Local co-op type store where they sell independent foodstuffs among other handmade goods. The thing that caught my eye here was the bread/flour from Fosterton Farm Bakery.
I'd recently read Cooked by Michael Pollan, which talks a lot about good quality flour and bread, quoting a baker who suggests good sourdough should automatically make your mouth water. He also goes into detail about how commercially processed bread these days loses a lot of the nutrients in a whole grain. Even when a package may say whole grain, it may not mean what you expect it to mean because of the way grain is processed.
On the shelves, there was actually stone-ground whole wheat flour from Fosterton Farm here as well as loaves of sourdough. Perfect chance to taste what I'd read about.
I bought a sourdough loaf for ($8.50). It was delicious and definitely made my mouth water. With no adequate storage, though, it grew moldy in a couple of days before I could finish it all. (My excuse: I was in the middle of a road trip. Not sure if it would normally grow moldy so quickly.)
Would highly recommend the bread here at least and wouldn't be surprised if everything else was of similar good quality. read more