The Baguette Lady
THE BAGUETTE LADY
They say it’s a long, downward spiral into addiction, but for me, all it took was one short week. In two days, I was completely obsessed. By day four, I was getting cranky until I got my “fix”. By the end of the week, I was totally hooked. I had become a baguette lady.
It happened on my first trip to Paris with a group of talented, but starving, musicians. On tour, if you’re getting $35 a day per diem for food, a musician will spend $10 of that to eat, and save the rest for shopping or something fun. It’s an unspoken rule that you NEVER, EVER use any of your own money for anything while on the road.
On this trip, we discovered the baguette and its many uses. Not that this was in any way a real hardship—there’s nothing in the world as good as a fresh-from-the-oven loaf of French bread.
For the very freshest baguettes, you must get up early in the morning and head to the neighborhood boulangerie (bakery). Along with your daily bread, pick up a still-warm croissant to munch on the way back to your room. They’re so flavorful that adding butter and jam would almost detract from the taste.
Now you must decide how to prepare and ration your baguette for the day. Perhaps you should have a few slices with strawberry jam and your second cup of coffee. Then you must decide whether to make one huge ham and cheese sandwich or three small ones from the remainder of your 2-foot-long loaf. Of course, you could also spread some slices with a soft cheese, and pick up a bottle of red wine for an afternoon picnic by the Seine.
If you’re not an early riser, and most musicians are not so inclined, you can buy pre-made baguette sandwiches from numerous markets and street vendors throughout the city. You will still have to decide between “jambon” (ham), “fromage” (cheese), or “jambon et fromage”. The earlier you pick up your sandwich, the better, as baguettes only have a shelf life of a few hours. This is due to the fact that the different kind of flour used in their preparation has no preservatives. Of course, the clever and thrifty French have created uses for rock-hard bread, inventing among other things, French toast and croutons.
You have to understand that for passionate bread-lovers, this is a loaves-and-fishes kind of thing that appeals to the soul and to the senses, as well as the pocketbook.
If you’re a carb-counting, fat-free fanatic worried about your cholesterol level and caloric intake, you won’t properly appreciate the finer points of my addiction to the baguette. If I die of a heart attack while munching on a crusty, aromatic hunk of bread in Paris, then I’ll die a happy woman. And, as far as weight-watching goes, what better place to have love handles than in the City of Love itself?
They say it’s a long, downward spiral into addiction, but for me, all it took was one short week. In two days, I was completely obsessed. By day four, I was getting cranky until I got my “fix”. By the end of the week, I was totally hooked. I had become a baguette lady.
It happened on my first trip to Paris with a group of talented, but starving, musicians. On tour, if you’re getting $35 a day per diem for food, a musician will spend $10 of that to eat, and save the rest for shopping or something fun. It’s an unspoken rule that you NEVER, EVER use any of your own money for anything while on the road.
On this trip, we discovered the baguette and its many uses. Not that this was in any way a real hardship—there’s nothing in the world as good as a fresh-from-the-oven loaf of French bread.
For the very freshest baguettes, you must get up early in the morning and head to the neighborhood boulangerie (bakery). Along with your daily bread, pick up a still-warm croissant to munch on the way back to your room. They’re so flavorful that adding butter and jam would almost detract from the taste.
Now you must decide how to prepare and ration your baguette for the day. Perhaps you should have a few slices with strawberry jam and your second cup of coffee. Then you must decide whether to make one huge ham and cheese sandwich or three small ones from the remainder of your 2-foot-long loaf. Of course, you could also spread some slices with a soft cheese, and pick up a bottle of red wine for an afternoon picnic by the Seine.
If you’re not an early riser, and most musicians are not so inclined, you can buy pre-made baguette sandwiches from numerous markets and street vendors throughout the city. You will still have to decide between “jambon” (ham), “fromage” (cheese), or “jambon et fromage”. The earlier you pick up your sandwich, the better, as baguettes only have a shelf life of a few hours. This is due to the fact that the different kind of flour used in their preparation has no preservatives. Of course, the clever and thrifty French have created uses for rock-hard bread, inventing among other things, French toast and croutons.
You have to understand that for passionate bread-lovers, this is a loaves-and-fishes kind of thing that appeals to the soul and to the senses, as well as the pocketbook.
If you’re a carb-counting, fat-free fanatic worried about your cholesterol level and caloric intake, you won’t properly appreciate the finer points of my addiction to the baguette. If I die of a heart attack while munching on a crusty, aromatic hunk of bread in Paris, then I’ll die a happy woman. And, as far as weight-watching goes, what better place to have love handles than in the City of Love itself?
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