I was at the TPPT, Six Wives of Richard and Remod show at Frank's Power Plant. It seemed like a normal night at the rock 'n roll show. My friend Marc Ferch was there. He plays bass in the band, Bad Bread. I don't even recall how it came up but Marc mentioned that his cousin or sister or something worked with businesses to supply food to the homeless. Every couple weeks, she would get a bunch of bread from a high-end bakery. They found that the soft bread worked better for the homeless because many of them had missing or bad teeth so she would be left with a ton of good crusty, toothsome bread. She would offer this leftover bread to friends and family so Marc always had a bread hookup. Marc said he had some in the car that night if I'd like some. I said, "fuck yeah, I'd like some bread!"
I must emphasize the fact that Marc being in a band called Bad Bread has nothing to do with this story. He had nothing to do with naming the band, weird! So we ventured out into the dark alley where he was parked. Marc opened the back seat car door and lifted the lid off of a huge plastic bin the size of a hope chest. Inside were loaves of many shapes and sizes. There were baguettes as long as walking sticks, round loaves of rye practically as big as tires, football shaped sourdough, lots of bread and not bad bread yo! I took a good looking loaf of white bread that looked right for sandwiches and a football of sourdough. A few people came over during our exchange to see what kind of back alley deal was transpiring and walked away richer with dough as well.
I told my wife Laura the amazing, yeasty tale and she had a great suggestion for something to do with one of the loaves. Aware of my love for apples, she found a recipe for a Apple Pie Bread Pudding and so it came to be!
She cut the loaf of white bread into cubes and combined it with home-made custard and apple pie seasoning. The recipe called for five Gala apples but a Jonathan apple had found it's way into the Gala bin so he wound up in the pudding as well. What Jonathan wouldn't want to hang with the cool kid Galas. The liquid the apples cooked in was poured over as a sauce.
I put a scoop of Blue Bunny Vanilla Bean ice cream on top with a shake of cinnamon and hot-damn, so hearty and yumm-o!
The Apple Pie Bread Pudding was not too sweet but was rich with flavor. The Galas and the Jonathan stowaway cooked nicely while retaining some crunch. The right bread, the right cook and some good ice cream and voilà! Thanks Laura and Marc.
The next time a shady character says there might be some dough in it for you if you step into a dark, creepy alley with them, say sure, what's the worst that could happen!
Next time, I review the Jonathan. Crunch on!
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