Taking a break
The bake house is closed for the month. For 10 days before we closed, we baked mornings and afternoons, We made over 100 par baked rolls for the freezer, over 150 ciabatta and 60 stromboli. We filled our freezer and labelled the bread for those shops that still wanted to use our bread on holidays. We filled other freezers as customers ordered in advance for their own requirements. We worked hard, loved the fact that we were going on holidays and loved the fact that our bread was important to customers. The last weekend at home we had our traditional School book burning BBQ,
In the middle of a forest in the Eiffel is the first stop, stopping with the grandmother who at 87 is well able for a week of four extra grandchildren, who supplies copious amount of food and beer, who makes her own Nutella and has a press full of juggling balls, meter long mikado sticks and badminton rackets, a uni cycle to practise on and rose bed to weed.
After the bread round didn’t indulge in cars but went scouting around the neighbourhood for a bakery that still bakes. Sadly, even the famous German bakeries that used to operate in each village, open at 5.30 and supply every house with freshly baked rolls and breads, have nearly all embraced par baked frozen deliveries. Here, as at home, “freshly baked in-store” now means unpacking frozen breads to bake them for a few minutes in the oven. Taste and nutrition don’t really like this process but costs are kept at a minimum and bakeries can compete again with supermarkets on price, while cheap products remain the customer’s decision making priority.
Four mornings, we ate a bland concoction of soft and squishy bread rolls until we found the one bakery that still bakes. The rolls were crisp and tasty, differing in flavour and shapes and the sour dough loaf a dream.