Bruschetta

I love movies.  I'm a creature of habit, and if I like a movie (and own it), I usually watch it over and over again.  One of those movies is Julie & Julia.  It's sweet.  There's a minimal of swearing.  No violence (unless you count killing a lobster violence), and it's the success story of two women. 

So I watch it often.  And every time I watch it, I get motivated to cook.  Not that I want to cook my way through Julia Child's cookbook mind you (or any cookbook for that matter), but maybe one or two recipes. 

Tonight I took the bull by the horns and decided to make Bruschetta.  Now, as ridiculous as this sounds, this has been on my mind for quite a while, but it intimidated me.  Even I'm laughing at that thought now that I've actually made it.  From scratch no less--well, not the bread, but maybe I'll make that from scratch next time.  Amazingly I had all the ingredients except the tomatoes.  But...right down the road from me is this awesome roadside stand that sells all kinds of wonderful produce--you know, I've mentioned it before when swooning over the great sweet corn they grow and sell.  So I hopped into the car and went for tomatoes.

After purchasing the tomatoes, I took a short ride to see if I could find some photo ops for an assignment that's due soon.  No luck, but I was psyched about the Bruschetta. 

Long story short:  the Bruschetta was soooo good.  If I had only known.  In the movie, Julie Powell is cooking with butter and she says, "Let me say this, is there anything better than butter?"  I've adapted that: "Let me say this, is there anything better than Italian food?"

So.  If for no other reason, today was a success because of a simple thing like Bruschetta.