maltese bread

maltese bread is good
it's the type of good
that is both wholesome, yet tasty, yet somehow plain in a good way

the best thing since sliced bread
i m not a big fan of sliced bread

i d rather slice bread myself

of course its good for making toast
but eating haphazard slices of bread out of a maltese loaf adds a lot to the body and texture of this maltese tasty-staple-delicacy

i dare you to say "maltese tasty-staple-delicacy" ten times!

there is an art to cutting slices out of a maltese loaf
i could never quite become adept to this whole ordeal

my father infact still cuts bread for me and the rest of the family
not by our request
but by his lifetime accrued benchmark,
his ingrained passed-down standard
of how a loaf of bread should be cut

you would think it is all about consecutive slices
but it isn't

due to the nature of the larger mid section of the somewhat spherical loaf
my father is very strict about how once you arrive to the larger cros-section
when the middle is still a few slices away
the cut switches perpendicularly into the side of the remaining loaf
and this zig-zagging of cuts continues depending on the residual-shape of the loaf at hand

i never bothered with these exacting processes
but i understand why it must be so
somehow it does work
it reduces sharp edges
it reduces the mushing and mashing of the core
and results in semi equal slices of bread
which are more pleasant to eat than when i try to do it

i had a dream this morning
that i was sampling maltese bread from around mosta
and that i could feel that warm taste of fresh bread melting with kunserva and olive oil on my mouth

i woke up craving bread
but since my nutritionist has made it clear that i need to keep a better sense of structure in my diet
i suffered... breadless till lunch

and although i had a mix of crunchy nut and all bran for breakfast
and a 10 o clock grape snack
i was thinking of that sumptuous bread all morning

i then also needed batteries for this thing i was doing and so i went out circa 11 o'clock anti meridian to buy bread and batteries
the staple groceries of the 21st century' s man

when i got to the grocer shop
i realised that i had rechargeable batteries at home
and i could use those
and well the grocer had no bread at all
save for some buns and that not so great pre-packed sliced bread
so out of being stuck there
i bought kunserva
the one packaged like a toothpaste tube

so instead i had to walk the ten minute walk to the bakery
down the road from my house

i got there grabbed a loaf
and the baker said
"those down there just came out"
as he pointed to the end of a large wooden tray
the bread was still warm
the place smelled like heaven

it was very fortunate that the baker did not have any plastic bags for me
so i walked all the way home with the bread in my hand
this made me resort to a childhood repressed mania to pluck out pieces of fresh fluffy white core from the opening in the crust that maltese loaves have
and i massacred the poor thing by the time i arrived

then i took the above picture
and proceeded to eat my calorie-planned lunch of maltese bread with kunserva and some veggies

despite that the loaf was mine by right and acquisition
after the photo-taking i cleaned the misshapen parts
since if my father had to come home and see what i had done
it would still have resulted in a lot of bickering about egoism and sacrilege