MY BAGUETTE HAS GONE COLD

Went to the supermarket and as you’re at the till paying your bill, the smell of the freshly baked bread tempts you… God help you if you’re in a queue! By the time you get to the bakery counter you want them to serve you the butter, the cream cheese with herbs…

Anyway, I was tempted so I bought a nice crispy baguette. It was still hot from the oven…mmm

I am going to spoil a myth here… you may think we walk around here (Mallorca) in our espadrilles and white muslin. That when we want freshly baked bread, we leave our sunkissed poolside and stroll down to our little “panaderia” (bakery) on the corner wearing a sarong over our thongs and flowery flip flops and ask for a “barra” (baguette)  baked in ye olde traditional wood oven. OK… this is possible and true… for a small minority who happen to have flowery flip flops! And yes, in the village I live in, just down the road there is a bakery with traditional wood oven… actually we have more than one bakery in the village. After hot summer nights  you are woken up by the smell of freshly baked bread, croissants, cakes, and the rest… wafting through your open windows.  In fact, many old village houses have their own wood oven outside in their yards, mum’s house has. We can’t use it though, as we have 6 large gas bottles (hot water and heating) standing next to it. That’s another great story…

The gas man, a large jovial gentleman, food lover obviously (“of course you can light the oven,”), his young apprentice (shocked), me and my mum (“we’d love to… but you’re invited… if we’re going up, you’re coming with us!!”)… we of course opted for safety first! And so, we’re still here!

Dispelling the myth, the bakery in the supermarket, cooks from frozen. However, the smell is still as tempting and when you’re busy and don’t live in a quaint little village, you make do with what you’ve got and be thankful.

I usually do my weekly shop with my mum and then end up back at her house either for lunch or dinner… barra getting colder by the hour… I’ve never been one to break a bit off and eat whilst I’m pushing the trolley and by the time I get home, it’s cold… doesn’t have that tempting smell … doesn’t say … eat me, I’m gorgeous…. I look at it and think… I’ll have to heat it up to get it crunchy again… but it’s never as good.

The moral of this story is… don’t let your baguette go cold… get tempted and buy it and eat it there and then, make the most of the moment, take it all in, in all its glory… you don’t need to have the sunkissed pool or flowery flip flops… we all love freshly baked bread because we eat it freshly baked… not 5 hours later. The moral is… seize the moment.

I am reminded of something the novelist Jane Austen said, “why not seize the pleasure at once?  How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”