Saturday, August 2, 2008

"that" and bread

So, I have this rave bubbling inside of me today, plus the AADD is in overdrive. First I want to explain the title of this post by saying, I am no grammar/spelling/English language queen. There are words, however, in the English language given to driving me up the proverbial wall, "that" is one of them. Now here is where you should go click the title link to see for yourself the disgrace and know why I might want to go take a long soaking bubble bath to soothe my last nerve.

Normally, I read AlterNet every day. I subscribe to several of their feeds but today I am considering the cancellation of all my subscriptions, simply because of the writing in this article. The detested word is even in (assumption here) Alternet's editor's title description of the article! I just feel there is no sentence in the English language which would not be made better with the use of another word or by dropping the word completely from the sentence. I have other pet peeves but I'll leave those for another post.

Now on to the other rant. If you weren't living in the Gulf Coast region before Katrina then you won't get it. I am allergic to wheat so the only kind of bread I can eat is white bread. The cheaper it is and the more beaten to a pulp the wheat berry is in the making of such white bread the easier it is for me to tolerate, plus you can not make a tomato sandwich with any other kind of bread...it's just an abomination.

Before Katrina we had the most lovely white bread in the country. It was cheap and usually on sale for 79 cents a loaf. It was never more than a buck. It was so soft and airy you had to be really careful with it's packaging in the store and transportation home lest you get home with it so mushed it was totally inedible. It always had the front seat of the car even if there were other humans needing to get home. Before Katrina it was plentiful and my favorite was the Kroger brand "buttermilk" thin sandwich bread. In a pinch, I would usually go for Brookshires thin sandwich white bread.

After Katrina there was no bread of any kind for a month or so. When it did start trickling in, it was stale and has pretty much been stale ever since. Certainly not the quality we were used to. Now come on people, I understand that you might have had four weeks of bread backed up that you needed to unload on those of us desperate for bread, but three years?!?! On August 29th of this year it will have been three years since Katrina devastated us. Yesterday I went to the store to try to find a loaf of soft white bread...you can not imagine just how time-consuming this is. You used to be able to walk in and just feel a couple of loaves to find a suitable one, now you have to check out nearly every one and finally settle on the least offensive. All of this aggravation now costs me at least $1.29 a loaf and I have seen it close to $2! for a loaf of white bread...gimmee a break! If the crust on top is not hard then you have to be sure to check out the bottom because it might be. This phenomenon can only be caused by sitting in storage for way too long, which means we are still getting the backup supply. How about this...take a couple of months worth and give it to the zoo or somewhere to feed the birds or other critters. Then maybe we can have a decent tomato sandwich before summer is over. Besides I am getting a little sick of friggin' toast!

7 comments:

  1. You know what, I have noticed this myself, in Ohio, so it must be widespread bread staling. LOL And the prirce is unreal. I am still pissed over the Kroger bread being on SALE for a dollar. What the heck?

    ReplyDelete
  2. i guess it goes along with medium eggs being 2.28 a dozen and milk being 4.50 a gallon...i guess y'all must be in the delivery zone for gulf coast kroger distribution warehouse, huh? brookshires is worse....i've gotten bread directly off their truck that was pitiful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cost of food being up is all over the nation. We have higher fuel costs to thank for that.

    You cracked me up up about the tomato sandwich on white bread. That's the way my dad always ate them. With homemade mayo (although he quit making it years ago.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I remember making our own mayo when I was a kid. I wish I could remember exactly how we did it. Heck I might even sit and pump the churn mop for hours just to get the taste of fresh butter on a homemade biscuit. It wouldn't be such a stretch for me to go back to making everything from scratch because of my skin I've never been able to really indulge in convenience foods. I think if the manufacturers would stop putting so many chemicals in everything we eat then not only would they be healthier but they might cost less to make. oh, heck I need to stop here, I feel another rant coming on. Spent $125 at the grocery store today and it probably won't last until we get paid again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's interesting about the bread. I'm lucky enough to live two doors from a baker so I haven't bought packaged bread for a couple of years. I know the absolute and fundamental importance of good bread and feel for you on that level.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Prin,
    I share your frustration with the misuse of the word "that". I worked as a freelance editor for a few years and quickly tired of having to cross out the unnecessary "that" on page after page. I now have a web site related to writing and I devoted an entire article to the problem last month because it's one of my biggest pet peeves.

    I found your site via the review by Men With Pens. I'm definitely going to make use of your Philosophy Links blog. It's a great resource.

    ~ Kris

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks, Kris and welcome! I'm glad you find that page useful. It was one of the first I put up and has gotten the least amount of clicks. I think besides me there have only been three or four other people to use it :) I know I was the only social work student in my class to take all 4 philosophy courses offered by my university! It was hard and I cussed a lot but was so worth it for the brain exercise and for the diversion!

    ReplyDelete