Double Double Bs -- Bertinet's Basic Bread class in Bath

Recently, the D Goddess and her kitchen companion left their humble kitchen behind for a skip-hop away to England. Long summer days and too many pints were wonderful, and as a treat, the bread master's learning kitchen was right there in ol' Blighty (ol' Blighty happened to turn out fabulous sunshine days on our holiday).

So to Bath it was, for a Basic Bread-Making Class with Richard Bertinet himself. The French man sure was way funnier, taller and audibly louder than his DVD appearance belied.

Learning little tips (like keeping apart the yeast and salt when it is first added to the flour, and being daring with more water than the recipe calls for), watching the master and his apprentices at work saving our sometimes dismal dough, getting Nutrition101 lectures from Bertinet himself (not chewing food makes you fat, he intones), sipping crab bisque and sauvignon blanc, and finally sitting down to a self-made lunch of fougasse, focaccia, pecorino and herb bread sticks alongside crisp greens and salty cheeses with the rest of the recent bread-graduates made for a wonderful day out. Highly-recommended for a lively experience, even if you're a first-timer who would simply love to re-live play-doh days.

After a hard-working day of finger-cramping dough-throwing, soak up the rest of a long summer evening at the town's Thermae Spa - something the D Goddess begrudged us for because with a Double B class in mind, she forgot her own D-cup bikini required for the spa.

Fill and spill

There's nothing like rustic country loaves a la Pain Campagne that would fill up any baker's shelves prettily. And while the crust and crumb there enjoy the bread connoisseur's appreciation, there's nothing like a tasty ingredient-filled bread like this mozarella and rosemary-filler Stromboli (right) that satisfies everyone's taste buds rather than just the bread snob's.

Supposedly a traditional Italian bread that is named after the eruptive volcano of the region, the idea is that the melted mozarella will ooze and fill in those airy gaps between to offer up mouthful after mouthful of delightful bite ... and that it did.

The perfect setting for this is a flavourful big bowl of rough-cut, stock-rich vegetable soup, matched with its savoury-rich equivalent in this bread, on a gingham-set table, eaten in approaching autumn with a blood-deep glass of robust barolo. That Tuscan dream remains with the D Goddess. For now, the tropical table will have to suffice while we bite into the stromboli and let our tastebuds stimulate the imagination of that perpetually faraway Italian sojourn...