Polenta

I am pleased to be able to report that Ella the artisan baker of Ashburton is alive and well and was doing a brisk business yesterday morning. So much so that a lady a little ahead of me in the queue snapped up the last two white loaves and I was offered something which looked like bread but which involved polenta, something which I remember as being sold in the indoor market in Florence in bricks which could be mistaken for some kind of funny, foreign cheese.

I pulled a long face, but the young lady behind the counter was not put out and assured me that it was good gear and that I could not fail to be converted to the merits of polenta flavoured bread. Which proved to be the case: it was indeed good gear taken with butter as part of our picnic.

The bread snapped above from reference 1 below gives something of the idea. One of those websites where you get an awful lot of advertisements, to the point where it is hard to find the text and one quickly zones out.

PS1: I suppose Ella is keener on cake than bread as she is still operating out of just one room where space is going to be at a premium. Bread is bulky and the cash take per cubic metre must fall well short of what you can get for cake. Plus, you don't have to get up so early in the morning for cake. Whatever the case, long may she reign!

PS 2 to judge from reference 2, she has been going for at least eight years. But have a care if you think to visit as she is not a six day a week operation. Nor did her website achieve lift-off. On the other hand, there is a rich web presence and I dare say there is a page somewhere which reveals all.

References

Reference 1: https://thymeforcookingblog.com/2014/08/polenta-bread-bread-baking-babes-play-corn.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/04/ashburton-highlights.html.