September 5, 2015 - 5:03pm
Store bought bread
I just realized that in Northern California I was spoiled. While homemade bread was better than the normal supermarket bread, it wasn't bad in a pinch. Of course if I wanted to drive 40 minutes round trip I could bring home some yummy Acme bread too. Now that I am in Florida, my wife got some supermarket batard/baguette that was pale and flavorless. I didn't know that bread could be so boring. Maybe it is better in other stores, but I won't be eating that again. At least it got me inspired to once again bake bread more often.
How are the store bought breads near you?
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sells their fine to excellent SD bread at Whole Foods and Chompies Bakery in Scottsdale sells their decent Jewish Deli style rye breads and others plus bagels at Fry's (Kroger). The rest of the best is par baked crud like La Brea Bakery with different names depending. My wife buys OroWeat at the store - Totally horrible but she likes it for sandwiches for work
Grocery stores sell what 80% of the populations wants and that is cheap bread, and then they have 10% premium priced par baked "artisan" bread to find better bread means you have to make a deliberate trip to a real bakery.
Gerhard
Before (also) moving to FL, in late 2011, we lived in Portland where the bakery scene there was going full blast, and Ken's Artisan was a mere 3 blocks downhill from our apartment. (oh why did we ever move? - well many reasons, but for another day.)
Before that we lived in Sacramento, which was pretty much a barren island of not good breads, excepting the imports from the Bay Area, Acme and Semifreddi included, if we could get ourselves to drive all the way to the one or two or so supermarkets that sold them.
I don't bother with breads from supermarkets like Publix or W-D, especially since I started baking at home two years ago. And the majority of nearby independent bakeries are nothing to write home about either. With the quite notable exception of Gran Forno, which produces excellent bread.
In Miami, a young upstart named Zak the Baker is making a reputation for himself, and deliveries do go to surrounding areas.
alan
I thought the parbaked would be the same as in the bay area mega supermarkets. Boy was I wrong. Good to know it isn't just me. Have fun.
The local bakery (they have one shop in Ely and one in Littleport) is rather pants. Quite frankly I wonder how they manage to survive as the bread is not very good. And neither are the cakes. They use the mock cream for those - go figure. It's like eating shaving foam :-p There are good bakeries in Cambridge (one was featured on the local news previous week) but it's the time / distance problem of living really rural...
Bread is better in the local-ish supermarket ISBs - Waitrose is ok, but the selection is limited and the bread is expensive for what it is. Tesco's bread isn't bad at all, but some are far better than others. The go-to ones are the tiger bread, the mediterranean bread and the ploughman's cob. The sourdough and rye are ok, but haven't bought either since I started baking my own. Lidl's ISB is surprisingly good - they do nice pretzels, cheese rolls and a very pleasant sourdough rye. And they're the cheapest. But the nearest Lidl is in March - half an hour's drive away :-p
When a reasonable loaf of bread is a 10 mile round trip away (other than the lottery of the village shop) then it kinda pays to bake one's own...
Yes, it becomes ever more difficult to spend the money on bread after making it myself. This is even more true now that the bread is so bland.
Of course, I have yet to perfect an enriched white flour sandwich bread for some reason.
Have you had a look at the real bread finder?
http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/bakery_finder/
Might find an alternative closer? (or might not, who knows!)
Do check the In-Store Bakeries - Round here, Lidl is bake-off from frozen and they do it in a cubicle right in the store.
So plan B - start baking & selling from home - it's what I do!
-Gordon
Never saw that before. I will have to check it out.
selling bread, alas, nearest is Cambridge as I thought, BUT, I did find (which I didn't know about) a local windmill which sells fresh flours... It's only about 8 miles from here, so worth a gander next time I go in that direction. :-)
should be illegal :-)
I actually know the mill in question, but I assumed - wrongly as it turned out - that it was for pumping water, as that's what the few surviving ones out here in the fens tend to be for. There are several heritage sites in the local area with wind and steam powered drainage pumps.
We're about 20 feet below sea level here... If the drainage ever went on the blink, I'd need more than just a pair of wellies :-p