...or so you can say about the food in my house. Between my brother and I, we have a few favourites. For these kind of food, one is never enough. Take bread for example. Walk into my kitchen any day and you will likely find at least 3 different types of bread. For example, we like to have a sweet enriched bread or viennoiserie for breakfast. This should ideally be a kind of bread that tastes good on its own without any spreads because breakfast is usually a time-crunch in my house. A nice crusty sourdough is also a staple. I like to bring a couple of slices to work for lunch. However, T doesn't like sourdough so we also like to have a loaf of squishy white sandwich bread around. This is the only kind of bread that we eat with spreads.
Speaking of spreads, this is another item that we love to keep lots of varieties around. Usual selection at our table include Nutella, smooth peanut butter, lavender honey, strawberry jam, apple jelly, and a jar of specialty preserve that most likely came home with me after my travels or a trip to the farmers' market. I can't resist buying artisanal jams and jellies even though they add considerable weight to my luggages. I think it is a wonderful souvenir to refresh my memories of a foreign country long after I come home. Besides, having a few jars of Christine Ferber confitures in my pantry can only be a good thing, no?
Cheese is another food that's dear and near to our hearts. It is nutritious and a great savory snack. However, having one kind of cheese is never enough. Instead, our rule of thumb is to have four different cheeses so that we can build a cheese course. We like to keep a hard cheese (e.g. Parmigiano Reggiano, Gruyere, Comte), a semi-hard or semi-soft cheese (e.g. Cheddar, Havarti), a soft goat cheese, and a creamy soft cheese (e.g. Brie, Camembert). Sometimes we would have a blue cheese as well but not too often. In addition to these snacking cheeses, I also pack cottage cheese for lunch and keep a tub of mascarpone for dessert.
The same applies to noodles, nuts, dried fruit, tea, and chocolate. Doesn't the saying go "you are what you eat"? Does this mean we don't have breadth but we have depth? Hmm....
