From Fancy to Finger Food

French lesson time! Pain  is French for bread, which you likely know. Mie means "crumb", and refers to the dense, moist crumb this bread has. The crumb is the interior of the bread (i.e., not the crust). A dense crumb means that the bread has very tiny air pockets in it, while an open crumb refers to a bread more like ciabatta, which has beautiful big bubbles inside. The crumb of pain de mie makes it perfect for slicing, so it's often used for sandwiches or toast. I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, and I finally had some time the other day while I was working from home. I had some downtime while I was running some things for my data, and I used those intervals to make the bread. It came out beautifully, and it's delicious! It looks so professional but really doesn't take much effort (it does take most of a day, but it's largely downtime).  I also had a chance to get out some pent-up aggression by whacking a stick of butter with a rolling pin.

I realize now that the name of this recipe is sort of punny. It wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it because I'm the type of person who loves food puns (and most other puns, for that matter). It's finally spring! Going through the blog archives, we just skipped straight from the dead of winter to asparagus-laden tables at the farmers market. If only that's how it went in real life... It was a rough semester (hence the lack of posts since January), but because of Michigan's weird schedule, I've been off for a few weeks now. I've got a lot of recipes to post! This is actually one I just made the other night. The farmers market has finally had asparagus the last two weeks, and I have been out-of-my-mind excited about it. Asparagus is one of those things I rarely bother buying out of season, because it's generally pretty sad, so its arrival at the farmers market is a big deal for me. I generally wake up early on Saturdays and head over to the