Holiday Detour: Rockland Bakery in Nanuet, NJ

While Brian and I were visiting family last weekend, he mentioned to his uncle my love of good bread.  As someone who was primarily raised in New Jersey, it can be hard to find bread and bakeries in New England that compare.  In response to my sadness, Brian’s uncle mentioned Rockland Bakery, an establishment that happened to be on our way home.  Everyone else at Thanksgiving dinner seemed to have experience with the Rockland Bakery, which makes me wonder why they all kept it a secret for the past 10 years. 

With little information, but knowing there would be bread, we stopped by the bakery on our way home last Friday.  The parking lot was crowded and the place didn’t look like much from the outside.  I didn’t really know what to expect…

but inside it was pretty amazing.  Fresh bagels and bread were being made before our eyes…

and loaves just out of the oven…

We were met with a pile of paper bags and boxes of gloves as we entered the warehouse section of the building.  We put on our gloves and walked around, adding items to our bag as we went.  There weren’t many prices on items, but we hoped for the best, grabbing whatever looked good at the moment.  We reached the end of the bakery warehouse area and arrived in the checkout and pastry area:

I could have made as many purchases in this room as I did anywhere else in the bakery.  The variety and apparent quality was amazing.

Our final purchase amounted to the following:

4 bagels, 7 rolls, a loaf of rye bread, 2 pumpernickel rolls, 2 cannoli (in the box), a loaf of French bread and a croissant (not pictured).  The grand total?  $14.50.  As much as we probably didn’t need to buy all of that bread at once –thank goodness for freezers – I was thrilled with how much food we got for so little money.  Less than $1 per baked good is perfectly agreeable to me.  We’ve enjoyed the bagels, cannoli and croissants already, and they were all good.  I’m especially glade to have some extra bread products around this time of year when finding time to bake my own is difficult.  The bad news is, I don’t think we’re going to be able to go south of New York again without making a stop on our way home.