Campus Bread Bakers Market

A bread stand at the Saturday farmers market near campus is run by a woman who bakes 60 loaves in a wood-fired oven behind her house. Sourdough country loaf she makes is the best bread I've tasted in this city. Crust is thick and crackly with a mahogany color that comes from the stone hearth. Tear it open and the crumb has those irregular holes that mean the fermentation went long enough. She doesn't take orders and there's no website, you just show up by 9 AM and buy what is available, and by 10 the table is empty. Bread is sold unwrapped on a wooden board. Imperfections in each loaf, a slightly lopsided shape, a flour pattern from the banneton, feel honest in a way that bakery bread packaged in a bag with a twist tie never does. Flour is stone-ground from a mill 2 hours north, and she prints the source on a small card next to each variety. At $8 a loaf it is more than supermarket bread but less than what the artisan bakeries downtown charge for the same thing.