Life After Grad School

Well, not quite, but I laughed at the annual pardoning of the turkey episode and then realized that you can’t make this stuff up. It’s real. And today POTUS will pardon not one, but two turkeys, which then are going to be guests of honor in the Disneyland Thanksgiving Day parade. You’ll be happy to hear that these are commercial turkeys that “were fed a regular diet of corn and soybean meal and were provided a continuous supply of fresh water”. A nation united in its obsession with turkeys.

It’s now scientifically proven: antibacterial soaps are nothing more than a marketing tool for soap manufacturers. Worse, there is a chance that antibacterial soaps may contribute to an increase in resistant bacteria. Nobody knows that yet, which makes them at best useless and at worst a health risk in the long run.

I find it fascinating how quickly that stuff caught on and how difficult it became all of a sudden to buy liquid soap that’s not antibacterial. And, of course, how willing people are to spend $7 for some good old soap. Then again, I spend $4 on my organic soap, the only difference being that organic products have a positive impact, if any, on the environment.

The fact that I grew up in Europe automatically makes me a bread snob in this country - in the old world, you can walk into any of the ubiquitous bakeries and buy fantastic breads, from the dense multi-grain or rye breads in Germany to the perfect baguettes or croissants in France. Those wonderful treats are baked onsite and the smell will guide you from blocks away.

I admit, there are a few commercially available breads that aren’t bad, but not much compares to the fresh double-baked dark crust rye bread that came via bakery truck every Friday evening to the parking lot across the street from our house. The bread never made it home those 50 yards without suffering severe attacks on its scrumptious crust.

I’ve been experimenting with baking my own bread and am slowly getting closer to producing a good basic sourdough bread that tastes like home. Fortunately it appears that I’m not alone in my quest for good bread: In New York and Los Angeles, the Brussels based bakery Le pain quotidien sells amazing organic bread. In Boston the French restaurant Sel de la Terre, delights its customers with olive and fig breads and Clear Flour Bread in Brookline offers a range of artisinal breads. Anybody know any other good bakeries?