Thing I'm Loving Right Now: ODBeFree Fresh Baked Goods

If you frequent the Union Square Greenmarket, you've probably seen the Our Daily Bread stall - and walked right on by, thinking there was nothing there for your gluten-free self. Wrong! Turns out the good folks at ODB now offer a line of GF products under the ODBe Free label, baked in a dedicated GF space.

Now, I try to steer clear of Manhattan on weekends - especially Union Square - but the promise of freshly baked GF bread was too much to resist; I was up and on the train early on Saturday, fingers crossed that they wouldn't be sold out.

Cue the angels singing.

My efforts were rewarded! Above: Buckwheat bread, chocolate chip cookies, cranberry orange scone, and a blueberry scone. One taste of the buckwheat bread and I headed back to the stall and snatched up loaves of their caraway and seeded breads as well. All three are exceptional, though the buckwheat is my favorite - brown and hearty with a bit of a (delicious) sour tang. The caraway is so reminiscent of rye bread that I immediately put down my first slice to add lox and cream cheese. I'm not generally a fan of seeded bread, but this one is quite tasty and certainly won't go to waste. (I say this as someone who absolutely tosses crappy GF products if I don't like them. Hate to waste food, but won't choke down sub-par products.) The breads all freeze and reheat well in the toaster and are just my absolute new favorite breads. I can't imagine going back to the tasteless white breads I'd been buying up until now.

As for the sweets: The orange cranberry scone was my runaway favorite - ate the whole thing as I headed to the train and regretted having only bought one. Am planning to stock up on them next week, storing the extras in the freezers at home and work. Oh, yes, I'll be back - absolutely worth fighting the crowds at Union Square for!

ODB/ODBe Free maintains a fairly low online profile at the moment, so check out their Facebook page for updates. As of this writing, they are at the market on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Check the Greenmarket page for further details regarding the market schedules.