Just a loaf of bread

Well that was the plan at any rate.

After a quick browse through Wheel & Barrow, I popped into Phillippa's bakery to grab an organic sourdough boule. This is the bread of choice in our household, and although Plumbaby had been making do with some dark rye I picked up at the supermarket the other night, he looked decidedly unimpressed with it, so it was time to stock up again.

They bake these round boules which can be bought whole for $12, or $8 a half or $5 a quarter. So it is obviously to your advantage to stock up and buy as much as possible. I just had a plan for a half.

But earlier, I had gone rummaging through the chocolate drawer (yes I do have an entire drawer just for chocolate!) and found three callettes left in the packet. A packet which had been full a few days ago. I thought "it's not possible that I could have eaten my way through a 250g packet of Callebaut dark chocolate callettes in three days!" but that was the only explanation. Well I did give the Plumbaby a couple to taste (his first ever chocolate!) but that doesn't count for many.

None of the other chocolate in the drawer appealed to me much, and most of it was still in block form. This is one reason why the Callebaut callettes are so addictive - they don't taste as nice as the block choclate melted and moulded, but they are so handy! So easy to grab by the handful as you walk past to the toaster .. or the dishwasher ... or whatever.

I am not a girl who goes quietly without chocolate. And Phillipa's do a wonderful chocolate and hazelnut cake, with a thick chocolate ganache layered all over it. I must eat it twice a month at least. I usally buy a whole cake and cut it up into very small pieces (teaspoon sized) and freeze it. That way, I can have a small nibble on a gorgeous cake every day, instead of wolfing down an entire piece in one sitting (and quite possibly feeling ill afterwards from all that chocolately buttery richness!).

There were no whole cakes today, only a large one, with half and a slice remaining. To buy it by the slice is to induce bankruptcy, so I asked the girl if I could get the half cheaper. She agreed to sell it for something close to the small cake price and I was cheered by that. While she packed it up for me, I had a squiz in the cake section under the main counter. I suspect it is refridgerated and they tend to keep the other tarts and cakes and quiches that they're not displaying yet, down there. I spotted something which looked a little like an upside down fruit cake and it was too consistent in texture for that. Too suspiciously chocolately.

I enquired and she told me that it was a chocolate mousse tart - something which I had never seen there before. I avidly requested a slice of that too and eventually stumbled out of the store with half a large chocolate cake and a slice of chocolate tart.

And a boule of sourdough bread.