Monday photo: Sack of bread, Aix-en-Provence

I have hundreds if not thousands of photos of food (and food-related subjects) taken over the years. Most do not warrant a full recipe or such, but may still be worth a story. So I'm hauling them out of the archives to give them some air here.

In July, we stayed in a small apartment in Aix-en-Provence while our house was uninhabitable due to major construction. Once in a while, my mother, who was staying with us, would drag me out of bed to accompany her on her morning walks around town. My mother at almost-70 has way more energy and pep than I do.

We spotted this mysterious sack of bread propped up on a wall outside a bakery. The sack was a 25 kilo (about 55 pounds) flour sack, crammed full with baguettes and other types of bread. We didn't touch it, but we surmised that it must be stale bread from the day before.

It was not put out with the regular garbage, which is collected every day except for Sunday in Aix, and is usually enclosed in plastic bags. Flour sacks are thick, and waxed on the outside. Unless it rained, the bread was well protected.

We kept on walking, and somehow circled around to the bakery again about 15 minutes later. (It's rather easy to circle around in Aix.) The bag and its contents were gone.