tHE COMMERCIALS began papering the TV-sphere early in the New Year – a time of new beginnings and reanimated diets. Oprah Winfrey, up close and soulful, stared right into the camera and solemnly declared, “I. Love. Bread.”
Then, in case you missed it, she said it again, with all the certitude of Ronald Reagan telling Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall!” Oprah loved bread, and she didn’t care who knew about it.
You get a loaf! You get a loaf! And you get a loaf! At the behest of Weight Watchers (which she had purchased a $43 million stake in), she was letting it be known that she sought to lose weight without sacrificing any crumbs, shining a shard of light on a world gone gluten-spooked. And, yet, for veteran Oprah-watchers,…