v:gourmet

Now on the subject of crackers I have just one thing to say – make your own! There are recipes out there for crackers from scratch which I’m all for but admittedly have never tried. Instead we use the mounds of stale bread that accumulate in our house and simply slice them into thin strips and toast. Once golden brown from the oven we drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle them with sea salt and we’re done.

We’ve used baguette (our standard stand-by), olive boule, rosemary foccacia, you name it. It’s all good. And simple, straightforward, local, and delicious. Store bought crackers are great in a pinch but they are expensive, often have additional ingredients to preserve and protect and, have you ever noticed, they are usually shipped from California. Does that make any sense? Shipping boxes of what is essentially flour and water across the continent in tractor-trailors when there is plenty of about-to-be-moldy-local-bread in your own kitchen? Stale bread, oven, sea salt, olive oil. Done!