Travel Blog

Something you may not know about me: I love crackers. I love bread too, but bread gets stale, especially when you're married to a celiac.

A brief history: Like many Americans of my generation, I grew up on saltines. In the late 70s, I discovered Stone Wheat Thins from Canada - I loved the blue, bi-lingual box - which immediately became my cracker du jour. Living in Poland, I would buy matzoh crackers (and spread them with horseradish). In the early 80s, at a small gourmet store in West Philadelphia, I found the greatest cracker ever: a small, dense, wheaty flatbread with a subtle hint of cheese. It was imported from New Zealand, and shortly thereafter disappeared. In 1999 I traveled to New Zealand for work, though one of my goals was to find my long-lost cracker. It was nowhere to be seen. None of the famed natural beauty of the country was able to console me.

My crackers for the new century were croccantini, which I found at Whole Foods, though my meager freelance earnings forced me to switch to Wasa. I bounced back and forth between sourdough and sesame until the other day I saw they had come out with something new: Thin & Crispy Flatbread. There was plain, sesame, and rosemary. I bought the sesame, thinking they would go well with tapenade. They went well with everything. They had a taste reminiscent of the croccantini, but lighter and - with 8 grams of whole grains - healthier. I went back to Publix and bought the rosemary. I served them to our guests this weekend, one of whom remarked: "These are really good crackers." I eat them with tapenade, hummus, cheese, alone. I am a man who is once again happy with his cracker.