The story

I lived in the south of France every holiday since I was nine. Every day I would run round the corner and buy the  sourdough bread from the village bakery.

By the time I was eleven years old the smell of the first batch would waft through the pigeon holes in the roof where my bedroom was every morning.  I would listen to the bells from the church to ring four and creep downstairs. The smell of the smoke mingled with the baked bread on the cold air was magic. I would charge down the alleyway in the dark to a floury warm bakery where I would help make the bread, eat hot croissants and drink sweet dark coffee.

As a teenager worked in the bakery full time for a summer aged 17 and, a year later, went on to work in another bakery in the local town. As I got to about 19 years old I was busy at university and didn't go to France for several years...

As I went to university my health deteriorated. I have a virus and had dreadful fatigue and tiredness.  I discovered that I couldn’t eat bread. It bloated me and left me exhausted.  So for years despite baking most weekends I activley avoided eating bread.

Just 4 years ago I went back to stay in France. I woke in my bedroom to the smell of bread.  I was a child again and the wood smoke and fresh baked bred  drew me like the pied piper's song to the bakery doors. It was irresistible and before I knew it I was in the bakery spreading butter over warm crusty sourdough and sinking my teeth in. Oh, familiar joy! The crunch of the crust and the yield of the soft bouncy inner. Exquisite. I didn't give a fig. There was me.. and the bread - and that was all there was to the world.

I waited for the inevitable symptoms, but they didn’t come. As it turns out I am not intolerant of bread. I am intolerant to either commercial yeast or one of many enzymes or additives in commercial bread. 

When I got back to daily life I bought sourdough .. until I came across a book by Dan Lepard called the Handmade loaf.  Several years ago my sister recommended that I read Dan’s column in the Guardian and I a huge fan of his recipes. 

I followed the instructions and made my sourdough using plain bread flour, and my utter delight they turned out pretty well, but when my eldest daughter and I had the opportunity to go on a course back in October 2011 with Dan it changed the way we made our bread.  You can read about it here. 

When I returned from France I used my baking skills to pay my way through my studies. I have baked and sold my scones and cakes and jam at car boot sales on and off for almost twenty years.  Indeed it was my main source of income for several summers .. when I didn't spend more than I made!  It has always been a terrific way to earn some extra.  

The baking really came to a halt with three very young children, but occasionally I would make a batch and remember how much fun it was.  We'd make a basket and walk around the village selling door to door when ever the children wanted to fund raise for a charity.  the cat's protection league have done very nicely over the years ! 

However the old ways of car booting and keeping an eye on three young children at a car boot sale was not easy.  It was reading an article by Rose Prince in the Telegraph that really hit home. (quite literally!)  She had set up the Pocket Bakery with her teenage children to give them direction and pocket money.  It was a through a light bulb went off.  A home bakery making sourdough ...  and that was the answer to how to do what I love again. 

So here we are ... running a pop up bakery  ... and it is really thanks to Pascale the baker in France, Dan Lepard, Lucas Hollweg and Rose Prince that we are open. 

This children love it. The skills they gain are the kind of life skills that you can't teach in school.  They banter, negotiate, count the change, sell, buy, bake, chat, earn their own pocket money and donate a significant sum to help send a child to school in Uganda. 

We are part of the community and it's a really delicious thing to do.