December 1, 2004 - Ed and Butter

French bread – the stuff people carry under their arms as they bicycle down cobbled streets wearing berets, driving past the Eiffel Tower, with a poodle in the front basket (who is also wearing a beret). From its shape, to its color, to its texture, French bread is the one of the core elements of life, from which all other things are created. Bread - it rhymes with Ed. It’s gotta be good.  If you suddenly remember last summer, you will remember that Edhat did a story about French people and berets.  We were at the French festival sitting on a rock by the footbridge that spans Mission Creek. We were counting berets worn by dogs and by people.

So, the French are a been-there-done-that kind of thing. But bread, that’s another story. Not only has Edhat not made any, but we also have never written about it either.  Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com was not loafing around. We were not in a state of Wonder.  And, we were not sitting on our pumpernickels, either. We were out riding on our bicycles, nothing under our arms and nothing in our baskets, through the streets of Santa Barbara in search of French bread prices. Just how many Francs does it costs to purchase flaky crust and soft white innards on the American Riviera?

As everyone knows, there is a lot of bread being sold at the grocery store.  Most is of the Oroweat variety, sold in different sizes, shapes, and flavors, and wrapped in multiple layers of plastic.  But yesterday, Ed wasn’t interested in that type of bread.  For our bread pricing survey, the only side we wanted to butter was bread baked on the premises of the store in which it was sold.  Albertson’s and Trader Joe’s bring all of their baked goods in by truck.  Lazy Acres bakes – they just don’t bake bread.  Gelson’s, Vons, and Ralph’s, however, bake in the back of their deli sections - right next to the place they fry the chicken, we think.

Of course, establishments that call themselves bakeries actually put the loaves in the oven.  Daily Bread, D’Angelo, Xanadu, Italian Bakery, and Anderson’s aren’t big stores - they knead the dough!

We called some of the bread sellers and visited others.  There was a delay at Our Daily Bread, where a woman was trying to return a slightly eaten pie because her guests said it tasted bad. The guy behind the counter looked like he wanted to take the pie and throw it in her face.  She had explained that she was a regular customer, that she had bought three pies for the holiday, and that she was only complaining about one. It seemed to the dedicated staff that the right thing to do was to return the money with a smile. We left before we found out whether she got a refund. But, we know she never got a smile. Don’t get the soup, Buddy!

As one might expect, the grocery stores had the lowest prices, all except for Gelson’s, that is. At Ralph’s and Scolari’s a loaf will only set you back 99 cents. On the other end of the spectrum was D’Angelo.  The dedicated staff wasn’t sure if Country French was the same as French, but when we said French at the counter, the bread-lady didn’t show any hesitation before going to the country and ringing up $3.49 on the cash register.

The overall bread price average was $2.01. There were three subscribers who guessed $1.99 in the day’s contest.  Because we got extra tickets to the Cinema Society’s showing of Kinsey, we are happy to be able to award prizes to all three.  Sir Ahh, Elisa, and El Dwightio each win tickets to the Saturday morning showing.  Contact us ASAP to pick up your tickets. In case you don’t know what Kinsey is about, it is about one of the other basic elements in life.  Man cannot live on bread alone.

Here is a list of all the prices we found.

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