it's not you, it's me

it's just that this isn't working out for me right now, and i think we would both be happier if we just went our separate ways. it really doesn't have anything to do with YOU. it's ME.

WAIT WAIT IT'S NOT TRUE - i love you more than anything and i wanna be with you forever!!!

enough drama - this week is the last week of bread for a little while.

why?

cuz i have a bakery to open, and it's going to take up all my time for a wee bit.

Mission Pie crew - i will miss seeing your beautiful bread-loving faces every week, walking in on Wednesday and Thursday to say hi, grab a loaf, and share some love. if you're thinking to yourself, "crap, this means i will never get my JBB anymore, cuz the new bakery which is at 736 Divisadero, between Fulton & Grove, is way far away from me, and while i like the bread, i ain't going all the way up there to get it," you STOP RIGHT THERE. i will be delivering bread to Mission Pie once a week once The Mill is open, and all you gotta do is sign up to get in on the action. we will still be connected, i promise.

CSB crew (bread subscription homies) - THANK YOU for riding the Josey Baker Bread train this far, and don't you worry, this is just a hiatus. you don't have to do anything now, all of your payments will be suspended until i'm back up and running. just hold tight. and don't go falling in love with anybody else now, ya hear?

Bi Rite peoples - i don't get to see you as often as i'd like, but i want you to know that soon oh so soon i will be all up in that market wayyy more often - like 5 days a week, all day long. can you believe that?!? it's a long time coming, but it's right around the corner.

the plan is to open up The Mill in August. i'd be honored if you'd continue to be a part of the breadventure by following along here, or maybe just maybe swinging by 736 Divisadero once we get our teensy tiny coffee cart toast bar up and running, which should be happening any day now. keep your eyes peeled, i will announce it's beginning.

i know some folks are planning on stocking up on bread this week - the freezer stops bread in its tracks. so if that's your kinda thing, be sure to do it this week.

see ya round honey babies,

<3 josey

the end is nigh (at Mission Pie)

a year and a half ago i wandered into Mission Pie, having heard wonderful things about their pie, the way they ran their business, and their oven. first i met with Krystin, one of the owners. i told her about what i'd been doing - baking bread at home, and selling it directly to people through my Community Supported Bread program. i was wondering if maybe i could start baking my bread at Mission Pie, and distribute it around the city on my bike. she liked the idea of a CSB, but wasn't super keen on the idea of me coming in, baking a bunch of bread, and then taking all of it away. furthermore, it wasn't something she, or her partner Karen, had ever done at Mission Pie, nor were they eager to start - renting time and space to someone who, while being very passionate, didn't have much of an idea about what they were doing.

but a couple weeks later i swung back through with another loaf of bread, and this time sat down with the both of them, and we were able to come up with a nice idea - i could try baking there one day a week, as long as: 1) i brought all of my supplies with me when i showed up, 2) took them away when i was done, and 3) baked a handful of loaves to sell to Mission Pie's walk-in customers.

amazing!!! now i just needed to figure out how to use that oven…

so i just started doing it. i'd bring in all of my stuff in a backpack and some buckets: flour, seeds, proofing baskets, tiny digital scale. this was my only choice as i was still baking at home and at Pizzaiolo on other days, so i had to bring my stuff with me wherever i went.

after a month of this, i asked if i could maybe have a tiny space in the basement to leave some stuff between my bakes. Karen and Krystin kindly obliged, and let me start using a broken refrigerator as my storage unit.

things were going great at one day a week, so i asked if we could bump it up to two days a week. again, Karen and Krystin generously obliged.

and people kept buying the bread! i started out baking 35 or 40 loaves, and this just steadily increased... these days i bake about 130 loaves a day.

back then i was still buying all of my flour myself, driving up to Petaluma and filling up my car with 600 lbs at a time, and storing it in my bedroom. one day i inquired, "maybe i could get my flour delivered right to the bakery." again, they said yes.

and this is the way it went for the next year -

"is it okay to leave my dough in the fridge overnight?"

"can i invite someone else in to help me shape loaves?"

"could i bake a little earlier in the day?"

"would you mind helping me carry this 100-pound rack up the stairs?"

they always said yes.

because of this totally supportive awesomeness, i've grown to the point where i really need my own space.

so on June 14, my time at Mission Pie comes to close. after this there will be a bread hiatus for a wee bit while we finish building out The Mill. so come get some bread at Mission Pie before then, if you're in the mood.

if ya wanna keep getting bread at Mission Pie, i'm actually going to deliver bread there once a week once i'm up and running out of The Mill. just sign up for a subscription here, and i'll bike it right to ya, every week.

so let me just say it loud and clear - THANK YOU MISSION PIE. i would've never been able to do this without your generosity, your wisdom, your full-on radical ways. if there was a Josey Baker Bread Hall of Fame, you would be at the top of it.

catch ya soon sweeties

<3 josey

* bread porn * : issue 18, volume 6a, season 2

multi-task this

loading the bread into the oven is the most intense part. it's the last time you touch the dough. after this - if you haven't effed anything up - it's bread.

it takes every last bit of concentration i can muster. every once in a while i attempt to have a conversation with someone while i'm loading, but it's always short-lived. after a couple of exchanges my voice trails off, and i'm lost in the bread.

if i can dip the edge of my razor into the dough at just the right angle, and drag it across at just the right speed, and just the right depth, the cuts will erupt in the oven, causing what i like to call a violent explosion. the bread has come to life.

to this day, i am flabbergasted every single time this happens.

slashing bread has its function - it makes the loaf beautiful, allows it to fully expand, and also creates delicious textures in the crust. but it also has meaning - long ago it was how families would tell their loaves apart when they all baked together in the community oven.

these days, it's one more way, one last way, that a baker can impart a small piece of themselves into their bread.

<3 josey

The Mill

at long last we've landed on a name for the new cafe bakery. we've gone through a million different iterations, and a exchanged a million text messages (in many of which i was [inaccurately] positive that i'd struck gold)... are you ready? you wanna know what it is? are you sure???

The Mill.

its awesome, right?? i know! we are pumped.

(logical next question) hmmm, why in the heck are you calling it The Mill? it sounds real good, but why??

BECAUSE I'M GETTING A MILL. TO MAKE FLOUR. 'THE MILL' WILL HAVE A MILL AND WE WILL USE IT TO MAKE FRESHLY MILLED WHOLE GRAIN FLOURS.

this is what the mill will look like:

and these are the dudes in Austria that are going to make it:

i think we're gonna get along realll nice.

i cannot overstate how totally effing excited i am about this.

we'll use said mill to grind our grains and we'll use said grains to make bread. and scones. and coffee cakes. and cookies. and whatever the hell else we feel like.

so there. are you pumped? i hope so, cuz i'm coming for you.

<3 josey

p.s. check out the first slug of the season! found this lil beauty on a glorious bike camp trip adventure that i took last weekend down to half moon bay. it's beautiful, get out!!!

my trip to meet the baker

i just got back from a rad breadventure up in Sonoma. snuck in about 2 hours of sleep for the night, but it was well worth it. i'd heard tales of a righteous baker man who baked delicious bread in a wood-fired oven with a bunch of whole grains... in a shipping container that he converted into a bakery.

i decided it was high time i meet the man they call "de bejkr," so i dropped him an e-mail, and asked if i could come hang. no questions there, he was super gracious, and invited me to come right on up. fast forward to last night about 10pm, i'm hopped up on the PizzaHacker's wares, powering through a headache, and rippin through a thunderstorm heading north, arriving just in time to see him mixing up his first batch of dough:

no mechanical mixer in this bakery, just a burly pair of man hands and some strong ideals.

Mike has worked in bread for upwards of 16 years, and i have the sense that he's really found his stride. he works for himself, making the types of bread he wants to make, the way he wants to make them. at this time of year he bakes once a week and sells at the Sonoma Farmer's Market, doing everything himself, mixing everything by hand, baking it all in his woodfired oven:

he bakes a handful of different breads (kracked kamut, pain de campagne, ryebatta, pain biologique, baguettes, to name a few he had today), as well as wood fired pretzels, which he bakes up right at the market. when he does the evening market he also does flatbreads with herbs and veggies from his garden. i'm sure they're just as killer as the stuff i tried.

one of his favorite flourishes is to rock a flour stencil on top of the loaf, which is mighty sexy, if i do say so myself:

if you're up that way on a Friday morning, swing through the Sonoma Farmer's Market, grab a loaf, and tell him Josey Baker sent you.

peace sweethearts, have a great weekend

<3 josey

get tanked

yup, i got a bunch more of these hot little numbers. order here.

<3 jojo

help help i am trapped in a bread bin!

ahhhhh this bread bin fell on top of my head and i can't get out!!!

how can i bake bread for you if i am stuck in the frikkin bread bin?!?

maybe i can push my way out with my face!!

no, i've got it, i will lick my way out!!!

have a wonderful weekend.

<3 josey

p.s. don't worry, this bread bin was thoroughly washed after this photoshoot.

p.p.s where did i do this? at Google! i do a bread subscription there for employees, and i get to ride over on my bike, and i am jazzed like a muhfuh.

i heart bakers

holy god, i just took a trip out to Chico to hang with the raddest dude, my main man Dave Miller. i visited him back in November, and i had such an amazing time that i decided it was time for another hang.

i don't mean to get all lovey dovey on you, but i just think this guy is the coolest.

he lives out on a nice big plot of land with not a neighbor to be seen, has some goats and llamas, and he just does his thing. what is his thing? freshly milled whole grain bread, baked in a wood fired oven, in a bakery attached to his house. he sells all the bread at a farmer's market, once a week.

are you kidding me???

nope. no kids here. just bakers. badass motherfrikkin bakers.

so if he made awesome bread from locally grown, freshly milled flour, that would be enough for me. super rad maverick style, hell yes. (see my previous post on this fella if you're thinking, "what the hell is josey talking about?") but there's a lot more going on.

the man just has awesome focus and clarity of vision. being in that space, and watching someone who is so clear in their intention and so skilled at their craft is just such a mighty inspiration. it reminds me of all the things i talked about in my last post, the things that i'm scared of losing as i embark on the next chapter of this funny little breadventure i'm on - HOLY CRAP ARE YOU KIDDING ME - BREADVENTURE!!! i can't believe i never thought of that before!!! have you ever heard that?!? i just made up a totally totally awesome word! i need to trademark that shit quick, don't go stealing it from me and skipping town with fat stacks of cash that coulda been mine if i'd actually trademarked the coolest word i've ever made up: breadventure.

ummmmmm, anyway......... look at these adorable little wheat berries falling to their doom between two humongous stones.

they kinda look like lemmings, right?

(that's my first animated gif in a post and it makes me very very happy of myself.)

and you don't need to be a baker to know that anybody who rocks a pink Artofex mixer is hella badass:

but back to what i was saying before i got distracted by my accidental fully genius word invention (that's breadventure, bitch) and the pink artofex, it really was re-centering to spend time with him. made me feel more sure than ever that i am on the right track with this whole thing. that is an excellent feeling.

and not to mention these other facts that made the trip god damn amazing: the newest member of the Josey Baker Bread Brigade, sir Nicholaus Aives III, accompanied me on this breadventure, manning the ship for the long journey out, and generally lifting my weary spirits. i feel very fortunate to have him on the team, and you'll all be seeing more of him as the days go by (he's a real looker, and i'm gonna make sure i get some pics of him in his undies, just for you). check out Nick behind this meat truck we found on 24th St on our regular Thursday morning breakfast stroll:

and another stellar baker was on the scene as well - Julie, a rad freshly milled whole grain wood fire oven baker, who runs 600 Degrees up on Vancouver Island. Jules was on a trip all over the states with her kind and talented partnerman Andrew, visiting the little bakers that are doing their thing the right way. turns out she'd just spent a bunch of time in Vermont (my homeland), hanging with folks like Blaire and Andrew at Elmore Mountain Bread, and Gerard Rubaud, and Adam and folks at Bread & Butter Farm. also, she hung with William Davenport of Turtlerock Masonry, whom i haven't yet had the pleasure to meet, but who is based in the Green Mountain state, and is making amazing wood fire brick ovens left and right. small world. i asked if i could come visit up Jules and Andrew up north, and they said i could! stay tuned - if i go, you'll hear all about it.

in parting - rye bread dough is kind of gross looking, isn't it?

but it tastes so good.

<3 josey

directions: pee your pants. get pensive.

listen - if you're looking to pee your pants (by excessive chuckling), you might want to just check this out. actually, check it even if you don't like peeing your pants, cuz it is totally totally amazing. ...

and now that you're done with the whole pee thing (you sicko), i'd like to sit down for a little heart to heart.

ya see, the thing is, i've been thinking a lot about this bread business i've landed in, and how exactly i want to move forward with everything, and what it all means to me. heavy shit, yes ma'am.

but don't be scared, i promise everything will be just fine. i just wanna let you know some of the things i've been thinking about. no big changes or rugs-pulled-out-from-underneath-you. just some good old fashioned sharing, like they taught us to do in kindergarten.

i've got a nice thing going - i fell in love with baking bread, and somehow, rather magically, i've figured out a way to do it all the time. and i can honestly say that for the foreseeable future i can only see the bread getting better. this feels totally frikkin amazing, cuz one of the most important things to me right now is engaging in the act of bread baking, and continuing to refine my skills, and ultimately, making the best bread that i can. so opening my own bakery and hiring a select few fine bakers to help on this mission is right in line with this goal. i am clear in this.

but this is also taking a big step into the unknown, and i, like most people, have some trepidation about that. why is it a big step? a few reasons: right now i basically rent everything i need to bake bread, i don't have any employees, and i decide how much and what kinds of bread to bake. so if i wanted to up and become a mountain top monk, i could, with very little repercussions. (other than hopefully taking a few baby steps towards enlightenment.)

but that's all about to change. i am buying all of my own equipment, signing a lease, hiring employees (badass they will be, just you watch), and entering into some serious business relationships. basically, i'm gettin hitched to bread. and i am pumped to get hitched to bread, don't get me wrong, i loooooooove it. but it's also a little scary, ya know?

and so i'm wanting to do everything i can to keep the fire alive, and keep my shit straight. one of the things that made me swoon about bread right away was that it was playful, and dynamic, and always changing - it never got boring. and i can take some credit for this - every single time i make bread i am trying out some new thing - a little more water, a slightly hotter oven, a different way of folding the dough... all in an attempt to push the bread further towards this perfect loaf i have in my mind. and ya know what? it's never there. and the beautiful and sometimes sad thing is, it probably never will be. but i'll tell you what, i'm grateful for this. because if there's one thing i hate more than being disappointed, it's being bored.

but while i'm at it, here's another thing i've absolutely adored about bread - the people. i have an unbelievably radical community of folks that has been built around bread, and i cannot even tell you how grateful i am for this. YOU, curious reader, YOU are part of this community. so please, accept my heartfelt thanks for being a part of this.

so what? what to make of all this? oh nothing, really, just lettin ya'll in to the softer side of josey baker bread.

love you the most pretty babies

<3 josey

look sexier

now you too can look like this:

please don't worry mom, that gun may look real and totally bada$s, but it only shoots BBs.

my radical man Wiley over at Bluxome St has carefully crafted some sexy tanks and tees, just for you to prance about town and show what good taste you have.

but josey baker, what if i don't wanna look bada$s, i just wanna look super duper sexy?

no problem:

my god, that girl is so H*O*T !!!

if you practice real hard, you might get to look like this as well...

again - just a BB gun kiddos.

those guns most definitely are as real as they get.

and that cigaratte is most definitely just a prop - nag champa style.

***limited quantities available for purchase at Mission Pie, W & Th, 3-9pm.

$10 tanks

$12 tees

heart hard 4 eva

josey

i love having fun (and playing with fire)

so much has happened since we last spoke, i can't even begin to tell you! like what, josey baker, like effing what?!?

oh, just tons of great ideas, like THIS:

but that is neither here nor there, really, now is it?

no, it's not, that has absolutely nothing to do with bread.

shut up. THIS has also happened - there's a effing hole in the floor at the Divis space!

why oh why is there a hole in the floor? because we have to put the plumbing somewhere, now don't we, silly.

but this past week i had myself some good adventuring, since i couldn't do any baking. i took a jaunt up north with my never-ceases-to-amaze-me lady Cathy and her wonderful parents and we took a break between wine sipping to frolic in the pretty yellow fields:

how adorable are they???

i also spent some extra time with my new friend jerry, and each day i learn how special he is:

i am proud to say that i, along with dear heartbrother rafi, with be the proud temporary parents of that little pooch for 3 weeks.

and oh yeah - bread is back on this week honey babies. come say YO.

and in other very exciting news: i'm going to be starting a bread subscription program at the Google office in SF. holy crap. the ridiculously cool and talented folks at Good Eggs have been busting their a$s on some amazing new stuff that is going to drop soon. get ready people, they's about to make your life (and mine) a lot easier.

just pulled this hottie out the oven:

butterfly kisses,

josey

gone fishin'

Mission Pie is closed for renovations, so i shan't be baking any bread this week. sorry for not telling you sooner, but it's like flossing - if you do it quickly and unexpectedly it's all over before you even know what's going on, and you're all that much stronger for it. what am i going to do instead? obvi, i've gone fishin'.

not really, but that would be very cool of me now wouldn't it?

i would love to hear what other breads you choose to eat instead of mine. it's such a nice little surprise to see comments pop up on this little corner of the world wide web.

in the mean time, feast your eyes on this, sucka.

the other night my roomie brendan made some totally killer bone marrow mousse and we slathered it all over some sourdough sandwich bread and it made life real nice.

we ate the little toasties with some homemade kimchi soup. ain't nothin like a bowl of homemade soup, no there ain't. and don't try to say there is, cuz i will have to prove you wrong.

walnuts are sooo california. one can never have too many walnuts.

get a load of those whole wheat loaves all covered in sesame and poppy seeds! i'd been wanting to do this for a long time, and it finally occurred to me that the only way it was going to happen was if i just went ahead and did it. its my new favorite.

the troops, standing tall and proud, awaiting their triumphant end. to keep myself in line, i've been baking a loaf or two (or seven) at home. it's way easier than baking 100 loaves at a time.

<3 <3 <3

jojo

the magical wizard's lair

for a while now folks have been suggesting that i photograph the new space before it gets built out. this morning i finally took their advice, and this is what happened.

the view down the right side of the space. as you can see by the wooden pieces on the floor, we've utilized the most high-tech technology to ensure maximum bread and coffee efficiency.

these are the doors that were on the coolers in the back of the space when we moved in. we're going to figure out a nice way to display them in the new space as well. the old owners had the right idea - nobody likes it when there's a surprise extra charge at the cash register, right? hell no. we won't be sneaky either.

this is the view from the back of the space, facing towards the street. this is actually going to be turned into office, storage, bathrooms. check out the totally awesome slanted ceiling for water drainage. you cannot fight the forces of nature.

a few months back i went over with Jeremy and Alex (resident wood worker hardman rad papa) to lay out our current plans for the coffee bar and bakery. they broke out glue guns and huge popsicle sticks like these and we had ourselves a craft hour. i was pretty skeptical, but i'll be damned, it frikkin worked, and by the end of it we'd solved all of our problems. (that's bs, but we did have a lot of fun and solve some of the problems.)

one day my friends, this corner will be my little baked goods workshop. picture a humongous oven in the back right corner, with a nice big cool room right next to it, and a radical custom wooden workbench in front, where that metal rack is in the picture. i also wanted to have a lazy boy on top of my cool room, but that plan was recently nixed. i will figure out some other awesome thing instead.

it's a got a ways to go, but i'll tell you what - before you know it you'll be hanging out in the cafe thinking, "remember when we saw those pretty pictures on that silly breadblog of this space? holy crap i can't believe it's the same space! those folks have to be wizards or something."

oh, we're wizards alright... wizards from another dimension where everybody drinks coffee like it was water and eats bread like it was... umm... bread?

okay, so maybe we're not wizards. but we ARE going to make an awesome cafe, just for you.

and it's going to be called "The Magical Wizard's Lair."

<3 josey

p.s. it's not going to be called that, are you kidding me???

josey baker bread needs you

this party train is bound for glory, and i'm looking for some folks to jump on board to help out. can you party hard? oh i bet you can. bread slinger

i'm looking for some friendly folks to sell my bread at Mission Pie (25th & Mission). the job entails hanging out with a rack full of warm bread, offering up samples to walk-in customers, explaining the various daily breads and what Josey Baker Bread is all about, and handling the cash transactions. you'll show up when i'm finishing the bake (2:00pm), and commence the bread slinging. will continue said bread slinging until 9:00pm, at which point you'll break down the sales rack. easy stuff.

you should be: friendly and playful, excited to talk with strangers, and of course, a deep deep DEEP lover of bread.

shifts: Wednesdays & Thursdays, 2-9:15pm. okay if you can only work one shift per week, but bonus if you can work both.

compensation: all the bread you can eat (up to 4 loaves per shift). if you so desire, i can teach you what i know about bread. sporadically helping out with bread production is a good possibility.

please e-mail me with a one paragraph tale of why you are perfect for the job.

josey@joseybakerbread.com

may the best bread slinger win.

<3 josey

a bread for every occasion?

i am so totally in love with the bread that i've been making for the past year or so. but i'm also ready for a change. ready for something a bit heartier, a bit more robust, a bit more able to stand up to being tossed in the backpack and hauled around the woods for a week. know what i mean?

uhhh, no, i don't know what you mean. "hauled around the woods for a week" ??? yeah, sure, i was just thinking i needed a bread that could do that.

allow me to explain, will you?

i don't really have a choice, now do i?

well, yes, you do, you could stop reading this breadblog and go back to Facebook or watching TV or whatever it is you're farting around with when you're not here.

oh yeah? watching TV, huh? who even has a TV anymore???

anyway, as i was saying... fresh bread is one of my most favorite things. i love to stare at it, smell it, touch it and squeeze and just be around it.

and several day old bread can be brought back to its sexy youthful self if you warm it up. oh it warms up reeeeeeeeal nice like. but after that you've gotta do something else with it - french toast, bread crumbs, croutons, bread pudding, whatever your freaky imagination can cook up.

but what about bread that can stay unadulteratedly super delicious even longer than the bread that is so gorgeous when hot outta the oven, but loses its sheen after just a few days? what about it huh huh HUH???

alright, alright, i'm with you now... what have you done? did you figure out some magical potion that you feed your starter so that the bread stays fresh forever? a fountain of youth for wild yeast? you bread wizard you!

hold your horses, i did not figure that out, but i'm working on it. and here are a few hints about what i've been playing with:

• it won't have much, if any, wheat in it.
• it will have plenty of scrumptious little seeds.
• it will be dense and delicious as shit.

"delicious as shit" ??? that is totally disgusting.

you know what i mean! can you guess???

umm, some hippie bread?

maybe. you're just gonna have to keep guessin ya hear, cuz i ain't tellin!

but it might be rye bread.

love you.

<3 josey

p.s. cathy and i just went camping and climbing down at Castle Rock and i was being a bad mood butthead til i climbed this tree and felt like a million bucks.

and this photo demonstrates a very nice balance of old and new technology, don't you think?

bread porn, vol. 7, issue 2

*don't view this at work of your boss will have you written up for being a perv. (just sneak away to the bathroom, top secret ninja style.)

black pepper parmesan you are a very naughty little loaf.

whole wheat rye you are so dark and mysterious and are making me feel funny.

walnut those slashes are so sharp i'm scared you're going to hurt me.

that hard pavement must be sooo uncomfortable, can't we go somewhere a little softer?

oh so big country bread outta the wood fire you are like a wild phoenix on the verge of flight.

"countrystyle" ?!? are you friggin kidding me??? how in the ef did you get in here???

<3 josey

east bay crew, i'm gonna miss you

hidy ho goodness gracious, seems like every time i post these days i'm apologizing about how "its been too long," or "oh i've missed you so bad," or what the heck ever. seems like i'm just doing it a little bit less these days, and i can't keep saying i'm sorry.

so i ain't sorry.

but i have missed you so hard.

what in the ef was i doing? well...

i had a really wonderful time in Vermont with my fam:

(silly brother and mother there)

baked a bunch:

(those are cookies, shut up)

and took a few romps around the woods:

(that's my dapper papa)

but anyway, on to the next topic of the day... changes are afoot friends! what changes? friday bread.

i am sorry to say that beginning in February i will no longer be baking Friday mornings at Pizzaiolo. it has been a totally awesome run there, during which i've made some amazing relationships and baked some pretty darn good bread, but the time has come for it to end. i'd like to sincerely thank all of my East Bay peeps who have supported me over the past year.

perhaps most of all, i'm grateful for the ridiculously cool and generous people of Pizzaiolo. in particular, i am indebted to Mr. Charlie Hallowell, who has let me learn to bake bread in his wood-fired oven, and given me a place to rest my head many a thursday night. you are a hell of a guy, Mr. Hallowell.

in fact, why don't we take a trip down memory lane to the very first time i baked in that oven, in the fall of 2010:

(i burnt them all.)

but these days i get to pull beauties like these outta the oven:

why the friday bread hiatus? cuz this baker boy only has so much energy, and opening the new space is where i've gotta focus. however, i will keep baking on Wednesday and Thursday at Mission Pie, and sending bread to Bi Rite Market as well. and pretty soon you will be able to buy bread at the new space (yes, before we've officially opened) so that my new neighbors can get their Josey Baker Bread on. this will likely be up and running by the end of January. will keep ya posted.

that all being said, i'm open to suggestions about how to get some of my bread to my East Bay crew. so if you have an idea, you know where to find me. (send me an email sucka.)

all for now. love hard kiddos.

<3 josey

it's cold in nyc (no more bread til 2012)

yo cats and dogs

it's cold in nyc. so cold that cathy and i just had to drop in to a lil noodle bar to pick up some of this:

(free loaf to first person who can identify said noodle bar)

good lord, this $hit is just SO GOOD. and aside from making me drool all over myself, this trip got me so so super excited because i picked up a dandy lil cookbook that is giving me some totally righteous new ideas for the cafe... when the times comes i am going to hit you right where it counts.

but how in the heck am i talking about how cold it is in nyc? cuz i'm hangin in nyc, and i've grown so used to that spoiled cali sunshine that it feels so bitterly cold here it makes me wonder if there's any warmth left in the world.

but then i drink this and everything feels ok:

i'm kidding. but only halfway. dunkin donuts hazelnut coffee is one of the crappier things, but it has a special place in my heart. i spent many teenage nights slurping it down with a half dozen disgusting donuts, driving around on Vermont back roads, occasionally coaxing a buddy to take the wheel while i climbed onto the roof to enjoy the evening in a more intimate manner.

what in the heck are you talking about josey??

don't yuck my yum, i'm just reminiscing. anyway, that's neither here nor there. i'm back east, so no bread for the next two weeks. i'm back up and at em in 2012.

another word to the wise - sometimes you burn things:

it's okay, it's part of the learning process. if you really care about what you're doing, it's going to piss you off, but don't go letting it ruin your day. just put it on the front of your bicycle and giggle about it. or maybe try to hide it as a "rock sculpture" in the neighborhood garden.

just don't do it again, or you're a total as$hole.

special thanks to everyone involved in the coffee + toast bar + talent show that went down a couple weeks ago at 736 Divis:

the talent show was organized by the Wigg Party, a righteous crew of folks who are fighting the good fight. keep your eyes peeled for more from them in the coming days, weeks, months.

also keep your eyes peeled for a coffee + toast bar in the new space in the very near future. like, as in january.

what?!? i thought the new spot wasn't opening til the spring?!?

you are oh so very right. but that ain't gonna stop us from getting you coffee + toast in the meantime. why? cuz we think you're cute, that's why. more to come lovelies.

<3 josey

ef baking, now i'm a metal worker

i was just over at the new space helping the FourBarrel crew bring in a mobile coffee cart:

(i wasn't really helping in this way, i was mostly lifting things and eating pizza [and maybe farting], but Dave was sweet enough to let me use the angle grinder so i could look cool. but look how cool he looks:)

why are we bringing in a mobile coffee cart???

cuz this Thursday night we're gonna be partying in the new space during the Divisadero Art Walk. FourBarrel will be slangin they radical coffee, and i shall be toasting some mighty fine toast, if i do say so myself. food and drink from 6-8pm, so don't lollygag or you'll go to bed hungry and thirsty. and if you're feeling talented, get this - we're going to have a talent show as well. the awesome cats known as the Wigg Party are behind this, and we are all jazzed up about it.

what else?

i have been test baking up a little storm in my home kitchen, trying out new recipes for the cafe. like what, you wonder? oh wouldn't you like to know! this is some top secret shit, so don't go yabbering, ya hear? here's a sneak peak...

that may or may not be coffee cake.

that may or may not be banana bread.

i may or not have had a totally awesome day baking with my baker buddy zoe who knows way more than i do.

the fire department may or may not have came to my house the other day because we were burning a very damp brush pile in our fire pit that was putting off an unbelievable amount of smoke.

i've gotten a bunch of e-mails lately asking about the bread. sorry that things keep getting tweaked! here's the current situation: Wed & Thurs, 2:30pm @ Mission Pie and Bi Rite Market; Friday by subscription only. 

so much more to tell, but this blogpost is too long already. 

love you honey pies.

<3 josey