New Orleans French Bread

     My name is Teresa, and I am a cookbook-aholic.  I have never met a cookbook I didn't like.  This week's bread recipe came from The Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuisine by John Folse.  I've already mentioned that it is impossible to find New Orleans French bread in Pineville, LA.  It is insane that you can get it in Bossier City, LA, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and a myriad other places, but you cannot get it in central Louisiana.
     There are several cookbooks that are a must for me.  My two favorite cookbooks that I like to give as gifts are Talk About Good from Lafayette's Junior League, and the late Leon Soniat's La Bouche Creole.  My latest favorite is Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from the Times-Picayune of New Orleans (the best Mexican lasagna recipe in the world).  When I was a teenager I discovered the Thursday Times-Picayune's food section.  It was filled with lots mouth-watering recipes, but to me the best part was Leon Soniat's weekly column.  Even as an adult, I loved the Thursday paper.  My mother-in-law was not much of a cook.  Like many, she felt cooking was a chore and not one of life's joys.  My sister-in-law, whom I call Ms. Carol (I don't why I call her that, I just do), learned to cook from the Thursday Times-Picayune.  Today, Ms Carol is a wonderful cook.  She makes one hellava good chicken andouille gumbo.  After Katrina, I just had to get her the Cooking Up a Storm cookbook (as I inscribed, "Just in case you ever forget how to cook.")  There's a recipe in there for McKenzie's turtles and sugar cookies.  I haven't tried them yet.  To be honest, I'm afraid to - if they really do taste like McKenzie's I'd be making them all the time.  That would not be good.
     As I was making French bread, I thought about my great-grandmother, Grandma.  Not long after Pawpaw died, Mimi fell and broke her leg; she did a good job of it, she had pins and screws in it and had to use a wheel chair.  Since Mimi normally took care of Grandma, but she couldn't  because of her broken leg, they came to stay with us for a while.  Grandma was in her nineties and very set in her ways.  There was only one kind of coffee and only one way to prepare it; it had to be coffee and chicory, and it had to be French dripped.   Grandma loved toasted stale French bread cut in wedges and buttered for breakfast.  Grandma had to be given her coffee in a cup with a saucer, and the coffee better be steaming hot.  I can still see Grandma sitting at the kitchen table with her French bread wedges, sipping coffee out of the saucer.  She always had some coffee in the saucer while the cup cooled to a drinkable temperature.
     Today was a definitely a learning experience.  The recipe did not have the clearest instructions, and the recipe did not say to oil the dough.  The plastic wrap stuck to the bread (and it was looking really good) and deflated the bread.  I did let it rise again, but it didn't get where it needed to be (it was not as high as it should be).  The recipe also called for a little cane syrup.  This gave the inside of the bread a tan color, not white like real New Orleans French bread.  The bread did have a good flavor and made a really good roast beef po-boy.  Wayne and I put on our bibs, loaded the sandwiches with roast beef and drowned them with gravy.  We wore our po-boys with pride.