Cheese baked into bread - Give Thanks!

This year for Thanksgiving, I decided that the only way to celebrate the arrival of the Mayflower along with the Pilgrims which led to much future merriment with the Native Americans was to bake a chocolate pie. Nothing says, "Hello! We come in peace, but there will be horrible horrible consequences for your people!" like a delicious DAIRY-FREE chocolate fudge pie. I found a nice recipe in a 1950 "The Best of Gourmet Cooking." You know, when recipes all assumed a certain base of cooking knowledge so they're very short and sparse, "peak the egg whites, fold into the mixture, bake in a moderate oven." These days the recipes are like "turn on the oven: if you have an electric stove, you'll do this by a dial at the top. For gas stoves, you might have to be sure the pilot light is on..."

I had to buy some good hardcore unsweetened chocolate (yeah, that's right. That's for those of us who are truly hardcore) for the recipe, so I had to fight the Thanksgiving crowds and get myself to Metropolitan Market. I was trying to be good and restrain myself when I saw that there were free samples out in the food "porn" specialty area. And what samples they were - brioche with brie! Yep, a lovely brioche with a wheel of brie baked right into it. Each of the sliced samples was lovingly placed in an earth-killing plastic cup. And not only that, there are other condiments to add to the brioche with brie, brandied cranberries! Yum! Let's see, for those keeping score at home, that's fat (brie), carbs (brioche), and alcohol (brandied). The brioche is a light bread that complements the creamy brie perfectly, which leads me to muse:

Which is the condiment? You see I said "there are other condiments to add to the brioche with brie." That means I consider the brioche or the brie a condiment. Something that enhances the other. In this case, I would consider the brie a condiment for the brioche, mostly because you could also spread the brie on the brioche.

I can give thanks that I have enough abundance in my life to afford these lovely luxuries. That I can toss these in the basket for all to enjoy while the kiddies put on a Thanksgiving pageant that involved Baby Balsamic playing with a yo-yo while a solemn 11-year old intoned "And the Pilgrim women took care of the sick and the children." Baby Balsamic let out a laugh, not acting very sick. She also enjoyed the brandied cranberries.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Condiment Grrl