The Daily Stuff

Today in Sainsbob's of Finchley Road, I purchased two artisan inspired (forsooth!) sourdough loaves. Little ones, but rather toothsome and satisfying. Not like the gubbins that dissolves as soon as it touches your tongue and is only "Taste the Difference" in that it tastes a fraction more palatable than the devil's own white sliced. Mr Pie is a fan of the sourdough: apparently it's much better for taking on long bum-shuffling excursions around the kitchen-slash-livingroom. But I tell you who is really a fan of the sourdough, and that's my sister Dill.

Go now, I urge you, to her website where many beautiful pictures, not to mention ideas, await you. Dill is currently blogging about her trip around Italy, funded by the Geoffrey Roberts Award, a scholarship she won because of her utterly single-minded determination to find out how to make bread properly. The more she gets into it, the more it seems to her that making good bread is the answer to all the problems of the universe. I'm inclined to agree. There are no bakers - not just 'none of note' but none whatsoever - on the Kilburn High Road. Everyone must be surviving on Mighty White and Taste the (negligible) Difference. Sometimes I long for a bready revolution.