Küche, Kirche, Kinder und kommst du mit?

^ Nothing will ever beat cheese and salad sandwiches from Apex bakery in Tanunda, but this sandwich I had at lunch today came pretty close.

Okay, it may seem odd to blog about a sandwich, but it was fantastic. Particularly the bread. The inside was soft and fluffy, with the most perfectly crisp, crunchy crust and a flavour of proper bread.

I think the bread is what makes a sandwich. The bread from the Apex bakery is - quite seriously and with absolutely no exaggeration at all - the best bread. The sourdough process and woodfiring are things done by other bakeries, but they don't get anywhere near Apex in terms of flavour, texture and tradition.

I actually had Apex bakery bread at K and S's place about a month or so ago. It was almost a religious experience. Although it was slice of the simple white loaf, lightly toasted, I couldn't add anything else to it other than some butter and took forever to eat it, simply because I was enjoying it so much. There may have even been some moaning involved.

Being away from the Barossa and rarely - if ever, now days - going back makes me realise how lucky I was to grow up there. Not just because of the gorgeous countryside and having great friends there, but also because of the food traditions. They all grew out of the things the German settlers brought with them, and I think there's been a wonderful continuation of the traditions of the regional cuisine. There's a book called Barossa Food that explores all of this kind of thing and was written by someone my Mum used to work with. Maggie Beer's also done a lot for Barossa food.

The main problem is that when I start thinking about the Barossa, I get incredibly homesick. I remember the sweeping corner you'd drive around on the way from Greenock to Nuriootpa. There was a farm house there and every year, they'd have dill cucumbers for sale. There was Linke's bakery in Nuri with the best pasties and bienenstich. The bakery in Angaston made really wonderful lamingtons. Apex was where you went for streuselkuchen, too.

The multitude of restaurants in the valley, offering food from the most simple through to complicated. Red cabbage at Cafe Heidelberg and oh my gosh, the schwarzwaldkirschtorte. There was also a lovely little restaurant in Bethany that I can't remember the name of. But we went there for my grandparent's golden anniversary and it was lovely, from what I remember of it (it was years and years ago).

*sigh*

Just one sandwich and I'm all nostalgic.