Canyon Ranch Part II and The Most Amazing Bread Ever!!!

These are not raisins people, these are chunks of Callebaut bittersweet chocolate in a tangy sourdough bread and the reason you need to get to Housatonic MA in the Berkshires ASAP!!

Canyon Ranch was a blast - non stop classes, whether exercise, spa treatments, lectures, art classes, outdoor hikes, or photography class - and the food was abundant and super healthy and tasty.  I spent my last two days doing things like more pole hikes, a badly needed pedicure, more watercolor painting instruction, lectures on diet, fat, food, metabolism, body types, and the American obesity epidemic and how to make sense of it all and take action (don't judge me when you read the second half of this post - it's all about food hoarding and discipline, people), Reflexology (pressure points on the feet - kinda painful), a full body massage to make it all better, Zumba, Cardio Circuit, Knitting 101 (by the fire), more beading (earrings), Photography 101 field trip etc.  No eating in between the fabulous meals - the meals were where I would meet up with Dan each day since he had a very different schedule than mine.  Cell phones were off limits anywhere but outdoors (and not outdoors if it was a class), or in your own room.  And you could use them in public only if you were taking a quick picture (the reason why I didn't take many because my hands were always occupied and you had to be covert about it), or scrolling through off line things in the lounges or while eating in the dining rooms.  It was great because you didn't hear phones ring, there was no texting and no talking on phones anywhere - I loved that.  Here are some of the pictures I was able to take and that'll wrap up Canyon Ranch.  Great place!

Second day pole hike while circling one of the ponds

Pedicure - I wore this get up while in my Art class that followed it. 

An example of one of my lunches:  two grass fed beef sliders with homemade mozzarella plus avocado and a salsa on 100% whole wheat soft rolls and a fruit salad.  I drank herbal tea with every meal.  These sliders were tiny but so tasty.

Fun earrings I made to take home - bippity!

This is what we wore every day - work out wear all day long - I took this very covertly in the dining room - it was strange to be in the very elegant dining room with fine linens, glassware, tableware for every meal and see everyone in spandex and sneakers, no dressing up - but so wonderful!   

Knitting scarves by the fire with a group of very gossipy women

Happy cows!  This was part of my photography class - getting out and taking pictures of whatever caught our fancy while we received instruction/tips 

This little guy came running up to greet me as I was snapping pictures 

This guy came running up to me too - a face only a mother could love 

A nursery near Stockbridge that grows tons of winterberry for the picking - the color was glorious - rows of it!

I rested my chin on this wire fence to take the picture and got zapped by the electric current

Photography class field trip outside Stockbridge MA

Now for the best part!  We checked out this morning after eating a very healthy and light breakfast of course and feeling so good after all of our wholesome activities.  About three weeks ago I read an article in Saveur Magazine listing the 20 best bread bakeries in America.  One of them is Berkshire Mountain Bread Bakery, a European style bakery featuring fermented sourdough leavening (no commercial yeasts) and whole grains.  And I noticed that it wasn't far at all from Canyon Ranch so I added it to our agenda for a must do before heading home.  This bakery was also raved about in Bon Appetit magazine and a food editor on The Food Network called one of the breads "the Best Thing I Ever Ate".  Well, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot I felt all giddy and excited as I usually get when arriving at a much anticipated bakery and I was so relieved to see that they hadn't sold out of the one particular bread that I was counting on - Bread and Chocolate.  This is a sourdough bread made with 2/3 whole wheat flour, water, salt, sourdough leaving and the other 1/3 Callebaut chocolate chocolate chunks.  We bought several loaves of it after tearing a little chunk off a mini ciabatta of the same to try it out (swooning) and then other types of sourdough breads as well to add to the happy bread freezer at home.  I don't even have words sufficient to express how glorious this chocolate chunk bread is so take a look at some of these pictures -

Our delightful counterperson and our bag of goods

The mini ciabattas and croissant case

Look at those bubbles in the dough!  Look at those chunks and smears of chocolate!  Chewy, tangy, super decadent chocolately!!  The sourdough taste and crumb - amazing.

That's generous with the chocolate

Dan toasted a piece at home to melt the chocolate, slathered on some butter and he's going for it ...

Bearing down on it !

 After we bought our huge bag of bread (and we likened ourselves to addicts who broke out of rehab (Canyon Ranch) and undid all the good as we ate fresh chocolate croissants with flakes covering our faces and legs as we ate in the car, we headed to Stockbridge because I wanted to see the original Red Lion Inn and home of Country Curtains.  Here are scenes from that town.

Did I mention that it snowed here last night?

Not a great pic of the Red Lion Inn with all the cars in front  

The town is lined with houses that look like this - so charming

The public bathroom in the Inn - so charming as well

All the door frames have teapots and old china displayed on top - the place smelled like my grandma DeBlieck's house from my childhood recollection - old, flowery and spicy.

The Inn's owner

Me next to the "frost on the pumpkins" outside the Inn

And then we noticed a doughnut shop across the street.   Doughnuts are a weakness of mine - I try to avoid them as much as possible -  so I stopped traffic to get over there.

We were told they opened just three weeks ago in this town and we felt obligated to buy a half dozen (I twisted Dan's arm).  They are now safely in the freezer double wrapped.  We did taste one at home - chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting.  These are homemade every morning in the wee hours.  Delicious.

The other breads we bought at Berkshire Bread bakery; these are all sourdough based - gone to the freezer.  Now we can get joyfully through the winter.  

En Fin - we are heading to Planet Fitness to make restitution.  Cheerio!