getting me some lip action

Batards are more difficult to cut than baguettes.

With the baguettes, the trick is to start where each slash ends. After they are shaped, baguettes sit tightly in linen cloths in the fridge to intentionally retard proofing. This means they will have very little chance to expand. Until they meet their fate in the oven. Don't let them to be spent before their time.

When in the oven, high heat speeds up the rest of the fermentation in a fairly quick burst. They widen quite significantly (it's easier for them to get wider than longer), opening up the slashes that have been made. For the baking lot, this is oven spring.

This and the angle of the slash (this need to run more parallel than perpendicular than I first thought),  give them the illusion that they have been twisted at some point. How the blade enters the dough and the angle of the blade does not make a difference.

Batards are a different story.

Instead of the twists that curve around its body, batards get more - for a bit of spring, they get a bit of lip. Batards call out with crusty waves that burst from the middle of the loaf. This is called the lip and this is where seduction takes place.

The lip gives a sneak peek of what holds inside the loaf. Strands of stretched and browned gluten lay visibly as the dough expanded and set in the oven. The slit promises airiness and perhaps even the last of the steam trapped. At the very least, some warm moisture still caught within.

An eruptive burst that yet has visible strands of delicate gluten. 

A great lip is one that lifts and cracks open from the loaf almost fissure like,
giving it another dimension from what is otherwise just a torpedo shape. 

If you should find little resistance towards a batard and its shapely lips, it's because there is more to it than eye candy. The lip that peels away is thin enough for it to be caramelised and browned more than the rest of the loaf.  More colour, more flavour. Say hello to Sweet Lips.

To get lip action, the angle of the blade makes all the difference. The blade has to go in at about a 30 degree angle to help it lift and peel open from the rest of the loaf.

If you can, look for a sourdough batard. Regular white bread made in the shape of a batard will be artificially sweetened to begin with. With a sourdough, it is easier to taste the sweeter crust from the sourness of the main loaf.

But be sure to look for one whose full suggestive lip stirs your palate and proximate glands with its tri-coloured pout. One that teases your senses with it and whose deep chocolatey tip and shades of brown makes you want to take it home as ready as you would a very tanned and fit person.

(Oh, stop your tenuous efforts of a clever pun,
I'd much rather there be none.
If you're thinking a chick or bird,
Your goldmine is actually a pile of turd.
If you have to Google for some clever Cockney,
Don't even claim that you know me.)

Rip a batard open when it is still warm or ask for it to be popped back into a hot oven. Pull it apart at its middle. Stick your nose into it. Be brave, go deep. Breathe in the sweet sourdough.  Handpull a chunk of it yourself rather than be duped by any fancy restaurants' menu - handpulled either means they used their hand rather than be bothered to pick up a knife or rather be clever to change its taste, they changed how it appears.

The folds to get your head in.

Take a bite of the bread and its sweet crust. The only experience that matches the sweet and sour headiness is smelling a baby right after it has nursed.

That's how smells like to me, anyways. I don't know where your nose has been and I don't want to know. This is a food blog, people. Keep it clean.