reviving bread

Factual Questions
1

Hello all,

Yesterday I bought a loaf of my favorite kalamata olive bread from the bakery section of my grocery store (yay, Nugget Markets!), brought it home in the paper wrapper thingie, stuck it on top of the fridge, and promptly forgot about it.
Today, the outer crust is tough and dry, although the inside is still pretty fresh. Is there any way to reconstitute the bread enough to not have to gnaw on it? I vaguely remember putting a damp paper towel around the paper bag and nuking it for a few seconds will make it okay, but as soon as it cools it’s tougher than before.
Any suggestions?

Peace,
~mixie

2

Warm oven for 20 minutes usually does the trick. The bread hasn’t really dried out overnight, what’s going on is crytsallization of the starch molecules. A quick blast of dry heat will do the trick - kinda like lightly toasting the whole loaf.

And keep bread away from the fridge! That’s the fast track to staleness.

http://www.pulseplanet.com/archive/Jul02/2714.html

for a bit more info.

3

I revive my bread with my steamer cooker thing. It puts the moisture back into the bread. Watch out for mold though, before you do this.