Western Walkabout: Bread And Butter
Richard Harris tells of the beneficial delight of munching bread.
I’ve been eating a lot of bread and butter lately. I found an interesting boutique baker at the Clontarf market, near the Curtin University of Technology, one Saturday morning – an Israeli couple.
Their loaf of plain rye caught my attention. It was delicious. Then I tried their rye with walnut and seeds, then their crusty wholemeal with spring onions and herbs. Great stuff.
What sent me down this path was a conversation with a running mate whose mother had died a few years ago, leaving him about $350 000.
Not that much later, his wife of ten years or more said she’d had enough and wanted a divorce. She took him to court and guess what? The court allocated her a settlement equal to his inheritance from his mother.
In disgust, my friend left for a holiday, visiting some distant relatives in the Ukraine. A lot of people aren’t doing too well there and my friend mentioned that he was astonished they could make a meal out of a loaf of bread.
That was the trigger for me. I’ve been having bread and cheese for tea, with two glasses of red wine and an apple. I actually feel much better on this routine, sharper and less arthritic.
Did I really need that T-bone steak and two sausages that I ate for tea several times a week for years?
And a final word to all those Mum and Dad readers: please be careful when leaving large sums to your children – it can be somewhat destabilising. I think of it as money poisoning.
