Saturday, January 12, 2008

The pleasure of visiting a great bakery

There are few nicer recipes for a great Saturday than a morning breakfast at your favorite local restaurant followed by a visit to the farmer's market and the best bakery in town.

In my book, that is the way to start the weekend even in January when farmer's market are at their low point.

We came away some "Winter Wine" soap, homemade bratwurst, and of course some freshly baked bread.

I have great memories of freshly baked bread from when we lived on a farm in Canada. My wife would often bake eight loaves at a time. There is nothing greater than coming in from a cold day's work on the farm and smelling fresh bread baking especially with the knowledge that you will get to enjoy some as soon as it is done.

One of the few things that I have not been able to find along North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks is a good bakery.

Roanoke, Virginia does not have that problem, nor does Blacksburg.

When I used to work in Blacksburg, I often enjoyed the bread from Our Daily Bread.

During our days of living full time in Roanoke, many Saturday we took the time to visit On the Rise Bakery down at the Roanoke City Farmer's Market.

I love bread made from whole grains. On the Rise is a great place to find it.

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Friday, January 04, 2008

A sign of things to come

Today I read David Brooks' NY Times article, The Two Earthquakes.

While I might not be quite as optimistic as Mr. Brooks, I do think people are ready for a real change.

We put the Democrats in power, and we still seem to have an endless war in Iraq.

Whether you agree with the Iraq war or not, it is pretty easy to agree that government does not have much to do with the common man today. Money equals access to government today.

That's about as deep as I want to get. I try to stay away from political posts on my blogs since there are lots of people who pay more attention to politics than I do.

Still I would love to see government become a place where the lobbyists don't make the decisions for our politicians.

I like seeing the people jerk the politicians around. Just maybe the politicians will figure out who pays their checks.

Read the David Brooks article and hope that he is right.