It’s a very simple pleasure but is there anything much better than a lovely freshly baked loaf of bread? One of my simple weekend pleasures is to pop out to our local farm shop or farmers market and buy some quality locally produced bread and honey. Sadly the local bakers closed a few years ago but the gap in the market has now been filled by the farm shop who bring bread in from a couple of local artisan bakeries.
The ingredients list tells you everything you need to know about the quality. Just four ingredients – flour, water, salt and yeast. No preservative, no added chemicals to cut down the time it takes to prove or cook etc. I paid £2.49 for this loaf. That’s not cheap but I think it is good value for money. You see when you eat a couple of slices of this bread you know you’ve had something to eat. Each slice has substance to it, unlike the supermarket bread which is basically a chemical foam from what I can tell. Each weekend I buy two loaves like this. One goes in the freezer until Wednesday or Thursday and the other see’s us through the weekend and into the week. It doesn’t have any preservative other than the salt but seems to stay fresh and tasty for 3 or 4 days if you wrap it up when you put it away.
norfolk-honey
What better to put on your fresh organic bread than some locally produced honey? These simple quality products are wonderful and knowing also that I’m supporting local businesses and reducing my food miles gives me a great deal of pleasure. I can honestly say that a simple meal for under a tenner can give me more pleasure than eating at a restaurant and spending ten times as much.
This weekend why not visit your local farmers market or farm shop and see what simple local products can really make you happy.