Best Petite Bread Award

I was out for a friend's birthday a while ago and we stopped by Maxwell's Bistro on Elgin where he was bound to bump into other friends. Half a beer and a couple conversations later, my friend asks "Hey, you hungry? Want some bread?" I'm not one to refuse food, but I hesitated just long enough for them to explain that his friend here Johnny Scratch is the chef, has quite the skills, and that I must try his bread.

I clung onto every word while the history of the bread was explained and ten seconds later a bun dropped into my outstretched hand. I was now holding the heaviest little piece of bread I'd ever seen. It looked like it was designed to soak up mean steak juices. I snapped a quick bad flash-lit pic and promptly ate.

I'll have you know, I can be far too enthusiastic when I talk about food (?), but it's not often that I get emotional about it. This did the trick, Johnny's Sweet Pepper Bread. It was dense yet retained the flaky flavorful honest to goodness quality of bread; it melted in my mouth and my taste-buds were instantly fist pumping each other. I almost cried! "That's a day old. You should try it when it's fresh."

I can remember the last time food affected me in such a way, (begin dream sequence) it was at Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta after my first soul food experience, in April 2006.

So there is no actual award for the Best Petite Bread, but if there was it would be in the shape of a beating heart and it would go to Johnny's Sweet Pepper Bread.