Return To Bread

My better half returned from India this week, and we have been able to share some quality time together. On the bus journey back to mine, we saw one of the Red Kites. Always a good oman. This, lead to a discussion about some of the birds she saw there and that she wished she knew more about the birds she had seen. Oh it looks like that I will have to corrupt this mind.

Additionally as I had some rather mundane tasks to do like shopping and she accompanied me. Now she will be the first to admit that she is no cook and while she does not really know what to do with food other than eat it, she does know what she likes. So it actually makes shopping less of a chore as I can bounce ideas off her for meals.

There is an irony about her going to India as she does not like food that is overly spiced. Or to be more precise she does not like food that is smothered in chillies. As she does not mind food that is delicately spiced, as do I. One of the problems is that there is an assumption that spicy foods mean hot spices, when really the spices can be used to enhance flavours. Thus, going to a country where the food is often drenched in chillies has rather put her off overly spiced foods. Thus, I tried to think of meals and dishes that she would enjoy and were a contrast to the spicy foods she has spent a month consuming.

It had not taken long to do the shopping, although I had nearly forgotten to get the bread. I had to go back for it just as we were heading for the checkout. It was a basic wholemeal loaf from the supermarkets baked in store range. However, when we had some latter, it was rather bland and not particularly appetising. It is really nice though to have my opinion confirmed by another's pallet that the bread is really bland. There are times when I worry that am just being pedantic and picky about food sometimes, as these products that I find so bland are so popular with other people. Is it that so many people are prepared to accept mediocre food? Or is it that I expect higher standards when it comes to the food I buy and consume? Or is it a mixture of both?

In the couple of dishes I cooked for my better half, she really enjoyed. As did I, not least because I have been playing with ideas for dishes that I knew she would enjoy. Not recipes from books, but ones created from knowing what flavours work alongside each other.

Then today, while going into Newcastle as she had to collect the results of resitting an exam, we got some bread from Waitrose. The bread was wonderful, and went well with the Broccoli and Stilton soup, made with a smoked Stilton.

The point is though; it really does seem that you do get what you pay for when it comes to food, in this case bread. The bulk standard loaf from a leading supermarket was really bland and flavourless, yet the specialist bread from a supermarket that has a reputation for being expensive was full of flavour. The irony is the bulk bread was one pound sterling, yet the bread from the supposedly expensive supermarket was eighty five pence.

Now I know my regular reader will be wanting to know what my better halves exam results were. Well she got an A. I had gone into Newcastle with her, in case she had failed to get the grade she needed so that I could reassure her that all was not lost. Well that was not needed, and we went to a place that we call our café in Newcastle for tea and cake. I was pleased to see her happy about the result and she will now be going off to study for the degree she wants.

However staying on the food topic, the café that we call our own, we saw has been voted by its customers, as one of the top five Organic Restaurants/Cafés by readers of the Guardian newspaper here. While it may pigeon hole me in a particular stereotype, I would rather agree with the opinion of the fellow readers and the paper.