Baguettes

     My plan is not to post every day, but weekly when I bake a new bread.  Since I started this blog several weeks after I started baking bread, I am playing catch-up in the order of the breads I have baked.
     Being a good New Orleanian and living in a place where you can only get super market "French bread" I had to try my hand at baguettes.  I pulled out my bread book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart, and found a recipe.  The recipe was fairly easy, but there was a lot of references to other pages in the book for procedures.  At one point I came to a term that confused me.  I didn't know what it meant.  So here is where I digress.
     I did say I was a good New Orleanian.  One thing about us native New Orleanians - we are passionate about our love for our city.  Although I am no longer living there, it will always be home - a place of history, of wonder, of amazing places to visit and things to do, a place of childhood memories, a place where I found love, a place where my family is buried, and a place my heart will always yearn for.  Whenever I go "home" it is so good to hear people who sound like me.  I didn't realize that my "yat" accent is as bad as it is.  Anyway - New Orleans has always been a place of art.  One of the many famous artists that live there for a while was Edgar Degas (pronounced duh-Gah).  I spelled the word d-e-g-a-s, and I asked my husband to pronounce it.  I asked several friends for New Orleans to pronounce it as well.  They all pronounced it duh-Gah.
      So as I was reading the recipe for the baguettes, I came across the term "degas," and thought, "What the hell does that mean."  When I turned to the page it referenced I realized it was not duh-Gah but de-gas.  As in rhymes with ass, which is exactly what I called myself.
     Of course, being me, I started laughing at myself.  When I told Wayne, he got a good chuckle as well.  One of the abilities I have always had is the ability to laugh at myself and find humor in just about all situations life throws at you.  I think too many people today have lost that ability.  People get upset when they think others are laughing at them, but if they would stand back and look at the situation they just might make themselves smile as well.
     The baguettes turned out really good, not great, but really good.  Wayne and I enjoyed the crusty baguettes for days.  We had warm baguette in the morning with a earthy cup of coffee and chicory. They certainly tasted like they should, but they were not the New Orleans style French bread of po-boy dreams.  I have found a recipe for New Orleans French bread in a John Folse cookbook.  That will be this weeks bread adventure.  I sure hope it turns out good because visions of sloppy roast beef po-boys are dancing in my head.