With a sugary soul and baking in my blood, visits to local bakeries are always a given when away on vacation. However, when the bakery's the Hungry Ghost Bread and the lovingly baked grain breads are daily produced in its interior as they are, one's personal experience of baked good-intake will be changed forever.The exterior, shown above, is an attractive ivy storm in quite an unordinary structure. Stepping foot inside, a large hybrid stove occupies most of the space, which houses both clay brick-lined and wood fired chambers. Following each firing of the massive baker, the team at the Hungry Ghost is then fit to produce over 200-300 loaves of bread, which is suiting for how popular their delectable organic breads are throughout their town of Northampton, Massachusetts.
Since my visit was on a Tuesday, the rundown of their varieties were as follows (each day hosts a list of specific blends): French, 8-grain, spelt, rye and a beautiful blend of cornmeal and molasses for which I selected, known as the annadama. The loaf, a crusty outer shell with a perfectly sweet and soft inside, was most definitely the best use of flours I have ever tasted. And, since I tend to carb-control my diet, I decided to also grab a fabulously nutty one-pounder of their Vanilla Celebration granola, shown below. Mixing almonds, walnuts, sunflowers seeds and raisins amongst tons of ideally toasted oats, I may have to travel to Massachusetts a bit more often.
