New bakery

We visited the new bakery in town yesterday: it's been open since Thursday, and is causing some concern amongst the community: it opened right next to the town's cafe, and appears to be offering some similar fare: and some people are concerned that it will hurt the established and popular business next to it. I'm hoping that it will actually draw more people into town, and expand the business in the community, but it remains to be seen.
We did buy some bread (of course): a baguette, a wholewheat loaf and a raisin challah. The baguette had the style more of an italian loaf, baguette sized, but less of an open crumb than in a Parisian baguette, and a chewier rather than crisp crust. The wholewheat loaf will go down a treat here, I suspect: it was not as hearty as I would like: a very very tender crumb, nice mild wholewheat flavour: very suitable for sandwiches. The challah was good --- but then, I think of challah as a very easy bread to make well.
Lest you think I'm dissing them too much, I will say this: had they been open here when I moved up here eleven years ago, I probably never would have learned to make bread. They would have been good enough that I would have just always bought bread from them: I'd have had no incentive to make the effort, and take the time and trials to learn yeast doughs.
Of the three loaves, I'd buy the baguettes again: even though they are not (for me) really baguettes, they were rather good to eat.

Yours, any way you slice it,
N.