Happy New Year! I’ve been keeping my blog fairly specifically about school. However, among the many changes I’m working on, being less rule-bound is one. So I’m blowing off the doors to write about whatever may well catch my fancy. I’ll do my readers the favor of putting these writings in a separate category, so should I be identified as the next economic genius, those who would wish to consume purely my business-related writings can blissfully ignore my more frivolous pursuits.Though it may be a distinction difficult to maintain, as the current state of my filing system will attest.
This is not to be mistaken for a new year’s resolution. Rather it is one of my more common weekly resolutions. Nay, a New Year’s Resolution calls for something more inspiringly ambitious. I was quite impressed by one friend who spent four hours with her spouse developing an entire portfolio of resolutions across important categories such as health, arts and personal development; linking their individual goals in each category with overall goals for the couple. I recount this fully realizing how silly it sounds and yet not without a genuine twinge of envious inadaquacy.
We made only one resolution; though I’m pleased to report we did make it jointly and it does serve to indicate appropriate individual goals. Our resolution for 2006: to waste bread. This is perhaps inspired by the success I had with a prior individual weekly resolution made some years ago: to waste vegetables. On its face this might seem a bit cavalier and perhaps not entirely respectful of our fellow citizens but it’s really an appropriately mantra-tized simplification of a more sophisticated idea: that we’d like to eat more fresh bread; however, we don’t purchase it because we anticipate we won’t be able to finish an entire loaf before it goes stale and therefore is wasted. We have the good fortune of living in an area abundant with bread bakeries; It would be a tragedy to not take advantage of that.
We’re willing to take certain limited measures to extend the life of a loaf: we’ve discovered that wrapping it back in the paper bag helps and that one can simply trim off the dry end and have reasonably fresh loaf still for two, maybe three, days. By the third day the slices are best used for toast. A plastic bag is out of the question: we’d be back to grocery-store bread. The moisture contrast between the crust and the inner loaf is key to the sensation of fresh bread. Crutons are a possibility that I am, in fact, experimenting with currently. However, bread puddings and french onion soup are a standard I’m not ready to hold myself to. Thus the upfront commitment to a seemingly casual discard of the hardened Staff of Life.
Shaulablog 