DEAR DAME EVELYN , My husband and I have been on an Atkins-like diet. We're watching our carbs and everything. But I still keep buying bread. Bread is such a great thing around here, and I can't resist. I buy sourdough batards, baguettes, country loaves, everything, but my husband won't touch it and I eat less than I used to and so now it's kind of piling up in the kitchen. I don't want to throw it away, but once it's stale, you can't really do anything with it, can you? Should I just feed it to the birds? Should I put it in the compost bin? I want to do what's right.
Loafing

Dearest,
It is a strange world we live in when bread is vilified. Bread! Dame Evelyn is no scientist and cannot comment on the science of the Atkins fad, but she has a hard time believing that bread is dangerous to your health. The best diet is a balanced one, made up of foods that don't come out of boxes or microwave packages or otherwise show signs of having been produced in a factory.

Now then, as to your (daily?) surfeit of bread, Dame Evelyn has some suggestions. First, make bread crumbs. Dame Evelyn deploys the trusty old Cuisinart with the grating disk for this purpose. Bread crumbs are a staple – for breading scaloppine, say, or (toasted with some butter) for scattering atop rustic pasta dishes, or for making crab cakes. If it's summer, you can also make panzanella, the Italian tomato-bread salad, enhanced with garlic, basil, and vinegar, among other lovely stuff. If it's winter, make an onion soup: thinly slice several onions, cook them slowly in a few tablespoons of butter until they turn sweet and golden, add a pinch of sage and a few tablespoons of flour and cook for a few minutes more, then add five or so cups of water or beef stock (or some combination of both) and simmer for about 20 minutes. Adjust seasonings, ladle the soup over cubes of stale bread arranged in bowls, and grate some cheese over the top. You will never worry about stale bread again.
Sagely,
E. G.-S.