Loaves (no fishes)

I always wanted to open a bakery…if I win lotto I will and call it ‘This Day’…as in ‘give us this day our daily bread’.  I’m serious!  And indeed bread is tantamount to a religious experience for me…well if I have it with some fish, say a tuna sandwich…but I digress.

My move to this beautiful country town  (Margaret River, WA) is a voyage of discovery and every new day brings a new discovery.  This morning after walking on Prevelly beach I passed a factory unit in what the locals call the industrial area…the sign read ‘BREAD’, an enticing word since way before Jesus allegedly used it to bribe people to listen to him.  Out front taking up a considerable part of the car park was a pile of wood and my mind made the delicious connection between wood and bread (any bread baked using real wood just tastes that much better)…I just had to look.

It’s 6.30am and the guys (Santana & Glenn) are just firing up the ovens which will be ready for dough after they have rendered these bits of trees into glowing, loving embers that will create that smell we all know and love.  They invited me into the back to watch the morning ritual and the weather is still cool enough to enjoy the glow and radiance emanating from the bank of wood fired ovens that are oddly reminiscent of the ones at Auschwitz in design (an efficient design used way before the Nazis stole them for their dastardly purposes).

The whole place smells of dough and flour and crusts, it’s divine.  Because it’s so late (by bakers standards) the guys don’t seem too crazy…if you have known many bakers and pastry chefs you will know they can often be a little bent from a lifetime of getting up at 2 am and sleeping all day, but Santana and Glenn were very amiable, seemed to love what they do and happy to talk to me about their products.

People who create such things are the salt of the earth, I am struck by the simple delight we all have for a thing as simple as a piece of bread and butter or chunks of the wonderful stuff torn straight from a fresh loaf and dipped in some extra virgin olive oil or a hearty winter soup…I am going back this arvo to taste a hot fresh loaf.  Can’t wait, if they taste half as good as the smell I will be taking some home that’s fer sure…but damn it, the carbs will kill me in the end…oh well.