The heart of a French village is its Baker.
French people are devoted to their bread which must be as fresh as possible, it is common for the housewife here to go to the baker three times each day, before each meal.
When we first came to the village of Thezan les Beziers it had a busy bakery in the square.
This Boulanger (which was served by a particularly waspish but pretty girl) served particularly delicious desserts (including a chocolate mousse cake which I fully intended to serve to guests for dinner) but their bread just wasn’t that great.
In fact last summer I made my own most of the time.
In September the inevitable happened and it went bust, the boulanger was foreclosed by the bank.
The people of the village took this extremely seriously.
It is reckoned to be the death of a village when the bakery closes.
Despite the fact that there exists a “Point Chaud” a shop in the village which bakes up ready prepared bread, and that the butcher became a Depot de Pain faces were grim when you inquired about the bakery and rumours abounded about it being sold.
When we arrived in July there seemed to be a fairly strong hope of the rebirth and at last, this morning, it reopened.

The prospects are good.

This mornings Baguettes were crisp and delicious-we opted for the Bien Cuit but there was a paler version available.

Later I wandered down to buy a Tart for dinner tonight and was lucky enough to get the very last piece of Patisserie in the shop, this Tarte au Pommes.
It looks good, I may yet find a substitute for the regretted chocolate mousse cake.