Put the Bread Down NOW!

For the past year, I've been trying to get on top of my fatigue issues by experimenting with my diet. I have a strong suspicion that gluten and sugar could be the culprits so I've been doing my best to reduce my intake of both. I'm not doing so well with the sugar thing (take my cookies and I'll break your arm) but I've managed to cut out an amazing amount of gluten products.

And then I arrived in Germany.

There's all sorts of talk about the french baguette which I am not going to deny, is pretty damn fantastic. I have very fond memories of devouring one with a block of cheese under the Eiffel Tower many moons ago. However, I am quickly learning how awesome the German breads are and just how damn accessible they are! There's a godforsaken backerei on every block which I swear, sadistically opens its ventilation system ever time I walk by.

This week has been particularly bad. It started with the rolls at Sunday brunch coupled with cheese and jam. Mmmm... Then I decided to buy a loaf of that wonderfully dark, hearty bread that reminded me of Hartter's brownies. Milwaukee, do you remember these blocks of heaven? The turtle brownies in particular?? They were like bricks...well, bricks of rich, gooey goodness that almost broke your wrist when you snatched them from the cashier. Anyway, that is what this loaf of bread is like...chock full of seeds and nuts and all sorts of things that probably helped someone go plow a field at one time, not sit on her ass and blog.

Shortly after that, I made a wonderful, creamy soup from scratch and well, you just cannot not have some warm fresh bread next to that for dipping!

And yesterday, Jack and his mom arrived so I had to buy a loaf of her favorite: a nutty, seedy organic type that makes me have to floss every six seconds.

And because it's now cold and blustery, I decided that there's nothing better than warm, vanilla, cinnamon speckled bread pudding so I dropped everything to whip up a pot of that. (And how divine it will be coupled with delicious, dark coffee brought by Jack's mom all the way from Brooklyn!)

So anyway, I've been on a bread bender and I think I felt the need to confess to it. But I'm sort of on vacation and isn't this the kind of stuff you get to do when you are away from home? It wouldn't be so bad if I ate like a glutton the whole time I was in Germany as long as I promised myself to get back on the wagon when I got back to the States, right??

Another cold, dark morning. Hot, teeth staining coffee on the way. Perhaps I will have some muesli with yogurt. And perhaps I will ignore that half pot of bread pudding in the fridge or the remaining baguette on the counter. Or maybe I will remind myself that when in Rome...