![]() ![]() ![]() First, mix the dough in the morning, then let it rise during the day, and finally bake it just before dinner. The beauty of this bread is that you can make it with little effort. There are as many variations across Italy as there are dialects. Some focaccia are soft, and some are crispy (my preference), sometimes thick and sometimes thin. You see, focaccia is a rustic and simple affair: it's a slab of naturally leavened dough topped with simple ingredients, any vegetable in season, olive oil, and salt. The baker would cut the thick slabs into manageable pieces and wrap the entire thing in the white paper, sealed shut with a shiny sticker- conceivably an attempt to elevate the humble, yet utterly otherworldly, snack. With hardly a second thought, we'd buy several full sheet trays of the golden bread. My favorite among these, by a long measure, was a simple sourdough focaccia. The few, yet crucial, stops along the way had a single purpose: to fill our sacks with baked goods meant to sustain our time away. Family car after family car, we'd speedily caravan through the small towns toward our respite. Our little beach- perhaps with a bit of fantasy I like to think it was just ours-was a short drive away in a small stick-shift car packed to the brim with people. Our daily trips to the Adriatic's cool, blue waters were welcome escapes from the city heat during family visits to Southern Italy. Wrinkled fingers and toes, sand in every nook and cranny, lunch sacks with empty oil-stained white baker's paper, and serpentine hair that could pass as a sun-bleached mop head-all signs of a successful outing to the beach.
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