I Love Bread

I was able to do many cool things growing up in Kansas. I don't regret it one bit.

But once I moved to Texas, I realized that I hadn't gotten to do one thing that nearly every kid in the Dallas-Fort Worth region gets to do: tour Mrs Bairds Bakery.

For quite some time, the bakery was located in Dallas, on a road on which I frequently drive. The scent of bread filled the air - maddening and irresistible. A few years ago, the bakery relocated to Fort Worth and I knew that I needed to make going on a tour a priority.

So I added it to my 101 List. Obviously.

Staycation provided the best opportunity to go on a tour. All it required was a few months of advance planning in order to book an open date and fill out paperwork.

I don't have any photos of our tour, because they're strictly forbidden, along with shorts, sandals, jewelry and uncovered hair.

We showed up at our appointed time (tours start strictly on time), learned a bit of bakery history, listened to safety rules and donned hairnets, safety helmets and scrubbed our hands with antibacterial foam. From there, we headed onto the factory floor, following Carolyn our tour guide and staying between the painted white lines at.all.times.

What did we learn?

• Each sponge (1500 pound mixture of flour, water and yeast) makes 2000 loaves of bread.
• A loaf of bread cooks in 20 minutes, but takes an hour to cool.
• Mrs Bairds produces bread products for Wendy's, Whataburger and Sonic, in addition to specialty production lines (Oroweat and Tia Rosa).
• All leftover scraps of bread are carefully saved and resold as hog feed.
• There's nothing better than a piping hot piece of bread!

That's right - at the end of our tour, when we were off the factory floor and de-hairnetted, we dug into fresh bread delivered from the bakery line. Bread that had NOT cooled for a full hour. Hot, steamy and delicious.

I was in a carb-induced coma at the end of the tour and I didn't care. I guess you can say that: