Whole Wheat French Baguette and an Award

This bread brings back memories of my trip to Paris a few years ago. Out of college, with no job, a friend and I backpacked around Europe for a month, and Paris was our last stop. At this point in the trip, I was exhausted and almost ready to go home, so honestly, I did not have high hopes for this city. But I was totally wrong - there was something very unique and comforting about Paris and I LOVED it.

Our budget was tight, so we stayed at a less than pleasant youth hostel. Till this day, there are two memories that still stick with me about this place: 1) the awful co-ed bathrooms - these were so gross that I seriously could not spend more than 5 minutes in the shower, and 2) the free breakfasts: a cup of orange juice, a small plastic container of jam, and a mini french baguette. The bread was so simple, yet SO amazingly delicious. It was seriously some of the best bread I'd ever had: warm, chewy, crusty, and perfect with that small amount of jam.

The recipe for this bread is in Peter Reinhart's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice. As much as I want to share this recipe, I won't out of fear of the copyright police coming to get me. Seriously, there must be some top-secret law that prohibits food bloggers from posting recipes from this book because I cannot find any of these recipes online. Try for yourself: do a Google search on Bread Baker's Apprentice French Bread -- see? lots of nice posts and pictures but NO recipes. Coincidence? I think not!

I cannot take credit for this bread, as much as I want to. Last week as I was visiting the east coast, BF discovered my Bread Bakers Apprentice book and made this bread. He followed the recipe for French baguette and replaced all of the bread flour with whole wheat (yes! I've taught him well). The result was a chewy, crusty and hearty french bread that is unbelievably good for sandwiches.
Now, on to the award...A while back, Jill from JilliciousDiscoveries, awarded me the Honest Scrap award. Jill is a fantastic baker and a master cake decorator (a skill I clearly lack). She has also been very supportive of my blog by taking the time to leave thoughtful comments on so many of my posts. Thank you for your support Jill!
I'd like to pass on this award to some other fabulous food bloggers. Since there are so many fantastic food blogs I've discovered within the last few months, it was really difficult for me to decide which blogs to choose. Honestly, I think they all deserve an award. In the end, I realized that it has been almost a year since I started this blog, so I decided to pass this award along to relatively new bloggers who have been blogging for less a than year (my apologies if you have already received this award, you still deserve it!):
1. Memória at Mangio da Sola - a gorgeous blog with beautiful photos and fantastic recipes like homemade tamale and chocolate mousse cheesecake (oh my!).
2. Marcellina at Marcellina in Cucina - lovely blog with a great mix of savory and sweet recipes
3. Rebecca at CakeWalk - tons of tasty and interesting recipes with an emphasis on using healthy and all-natural ingredients.
4. Valerina at Une Gamine dans la Cuisine - delicious photos and recipes with an emphasis on sweet treats.
5. Ju at The Little Teochew - always a fun read, lots of unique recipes and culinary stories.

Congratulations!