done just that, opting to use other “safer” additives to achieve the same effect. But many of the smaller, local “mom and pop” bakers still use the stuff because it's cheap and easy. Check your labels. To date, only California requires warnings to be posted on bromated products. Everybody else has to read the fine print.

Watch your flour, too. If you bake at home, beware of bleached and bromated flours. Bleaching and bromating are not the same thing, although they do serve much the same purpose. In bleaching, a chemical like benzoyl peroxide or calcium peroxide is introduced to the flour to aid in gluten development and to make it nice and white. Both of which are entirely unnecessary. And benzoyl peroxide and calcium peroxide are hardly lily white (sorry) when it come to health. The former has many researchers questioning its effects on the human digestive system and the latter, like potassium bromate, has been banned nearly everywhere except in the U.S. Bottom line: buy flour that is clearly labeled as “unbleached” and “unbromated.” I prefer King Arthur and use it exclusively.

Bread has long been called “the staff of life.” How curious and somewhat ironic, then, that modern-day store-bought, conveniently sliced and packaged bread may be trying to kill us. I know that's a bit hyperbolic, but honestly, between the scary preservatives and the possibly carcinogenic additives, it's not far from the truth. All the more reason to make it yourself.

Omar Khayyam waxed rhapsodic about a jug of wine and a loaf of bread. On the subject of bread and "whine," here's my favorite: “I don't have the ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-ime.” Or maybe, “It's too ha-a-a-a-a-ard.” Both are completely specious and bogus excuses. Whether for catering or home use, I bake all my own breads. French baguettes, crusty Italian loaves, pizza crusts, grissini, garlic knots, dinner rolls, sandwich rolls, or just plain old white sandwich bread – I bake 'em all. None take more than a couple of hours and none are at all “ha-a-a-a-a-ard” to make.

One of the easiest and most delicious bread doughs in my repertoire is made up of three ingredients and it doesn't even require kneading. It's a “slack dough” recipe, meaning it produces a very wet dough, and your refrigerator does most of the work. Best of all, the dough keeps in the fridge for up to two weeks. Make up a loaf today and when you use it up, reach into the chill chest, grab another handful of dough, and bake up another loaf. It really is that simple.

A couple of phenomenal bakers, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, produced a wonderful book, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." A lot of other bakers, including yours truly and the skilled artisans at King Arthur, have adopted and adapted their recipe for a delicious “no-knead” crusty artisan bread. You'll never find an easier or more delicious bread than this one.

One quick note: American bakers are the only ones in the world who still use “cups” as a standard of measurement. Everybody else weighs their ingredients. Digital scales are dirt cheap and I use mine for everything. If you're going to get serious about baking (or cooking), rustle up a scale.

For this recipe, you're going to need 907.2 grams (32 ounces; 2 pounds) of unbleached all-purpose flour. Again, I recommend King Arthur, but if you have another preference, just make sure it's unbleached. If you insist on using cups, allow for 6 ½ to 7 ½ cups. The difference is in the method of measuring you use. If you are a “sprinkle and sweeper,” that is, if you kind of fluff up or aerate your flour by scooping it out of the bag and into a cup, then leveling it off, you'll use the greater amount. If you are a “dip and sweeper,” one who dips a cup into the bag, tamps it down and sweeps off the excess, you'll use the lesser amount. If you want to do it right, you'll just weigh it.

You'll also need 3 cups (24 ounces) of lukewarm (about 105°F) water, 1 tablespoon (14 g; ½ oz) salt, and 1 ½ tablespoons (14 g; ½ oz) of instant yeast.

Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix everything together until a very rough, very sticky dough forms. I wouldn't try this one in a bread machine. For one thing, two pounds of flour will overwhelm most of them. Same goes for cheap, low-powered stand mixers. If you don't have a KitchenAid or something of equal power, just mix it by hand using a big wooden paddle or spoon or a dough whisk. If you do have a decent stand mixer, about a minute at medium speed with the beater blade rather than the dough hook will do the job.

Now you just let it rise. My advice would be to invest in a restaurant quality six-quart food grade plastic container. You can get one at a restaurant supply store for five or six bucks. And you can use it for a ton of things besides bread dough. Otherwise, come up with a large sealable plastic container of some sort. You don't have to grease the container, but a shot of Pam will help in the long run. Transfer the dough from the bowl to the prepared container, cover it loosely (don't snap the lid on airtight) and let it sit at room temperature for about two hours. Then stick it in the refrigerator for at least two hours before you try to use it. Overnight is best. The beauty of this is dough is that it can actually live in the fridge for up to two weeks. One week is recommended by some sources, but others say two weeks works. Because of the volume of bread I bake, mine has never lasted more than a week so I don't know from personal experience. The longer you keep it, the more flavor it will develop. Don't be surprised if it tastes a little like sourdough after about a week.

To make bread out of this mass of dough, just reach in there and pull out a big hunk; about ¼ of the dough. If you have a scale, it should weigh in at about one pound, give or take an ounce. You might want to flour your hands a little bit if the dough is really sticky. Hold the dough and dust it with a little flour, then quickly shape it into a ball. Try to get a nice tight surface by stretching the dough around to the bottom on all sides, rotating ¼ turns as you go. Don't worry if it's not perfect.

Place the shaped dough on a parchment lined peel. “Wait a minute,” you ask, “who's got one of those?” Well...I've got two. But a flat, rimless baking sheet works as well. Cover the dough loosely with a towel and let it stand in a warm, draft free place for about one hour or until the dough is slightly puffed up and no longer feels cold.

Thirty minutes before you're ready to bake, place a baking stone on the center oven rack. “Baking stone?” Okay, don't worry about it. Just use the flat baking sheet. And you know that broiler pan that came with your oven that you never use? Time to use it. Stick it on the bottom rack. Now preheat your oven to 450°.

Dust the top of your loaf with a little more flour and, with a very sharp knife, make two or three 1/4-inch deep slashes in the top of the loaf. Then either slide the loaf with the parchment paper onto the baking stone or just slip your parchment lined baking sheet into the oven. Quickly pour a cup of water into the broiler pan (to create steam) and close the oven door.

Bake for thirty minutes or until your loaf is a deep golden brown. If you have an instant read thermometer, your bread should temp at 190° to 200°. But the old “tap it and if it sounds hollow it's done” trick works, too. Cool your boule (that's French for “ball,” which is what you've got) on a wire rack and you've got delicious, nutritious, preservative-free bread. How nutritious? I'll tell you: an average slice contains 80 cal; 0 g total fat; 0 g unsaturated fat; 2.5 g protein; 16.5 g carb; 0 mg cholesterol; 135 mg sodium; .5 g fiber.

There you have it: a killer recipe for bread that won't try to kill you. Enjoy!

Buon appetito!

A Super-Simple Bread Recipe You'll Really Love

Don't Buy It, Bake It

I've written reams about the virtues of home-baked bread over that gummy, preservative-laden, bread-like substance you buy in the supermarket. So this isn't going to be another rant; just a recipe for the simplest, most delicious bread ever.

This recipe is for a “boule.” That's French for “ball,” and the recipe turns out a couple of very rustic loaves that resemble slightly squashed balls. Slice 'em up for fantastic sandwich bread, fabulous toast, or just to have some great, fresh bread on the table. I catered a luncheon for twenty-some people a little while back, and I put baskets of this bread on the tables along with some herbed olive oil for dipping and some soft butter for spreading. Not a single slice came back when we cleared the tables.

The best thing about this recipe – besides delicious bread – is the fact that you don't need a slew of special equipment to make it. Parchment paper and a baking stone produce the best results, but you can make do with just a baking sheet. And if you've got a mixer, food processor, or bread machine to make the dough, great. If not, you can make it by hand.

Here's what you'll need:

1 ½ cups of warm water (about 110° F)

1 ½ teaspoons instant dry yeast

3 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon Kosher salt

1 teaspoon diastatic malt powder (optional)

A few ingredient notes: 110° F is a good target temperature for working with yeast. If your water temp is below 100° your yeast will be sluggish to react and if you exceed 115° it'll croak. Use a thermometer if you've got one, otherwise just think “lukewarm.” If the water feels “cold” or “hot” to you, the wee yeasties will probably think so too.

Always use unbleached, unbromated flour. My preference is King Arthur. Potassium bromate is an additive you don't really need or want. Originally used as an “improver,” it has since been linked to cancer and banned almost everywhere – except, of course, in the U.S. Here, our watchdog/lapdog FDA has not actually banned the use of bromate, but since 1991 they have “encouraged” bakers not to use it. And “bleached” flour is just that: flour that has been bleached by the addition of a whitening agent, usually benzoyl peroxide or calcium peroxide. Again, it's an attempt to “improve” on nature, and you don't need it. And, again, it's banned in Europe but not in the U.S.

I call for Kosher salt here, but you can use common salt as well. In fact, I don't usually use Kosher salt in baking, but it seems to work well in this recipe. Just remember, common salt is “more salty” so only use about 1 ½ to 2 teaspoons in place of the tablespoon of Kosher salt. And don't use iodized salt if you can help it. Iodized salt is a holdover from an era when a lack of dietary iodine, especially among poorer classes, was a principle cause of goiter and other ailments. Regardless of economic status, everybody used salt, so health officials started recommending the addition of iodine to salt. It's not really necessary anymore, but iodized salt is still the most common salt in American kitchens. However, iodine and heat do not play well together. The high temperatures used in baking can cause iodine to break down, often leaving a slightly bitter or metallic taste. If you've ever had homemade bread or baked goods that tasted a little “off” – not enough to make you say “yuck” and throw them away, but just enough to make you go “hmmmm” – they were probably baked using iodized salt.

Finally, you're probably wondering what in the world “diastatic malt powder” is. If you don't have it, don't worry about it. Diastatic malt powder is a "secret ingredient" some bread bakers use to promote a strong rise, great texture, and a nice brown crust. The amylase enzyme in diastatic malt powder breaks down starches into sugars, thus helping with rise, crust and crumb texture in doughs, yielding a good, strong rise, great oven-spring, and a more tender final product. But as nice as it is to have (you can get it at http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/diastatic-malt-powder-16-oz) you don't really need it to make great bread.

Okay. On to the method.

You don't have to proof instant yeast, but I usually do. Add it to ½ cup of the water and wait about five minutes until it gets foamy. (If it doesn't, it's dead and you need to start over with fresher yeast.)

In a large bowl, mix the flours, then add the oil and the diastatic malt (if using). Add the yeast mixture and the remaining water. Mix to incorporate. Allow the dough to rest (autolyse) for a few minutes and then add the salt last. (Salt has an effect on the enzymes in flour, as well as how the water affects gluten development and yeast activity. Letting the dough sit without salt allows for enzymes to do most of the gluten development work before you start actually kneading it, letting it form a developed dough very quickly.)

Mix to form a wet, rough dough and knead for about 5 minutes. You can do this in a mixer or machine, or you can do it by hand.

Place the dough in a lightly greased container, cover and allow to rise for about 2 hours. DO NOT punch it down. You want nice holes in the finished crumb and punching down the dough will push out all the air and will give the bread a denser texture.

Carefully remove the dough to a lightly floured work surface and dust it with a little flour to make it easier to handle. Divide it into two equal pieces (I weigh mine) and shape the pieces into rounds. Cover a peel with parchment paper. Place the formed rounds on the parchment covered peel, cover them with a slightly damp towel, and allow them to rest and rise for 40 to 60 minutes.

Position a baking stone on a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 425°.

When the loaves have risen, make two slashes in the surface, about 1/2-inch deep, using either a baker's lame or a very sharp knife. Lightly dust the surface with flour and slide onto the baking stone. Mist the interior of the oven with water to create steam. (Alternately, you can place a metal pan or rimmed baking sheet in the bottom of the oven while it's preheating. After you place the bread on the stone, toss about ½ cup of ice into the pan to create the steam.)

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

This bread is so good that even when it turns out bad, it's still good. I recently had a run-in involving a couple of extra soft and sticky loaves and a dull knife. When I attempted to slash them, the knife hung up in the sticky dough and dragged through it without leaving a good cut. This, of course, deflated my perfectly risen dough and the resultant loaves looked more like naan on steroids than a nice puffy boule. But when I sliced into it, darn if the crumb and the flavor weren't still perfect. Which proves two things: 1) you need a really sharp knife to slash sticky dough and 2) it's almost impossible to screw up this recipe.

Now go forth and bake some real bread.

To Refrigerate or To Not Refrigerate; That Is the Question

Chill, Baby – Or Not

Standing tall in the average American kitchen is the appliance that changed the world about a hundred years ago. I'm talking about the refrigerator, of course. Or as my grandmother called it to her dying day, the “icebox.” Or, as Alton Brown says, the “chill chest.” Whatever you call it, the technology has certainly changed the way we preserve food.

Used to be, drying or salting or maybe pickling were the only ways to make food last more than a few days. People who lived in icy places recognized another way, but that method was difficult to replicate indoors. That is until somebody came up with the idea of building a wooden box and lining it with tin or zinc and stuffing that lining with cork, sawdust, straw or some other form of insulation. Then they stuck another box or a tray on top and put a big block of ice in that box or tray. The cold produced by the melting ice would sink – because cold air sinks and hot air rises – cooling the interior of the insulated box. And the ice box was born.

That worked well until the early1900s when somebody else thought, “there must be a better way” and came up with one. And the development of the modern refrigerator was underway. By the 1930's, home refrigerators had become ubiquitous, putting people like my dad, who worked in an icehouse, out of work, but vastly improving the quality of life – and of food – for most people.

Some folks began throwing everything in the ol' icebox/refrigerator on the theory that if it's good for some things, it must be good for everything. Not so much. To refrigerate or to not refrigerate; that is the question. And here are some answers.

Obviously, anything that's going to spoil or “go bad” needs to be refrigerated. Meat, for example. Or leftovers. Those are kind of no brainers. But it's not always a matter of maintaining food safety; sometimes it's a case of preserving food quality. And that's where a lot of people go off the track. Especially when it comes to produce. Carrots, celery, lettuce – pretty much anything you find chilled in the produce section of the grocery store should remain chilled once it gets home. But there are some items that fall into gray areas as well as some that should absolutely not be refrigerated.

Apples fall into the gray area. Some people like 'em cold and some prefer them at room temperature. And that's fine if you're dealing with fresh-off-the-tree fruit. Pick some apples and stick them in a nice basket on your table and you have both a quick source of snack food and a nice centerpiece. But if you do your apple picking at the supermarket, chances are those apples were in long-term cold storage before they hit the market. According to Purdue University, “apples are best stored at 30°- 32°F, with a relative humidity of 90 percent and some air circulation. These conditions provide the greatest delay in the normal ripening and aging process of the fruit. Such conditions are necessary because an apple is not dead at the time of harvest. It remains a living, respiring organism and continues to take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide and another gas, ethylene. Since the apple is no longer receiving nutrients from the tree but is still respiring, it must use up the food it has stored over the growing season. As this food is gradually used up during storage, the sugar, starch, and acid content of the apple changes. Eventually the tissues break down (a process enhanced by ethylene gas), water is lost, and the apple withers and decays. The low temperature, high humidity, and exchange of gases through air circulation serve to slow those natural events as much as possible.”

The nice, bright, “fresh” apples you just bought at the store may have been living in cold storage for the last year or so. And when you bring them home and put them in that pretty basket on the table.....well, they begin to show their age pretty rapidly. Oh, they're still “good” in that they're not overtly rotten, but they'll get old and mealy a lot quicker than if you keep them stored under the conditions to which they've become accustomed – i. e. refrigerated.

Some folks refrigerate bread thinking it will preserve the quality by retarding mold growth. And that's true. But it's also true that refrigerating bread will hasten the staling process. Bread goes stale for two reasons; loss of moisture and the retrogradation and recrystallization of starch. There's a pages-long scientific explanation of the process, but it boils down to this: cold reforms the starches in the bread and makes them harden. Even sealed loaves of bread will stale in the cold. Freezing is another matter. Freezing actually retards the process. So here's the takeaway: if you're afraid of your bread going stale, leave out just enough to use for a couple of days and stow the rest in the freezer.

Eggs are another good example of a gray area. In Europe, eggs are left out in baskets on tables and counters. In America, they have to be refrigerated. Why? Because European egg producers don't wash their eggs the way American suppliers do. American eggs are so thoroughly cleaned with hot water and a chlorine spray before they are packaged that the egg's natural outer protective coating – the cuticle – is washed away. Since eggshells are extremely porous, this means any stray microscopic bugs lurking about – particularly salmonella – can get an easy ride into the egg's interior. Hence the need for refrigeration. Farm-fresh eggs that don't undergo such rigorous cleansing can safely be left out, but bear in mind that an egg's freshness is also preserved by refrigeration. Experts say an egg will age more in one day at room temperature than it will in a week in the refrigerator. And in spite of the dimpled little trays in the door, eggs should be refrigerated in their cartons in the coldest part of the fridge. Door storage exposes them to too many changes in temperature and too much jostling as the door is constantly being opened and closed.

One thing that most people don't think to refrigerate but probably should is nuts. There's nothing wrong with keeping them in the pantry, but because nuts contain oils that can go rancid, refrigerating them will preserve flavor and quality for a good bit longer.

I've opened refrigerator doors and have been astonished at what I've seen stowed away in there. Coffee, sugar, flour, potato chips, even breakfast cereal. There's one word for that practice: STOP! And another word to explain why: moisture. There's no place like the refrigerator to create moisture through condensation. In an ideal world, the inside of a refrigerator would be perfectly cold and dry. But this is the real world. Every time you open the door, moisture gets in. If your door seal is not perfect, moisture gets in. If you have open containers of food or beverages in the refrigerator, or moisture-laden foods like celery and lettuce and such, they are all releasing natural moisture into the interior of the fridge. And what makes dried foods like crackers and cookies and potato chips get stale the quickest? Yep. Moisture.

The National Coffee Association will be the first among many to tell you “it is important not to refrigerate or freeze your daily supply of coffee because contact with moisture will cause it to deteriorate. Instead, store coffee in air-tight glass or ceramic containers and keep it in a convenient, but dark and cool, location.” They say freezing bulk quantities of coffee in small batches is okay as long as you don't return them to the freezer or fridge after you've taken them out.

Sugar will harden up when exposed to the tiniest bit of moisture. All you need is an airtight container in a cool, dry spot. No refrigeration required.

In spite of what Aunt Sally might say, white flour does not need to be refrigerated. Processed all-purpose flour will last a long, long time sealed up in the pantry. You'll probably use it up way before any spoilage can occur. Not so with whole wheat flour, however, which still contains the bran and germ. Oils in those elements can go rancid within a fairly short time, so if you're not blazing through your supply of whole wheat flour, refrigerating it is a good idea.

Potato chips? Really? Unless you just like cold chips there's no reason whatsoever for refrigerating them. You might think you're keeping them nice and fresh, but the opposite is true. Remember moisture? You might as well leave the bag open and store it in the bathroom next to the shower. And besides, an open bag of potato chips in my house is lucky to survive more than forty-eight hours. They wouldn't get stale in that time frame unless I really did store them in the bathroom next to the shower. Just close the bag, pressing out as much air as possible as you do so, and seal it up in – you guessed it – a cool, dry place.

And as far as refrigerating cereal, the same principle applies to Cheerios as to potato chips.

Tomatoes are big refrigerator no-nos. It's a topic for much debate, but science is on the side of keeping them out of the chiller. Chemically, the flavor in a tomato comes from a combination of sugars, acids and aroma-producing compounds called volatiles. These volatiles are most active at “room temperature” – sixty-eight to seventy-two degrees. My refrigerator stays at around thirty-seven degrees, as should yours. At that temperature volatiles start breaking down quickly. And it's not just the flavor that gets compromised. At temps below fifty, the actual structure of the fruit begins to soften and pit. If you like your tomatoes mushy and flavorless, the refrigerator is the perfect place to achieve that end.

Melons, like honeydews, watermelons, and cantaloupes, don't do well in the refrigerator. At least not whole ones. Different story once they're cut. Cut melons can be refrigerated for three or four days. I know, I know......you saw a website that said it was okay to refrigerate melons. But recent findings by the USDA show that the antioxidants in them hold up better at room temperature. Can you refrigerate them? Yes. Should you refrigerate them? No.

Potatoes aren't happy in the refrigerator either. Cold breaks down starches, affecting both the flavor and the texture of the potato. The starches turn to sugars and impart a weirdly sweet taste when the potato is cooked. These sugars also make the potato develop dark spots in the flesh. So if you want baked potatoes that are yuckily sweet and dark, go for it. Store your spuds in the fridge. Otherwise, a cool, dark place is where they'll be happiest longest.

Onions should stay out of the fridge, again unless they're cut. Whole onions get soft in the refrigerator and can turn moldy. Condensation, you know. And besides, they're smelly and love to share their smelliness with your butter, your eggs, and pretty much everything else in the box. If you cut an onion and don't use it all, you can stick the unused portion in a covered container and refrigerate it for a few days. Otherwise, onions like warm, dry places.

By the way, keep your onions and your potatoes far away from one another. They are great cooked up together in a hash brown casserole, but they don't play well together in their raw state. Onions are high ethylene gas producers and if you want to watch your spuds sprout practically overnight, store 'em near the onions.

Garlic, avocados, citrus fruits, and bananas should all avoid the inside of a refrigerator, too. Unless you really like the jet black banana look. Oh, they'll be okay to eat, but one look and you won't want to. And you can refrigerate berries, but they'll actually spoil more quickly than if you leave them out and just eat them real fast. As I said earlier, pretty much anything your grocer sells unrefrigerated should stay that way once you get it home.

Here are a final few yays and nays.

Once opened, ketchup will keep either way in the short run, but it's better refrigerated if you're not using it regularly. Same goes for mustard. Ketchup and mustard will last a month or two unrefrigerated. Refrigerated ketchup is good for six months or so and refrigerated mustard keeps for about a year.

Mayonnaise and dairy-based condiments should be refrigerated after opening. Relishes and other things made from fresh vegetables likewise.

Most oils are fine in cool, dark places. It won't hurt to refrigerate them, but they don't need it. I remember one winter when the power went out and the temperature in my kitchen dropped into the low fifties. The olive oil in my pantry got cloudy and a little sludgy. But when the room warmed back up, the oil cleared up and was fine.

Acidic, salty, or extremely sweet products are okay stored outside the fridge. Soy sauce, Worcestershire, vinegar, etc. need no refrigeration. Same goes for honey, molasses, and corn syrup. Some jams and jellies go either way. Most, especially those with two-thirds or more sugar, are okay in the pantry. However, some require refrigeration. Check the label.

Maple syrup is a touchy issue. I just checked the labels on the bottles in my refrigerator and both say “no refrigeration required.” BUT......both are “pancake syrup” not real maple syrup. Aunt Jemima and Log Cabin. One has HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in it, a fact I did not notice when I bought it or I wouldn't have. But even the non-HFCS syrup contains corn syrup, sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium benzoate, sorbic acid and phosphoric acid, so nope, there's definitely no need to refrigerate those. Pure maple syrup, like honey, will crystallize in the refrigerator. On the other hand, it'll get moldy if you don't refrigerate it. Some people say you can just boil it lightly and skim off the mold, but.......no thanks. Producers associations in Vermont and Massachusetts say unopened maple syrup is relatively shelf stable but recommend refrigeration after opening.

Okay, this isn't a comprehensive list by any means, but it'll have to do for now. I have to go sort my produce. The onions are gassing the potatoes and making them cry their eyes out. So chill baby – or not.