two rumors

rumor one: i just want to be sure ya'll know that i'm not going to be around the week of March 14.

where will you be mr josey baker?

very good question!

first i'll be roadtrippin with my homies brendan and lana...

to utah for some snowy spring time adventures. o hell yes.

then i'm gonna wander off into the woods for a little cabin getaway with my sweet sweet sweet lady...

oooooooh baby baby baby.

rumor two: rumor has it that i might start baking at mission pie two days a week... this is just a rumor for now though, so don't you dare go tellin everybody about it.

and those are the two rumors.

rumor three: HA! I SAID TWO RUMORS AND NOW I'M WRITING THREE I AM A SNEAKY LITTLE BAKER! anyway, this is just another rumor... josey baker bread might be experimenting with some new baked goods for you all. again, just a rumor, so don't go tweeting or facebooking about it, cuz i don't want people to get all excited before the hen has laid it's egg, before the ship has sailed the sea, before the bagel has been baked.

oops.

kisses sexy babies.

<3 josey

p.s. food coloring can do strange things to a man...

josey baker bread goes trans-bay, baby

i been hearin it more and more: god damn josey baker, i live in oakland/berkeley and i can't keep haulin my ass over to san fran just to get your bread! when in the heck are you gonna start an east bay pick up spot you buttface?!?

first of all - no need to be so rude.

second of all - now.

that's right emmer effers - you can now pick up josey baker bread at pizzaiolo on tuesday mornings.

it's in oakland, on telegraph at 51st. for the time being you gotta subscribe to get in on this one. once you've done that, come in to pick up your loaf between 8am-12noon on TUESDAY ONLY. i'll be there til about 9:30 am, so come before then if ya wanna say yo.

very hip shit ya'll.

<3josey

we did it!

holy freakin cow the freebreadparty was a SMASHING SUCCESS! ya'll are the raddest kids around.

thank you SOOO much for coming out and being so lovely and supportive and downright sexy to look at. for real - it made my frikkin week.

i know people took photos of this thing... e-mail them to me and i will post em!

<3 josey

** FREEBREADPARTY2011 **

this just about says it all:

(who knew i was a wacky ass graphic designer??)

WOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

please come on out this wednesday eve to Mission Pie for my freebreadparty2011. bread should be ready by 5 pm. i'm gonna bake up 100 loaves, and give them all away to all of you.

i'm asking that you take this yummy free bread and share it with someone because, a) i think it's cool to share bread with people, and b) i can now bake up WAYYY more bread than i could before and i wanna get more people signed up for bread subscriptions.

so come on out, get a free loaf, say hello, spread the bread.

check ya soon homies

<3josey

who needs bread...

when you got all this other stuff in the world to take pictures of? (... of which to take pictures??)

soda and cigarettes.

i think i can i think i can i think i can.

and then there was one.

someone lost an orange.

what in the ef is going on here?

okay, maybe just one bread pic.

now be like a chia pet and get outside and soak up that magical sun power.

<3 josey

a very special thank you and a very special announcement

4 am saturday morning was when this lil baker boy rolled outta bed to bake a big load of 85 loaves in that totally awesome wood fired oven at pizzaiolo.

here i am pullin hot ass coals out of the oven so that it can cooool down to about 550 F:

and here is just a right sexy shot of the tools of the trade:

after an hour and a half of cooling that sucka down (it was a whopping 800 F when i showed up at 4:15), i baked up three loads of bread, left 16 loaves for the fine diners at the restaurant to enjoy, and headed to SF for the underground farmer's market where i had a booth to sell my goods for the afternoon.

people rolled in about 11:00 AM, and by 2:00 all my bread was gone!

so - THANK YOU to all of you lovely folks who bought bread from this fella. it made me feel very nice.

and now - the moment you've alllll been waiting for - freebreadparty 2011 is going down.

HELL YES.

so, allow me to explain what this thing is all about...

i have a gift for you. or rather, i have a gift for you to give to someone special.

as a THANK YOU for being so amazingly supportive of this littlebakerboy, id love it if you would accept a loaf for free, on me, all expenses paid, bread-4-no-dough (get it?), know what i mean?

and i'd love for you to give this bread as a gift to someone you like. you can like them like them, or maybe just like them. or maybe you just give it to a stranger. or maybe you even give it to your arch enemy, and then you start to like each other, even just a little. cuz bread is awesome like that, ya know? or if you are just an insatiable bread eating maniac, you can just eat it yourself. either way, brighten up somebody's day and come get a free loaf.

but josey baker, how are you baking all this extra bread???

i am sooo glad you asked. cuz this brings me to my second bit of totally awesome news - the incredible people of Mission Pie have agreed to let me bake bread at their bakery on Wednesday afternoons. dudes, i am going to pump out some superduper rad breads from this oven, i can promise you this.

this is very exciting for me - i'm going to open up Wednesdays as a new CSB day! that means that i can take on all of you that i've been turning away since i haven't been able to bake enough out of my little oven at home. how do you get on board? sign up through my blog. i'm hoping that the freebreadparty will get my bread into more people's mouths (don't be perverted), and that maybe some of them will sign up for a bread subscription. can you help? yes!

what kind of bread will there be at this freebreadparty???

ha ha i can answer that too! five kinds. here's the plan:

• black pepper parmesan
• olive levain
• seed feast levain
• cinnamon raisin
• whole wheat levain

i'm not taking orders for the freebreadparty, just baking up a bunch of bread. so if ya wanna be sure to get your favorite, come as soon as you can.

but josey, when is this freebreadparty 2011 going down???

be patient my sweet ones. freebreadparty 2011 is bringing down the house on Wednesday, February 23. it'll be at Mission Pie - at 25th and Mission, going from 5:00-8:00 PM.

so come one come all and celebrate this very exciting new chapter in the josey baker bread world!

<3josey

p.s. if ya wanna stop by MissionPie some Wednesday before Feb 23, i'll be there getting used to their oven, from 3:00-6:00 or so. don't be shy, come say hi. here's a pic from last Wednesday's first bake:

1, 2, oh my underground farmer's WhAt?!?

laaaa laaaa laaaaaaaaaa

duders - saturday (feb 5) i'm slangin mad bread at the underground farmer's market. it's at SomArts, at 934 Brannan St @ 8th. (you gotta sign up here in order to attend - don't worry it doesn't cost and is no obligation, it's just so we don't get arrested.) so if you're headed that a way, then stop on by and say hi. i'll be there in the day time, during the "take-home-ables" portion. but there's rad stuff at night too, so it's all good, i won't feel bad if next time i see you, you're all like, "man that underground farmers market was totally awesome!" and i say, "oh yeah, how come you didn't come and say hi??" and you say, "well, cuz i went at night, and you weren't there." and i say, "oh. right. that's cool. i totally understand." then i start quietly sobbing.

im kidding, i wouldn't do that.

i'd sob real loud so you'd feel bad.

oh stop it.

no, you stop it!

for real tho, hope to see you there.

(if you go at night you should really really really get pizza from the PizzaHacker, aka jeff "studliest pizzaiolo in sf" krupman. it'll be the best pizza you've ever had. i double dog dare you to prove me wrong.)

{now i'm reading your mind...}

and josey - what in the frik is going on with this freebreadparty you keep talking about?!?

yes yes YES, it's going down on Wednesday, February 23, from 5:00-8:00 PM at Mission Pie. scribble that into your iCals or Blackberries or what the heck evers kiddies... and don't you worry, i'll be giving you a proper announcement right soon.

and HEY - just want to say thanks to all ya'll who've been telling me that you like reading this thing. in case you were wondering, that makes me feel real good, and you should keep telling me it. as long as it's true.

which makes me remember something funny - this friday night i was all excited and attending a party up in the headlands. i may have drank a wee bit too much whiskey, just maybe, but my roommate brendan reminded me that there was an awesome wood fired oven (built by radical oven building master alan scott) up there, and that maybe, just maybe there were people baking bread at that very moment! so, in all my excited drunken baker courage, i walked right in to that bakery, and blabbed some gibberish about bread with eduardo of morell's bread. he was very kind to me, even though i'd have to imagine i was not on the top of his "want to see at 11:00 on a friday night while i'm in the middle of a huge bake" list. i bought a loaf of sesame sunflower bread, and it was very delicious, although i do wish i could remember more clearly. i will go back sometime when i have my wits, and perhaps i will be able to give you a more detailed account of his breads. or at the least, i could report on what we discussed. (you only quit your first-job-out-of-college-that-you-have-for-five-years-and-then-quit-to-be-a-baker once, alright, cut me some slack.)

smoochieboochies

p.s. tomorrow is my REAL last day of work and i'm peeing my pants i'm so excited.

the truth about josey baker

what in the frik are you doing josey???

oh ya know, just shooting a pellet gun in my mom's basement in vermont with my step dad... what else are ya gonna do in that green mtn state?

anyway.

one of my bread customers asked me the other day what my day job was. i jokingly said that i'd been hunting caribou for the past five years. then i jokingly said that i'd been building windmills. then i said (for real) that i'd been working in berkeley for the past five years designing activities to teach kids science.

but ladies and gentle men, the time has come to tell the truth.

(that's me, about to tell you the truth.)

the truth is that i've been working for cirque du soleil, training lions. this has been a highly illegal trade, so i've been sworn to secrecy until my tenure ended. now that i'm so close to moving on, i've gained some courage, lost some fear, and want to let the world know what is REALLY going on behind the scenes.

i will not be silenced any longer, as i transition from taming wild beasts to taming wild yeasts.

i feel so much better now that i've got that off my chest.

in other super good news - chances are very high that we're going to have a freebreadparty at Mission Pie in mid-late February. this is going to be totally awesome. the basic gist: i'm going to give away a whooooole bunch of bread, and make the suggestion that ya'll share the bread with your friends, family, lovers, enemies, strangers, bosses, whoevers. stay tuned for details.

i (half) jokingly told a very dear friend of mine who is rapidly becoming famous that i was going to piggyback his rise to fame by mentioning him in every one of my blogposts from here on out. i'm not going to do that, that was a joke.

but i am going to post this amazing photo i took of him taking a shower, with my two heart brothers rafi and nat keeping him company. he's taking a shower because i gave him a little haircut, and come on, who wants to spend the night with all that itchy hair in your shirt?

just a couple of dudes spending qt together. doesn't get much better than this.

see ya round town buddies

big changes are afoot friends... !

check out these sexy shots of a loaf i baked while home in vermont. oh baby baby baby

some awesome news to share with you sexy peoples -

• bye bye, day job
• wednesday? more like breadnesday
• tdays are wood fired
• make bread w/ me

what what what are you talking about josey baker???

hold your sweet sweet horses and let me tell you...

i've been working with a totally rad group of folks in berkeley for the past 5 yrs, designing activities to teach kids science. i've learned so much, and i love those people so so hard, but the time has come to move on. alas, january 31 is my last day of work. (get this - the next day my sweet sweet lady Cathy is taking me up in a plane and i'm going to get to FLY THE PLANE! holy crap!!) i'm a little sad and a little scared to be leaving this job, but i am also SO EXCITED to be making moves on to the next big thing. which brings me to my next bit of news...

starting in february i will be opening up a whole bunch of new subscription spots for wednesday evenings. and where, o where will i be baking this bread, you wonder? thank you for asking! the wonderful people at Mission Pie, at 25th & Mission, are generously allowing me to bake in their super awesome oven on Wednesday afternoons. so folks can come in and pick up bread Wednesdays, from 5:00-8:00 pm. this bread is gonna be on a different level, trust me. the oven is going to make a huge difference. if you're curious, just come by some wednesday starting in february and i will let you try some.

(also, this hasn't landed yet, but i'm going to throw a freebreadparty at Mission Pie to celebrate this new chapter in my bread baking life. stay tuned for details.)

and MORE EXCITING NEWS! there's this rad little restaurant in oakland called Pizzaiolo, with this incredible wood fired oven... and i'm going to be baking there tuesday and thursday mornings! all this means is that the tuesday and thursday bread is going to be super kick ass as well, and there will be more of it to go around. so don't be shy kiddies - tell your friends.

and finally - if you wanna come hang out and learn how to make bread the way i do, sign up for my class at 18 Reasons - Taming the Wild Yeast: How to Make Yummy Sourdough Bread at Home. (you can't sign up just yet, but it's gonna be on Monday, Jan 24 in the evening.) i'm real real excited to be doing this, and would love to see some of you there. folks, for real - it's not that hard to make good bread at home. just come and let me show you.

that's it dudes. love you.

do what works, not what's been done

whoa whoa WHOA dudes

i met some super duper rad folks today doing things in a supremely awesome way.

they're blair and andrew of elmore mountain bread and they are not effing around.

and this is the real elmore mountain:

here is where blair and andrew live:

and they have a killer humongous custom built wood fired oven that they bake hundreds of loaves in a day, and a new fandangled custom built conveyor belt loader:

dudes - folks don't use conveyor belt loaders on wood-fired ovens. why? because they ain't as badass as these two, that's why. but for real, because most wood-fired ovens aren't built to work with conveyor belts - they typically have a single small opening in the front, and you'd be damned if you tried to get a conveyor belt in there. so they just designed their own oven, and designed their own conveyor belt. what the hell, right?

cuz if it ain't broke don't fix it... but if it might as well be broke then you better damn well build a new one that kicks ass.

oh yeah, and it's just the two of them. no big whoop.

BIG WHOOP.

i woke up about 8, showered and coffeed myself, and drove out past lake elmore to "the only red mailbox" on hardwood flats. i showed up about 9 o clock, and they were scaling and shaping dough:

very warm and welcoming they were. i watched them shape the loaves, we chatted while the loaves proofed, then blair slashed the hell out hundreds of loaves:

and then they loaded those puppies in, 24 at a time:

they were so warm and welcoming that i couldn't leave really, and ended up staying a while... for about 5 hours to be exact. they gave me coffee and a sh*t ton of A M A Z I N G honey oat bread:

they also shared their awesome opinions and experiences running their bread bakery, and then andrew disappeared for a bit and returned with turkey, avocado, bacon sandwiches on their focaccia bread:

are you kidding me???

nope, no kidding here ya'll, just straight up old fashioned heinie kicking.

their bakery is filled with custom built tools and methods they've devised to bake more bread in less time. they figure out a problem, think of the best solution (which oftentimes means making it up, with inspiration from here and there), and make it happen.

they are free-thinking, do-it-yourself, badass emmer effers. and their bread beats the $hit out of you.

blair and andrew, i salute you.

<3josey

snow is good and so is mansfield bread at harvest market

man o man the snow be fallin outside these days, and it is so nice and warm and cozy inside.

this morning i skidded my way to stowe to visit the mansfield bread boys over at harvest market.

they're pumping some great breads out of their brick wood-fired oven, and they were kind enough to let me hang out for a couple hours, chatting, munching bread, and snapping a bunch of photos.

quite the remarkable coincidence - gerard rubaud designed their oven. (i visited gerard at his bakery a week ago.)

special thanks to Bill and Ian for keeping their cool while i danced around, dodging their peels and boards full of bread.

check out the scene ya'll...

ian folds the canvas between shaped baguettes:

Ian slashes a loaf before loading it in the oven:

Bill gives a triple slash to one of their soon-to-be crunchy baguettes:

take a peak at some crispy crunchy cheesy goodies:

and the full spread of their breads:

tomorrow i'm off to elmore mountain bread... wish me luck dudes.

<3josey

missin you sf, lovin you vt

this is what we do in vermont and i love it:

and i also love this crazy frikkin bread that i ate half a loaf of as soon as i got alone with it:

where'd i get the bread? this guy:

gerard rubaud runs a one man wood fired bakery in the hills of westford, vermont. it's just him, all the way, five days a week.

here are his loaves, just before he starts loading them into the oven, one at a time:

i'd heard rumors of gerard and his amazing bread on various bread sites, and knew that he did his thing a half hour from my house, so i made him my first stop, my first morning in vermont. he was casually doing his thing, loading the puffy dough into the hot oven.

he is fully awesome. he does his thing his way and he does it right. just grains, water, and salt in his breads. he grinds rye and spelt in a manual grinder right before he adds it to his dough.

here's some of his tools - boards on the left, and pieces of fabric that the dough sits in while it rises on the right (they're hanging to dry now):

during the two hours i hung with him, various folks from town stopped by to pick up bread. some of them wanted bread for themselves, others as gifts, and one kind girl picked up bread for her farm because it's part of their CSA. (sound familiar?)

gerard told me that he thinks you can do bread artisan style, or you can do bread industrial style, but you can't mix and match. for instance, you simply can't make artisan bread in mass quantities. also, he thinks that bread, by its very nature, is meant to be produced and consumed on a local level.

goodness gerard, you are on top of your sh*t and it makes me feel good about stuff.

look at these gorgeous chubby beauties in the oven, just getting all hot and excited:

i held off on biting into the bread until i was in my car. i think i was a little nervous about eating it in front of him or something. but i literally started groaning and moaning while i ate it in his driveway. i ate half the loaf right there - and it weighed 26 oz. (that's just under a pound of bread, fatso.)

what can i say, there's something addictive about real good bread.

even the dogs think so:

see ya soon cutie pies,

<3josey

give that special someone a holiday gift that will make them want you oh so bad

mmmm-hmmmm. let them eat josey baker bread.

i'm serious. sign up your crush for bread, as a totally sweet gift. come february, you, or they, will be able to get bread Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

i mean, how many times have you thought to yourself-

gee whiz, i really wish i could give someone a gift that was

* crafted with love and care
* made by someone who actually lives in my town
* was totally, totally delicious
* helped support josey baker live up to his name

ya know???

i know! so don't be bashful, be bold. be wild. be the lover/brother/sister/mother you've always wanted to be.

see?

si.

hearts and rainbows,

josey

p.s. if you don't feel like doing that, then just do this:

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

i came up with this first so when everybody starts saying it, say to them "josey baker came up with that first"

i'm very excited for two thousand and elevain. if you don't get this, don't feel bad. just click on the link and feel good.

people have been sending me photos and it's making me crazy with glee. check this one out from my buddy elizabeth:

and this gorgeous lunch shot from megan:

and look at what happened when pam brought home her first loaf to her hubby:

ya'll are the sweetest kids on the block.

<3 josey

don't let the man get you down

hidy ho you holiday sweater wearin hotties

jeezum crow this whole bread thing is really gettin outta control, ain't it?!? friggin awesome.

hey, here's a quick story - it's the day before thanksgiving. i am mixing up all of my doughs, getting in a good little work out:

everything's going well, i'm feeling very cheery, like i'm david slowly and surely slaying goliath, or maybe i'm kanye west, or i can do a back flip from a standstill, or something, and then i get to the cranberry walnut whole wheat levain dough:

its so totally sexy, right? i know! i plunge my man hand in, and while it makes me all hot and bothered to look at, things just don't really feel right... the dough isn't feeling the way i like it to feel. but i decide everything is fine, and keep rubbing down all the other doughs.

when it comes time to shape the dough into loaves, i'm in a good mood. i'm like whoa mama i can't believe i'm about to shape 60 loaves, this so so much i don't know if i can do it all. but i just start in, and am doing it and doing it and doing it... and then i get to that cranberry walnut whole wheat levain dough. and that friggin dough just does not feel good. i go about my business, but now it's starting to bum me out. i'm thinking aw man, i knew this was too much. what the heck am i doing, trying to bake 60 loaves tomorrow morning?? ugh ugh ugh i'm in a very bad mood and sleep sounds so stupid but i'm going to do it anyway because it's late and i'm tired and i have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to start baking. i go to bed all pissed off about that cranberry walnut whole wheat levain dough.

i wake up a few hours later and start baking. i put some loaves of the cranberry walnut whole wheat levain in first, and start brainstorming what i'm going to tell people when it comes out looking and tasting like poo.

but what the hell, i bake em up, and this is what i pull out:

and all was well with the world.

so don't worry kids - even when stuff feels all weird and wrong and like you're going to ef it all up, things end up being just fine. tell em joseybaker said so.

see you sooooooooon

<3 josey

p.s. i will be out of town from dec 18-jan 3. that means NO BREAD for the weeks of 12/20 and 12/27. i'm sorry, but i'll bake you some crazy sh*t when i get back, i promise you.

o hell yes for tg success

ya'll made for the raddest thanksgiving morning ever. thank you a million times over.

i baked 60 loaves thursday morning, all outta my teensy tiny little oven. and all of em got gobbled up, by all of you. folks started coming at 7:30 am, and didn't stop until noon, when i took off on my bicycle to deliver to hungry people around the neighborhood. it was so totally rad i was high all day (on excitement, not the weed pot you stoner)... until about 7:30 pm when i snuck away to take a nap in the basement of Amnesia.

but here's a little behind the scenes peak at what your breadies look like before they become bread.

black pepper parmesan you make me feel funny on the inside...

cranberry walnut you take me places i never knew existed...

and fig gorgonzola rosemary i can't even begin to explain the things i want to do to you...

get your mind outta the gutter.

we had such a special special thanksgiving dinner at amnesia with so many beautiful people.

and i ate way too much and had to fall asleep in a secret place for an hour or so. but then i woke up and sucked down a redbull and felt like a superduperstar and danced the night away.

it was full on goodness. and look at my friends. they are so pretty.

things got pretty crazy by the end of the night...

anyway, see you soon dudes.

<3 josey

community supported bread {for realll}

first of all, i want to thank you thank you THANK YOU for all of the support ya'll have given me over the past few months. it's been so super rad to see how pumped ya'll get on my breads, and that you keep coming back week after week to get more.

first things first - Thanksgiving is this week and i wanna make sure ya'll get what you want. if you haven't ordered already, please email me by Monday evening. i will be delivering most of this bread by bicycle on Thursday, and i'm mighty, mighty pumped about this.

and an important shift in the winds is happening here team... the time has come for no more day by day bread decisions. this is too important, too essential, too delicious to fly by the seat of our pants any longer. i'm gonna ask ya'll to make some teensy tiny commitments, and subscribe to my community supported bread. thats CSB for short, you cute sexy babies. so help me help you, and fill out the form at the top of the page to join in on the fun.

here's how it works, very simply - you buy $20 worth of bread (4 loaves) at a time. but on this first time around i wanna give you the sweet deal, so let me give you an extra loaf on me. so that's $20 for 5 loaves of baked goodness. for most of you this will be 5 weeks of bread - 1 loaf per week. for others this will be one week of bread, cuz you are so bread crazy that you just get as much as you can and eat it all and get a tummy ache then complain to me (silly bread loving ones). whatever your style and eating habits, i'm down, you just gotta give me the heads up. don't worry - if you're away for a week or two, just let me know at least 5 days ahead of bread day, and your subscription will carry over to the next week. and when your subscription runs out, just get another one. easy as pie. yummy as bread.

heads up - bread subscriptions don't start until after Thanksgiving, Nov 30 to be exact.

starting in December, i plan on baking on tuesdays as well, so you'll be able to get bread on Tuesday or Thursday. and to remind everybody, you can pick up my bread at Gravel & Gold (3266 21st St @ Valencia) during the day from 12:00-7:00, OR at Amnesia (853 Valencia, b/w 19th & 20th St) any time after 6:00 PM. whatever is easier for you, just let me know and i'll make sure the bread is there. pay in person with cold hard cash - i'll be at Amnesia, or there's a cute little wooden breadbox at Gravel & Gold for you to drop your money in, like this -

rafi made the box. i made the sign and even the little envelopes.

don't be sneaky and try to take your bread without paying. i am an excellent detective and i will find you and take all my bread back and maybe even call you a jerk to your face.

if you're super scared of commitment please say so (and start working on that), and just order 1 loaf at a time. my preference is for the subscription, and my hunch is that one-loaf-at-a-time won't last for long, as more and more people subscribe. you can always drop in to Amnesia and see if i've got any orphan loaves for you to scoop up, but this is only for the wild ones.

check out my new business cards. these aint no mass produced thingamajigs, no sir. i made em myself -

<3 jo

p.s. who is this mystery bread boy...???

thanks[for]giving

howdy friends

this is part totally disgusting and part totally awesome...

(that's a loaf of my black pepper parmesan. the black pepper parms LOVE to party, and i cant stop them.)

anyway, a few exciting tidbits in my bread life lately:

* i got a little nod in the November issue of San Francisco magazine. woooohoooooo
* i was recently contacted by a popular sf food and entertainment website, because they want to write a story about me (this stuff makes me bonkers)
* mcsweeney's may be writing a bread book, featuring yours truly (i know, i know, enough with the bread already, but what the heck this is my breadblog folks)

and now on to the realgoodstuff... i wanna let ya'll know about something very special i'm going to be doing in a couple weeks.

everybody's been asking about bread for the holidays. like, josey, when the hell am i going to be able to order some bread for thanksgiving??? i need to bring a loaf to my new girlfriend's house so that i can lie and said that i baked it and she will finally spend the night at my apartment. stay calm my good people, thanksgiving is right around the corner (SO IS MY BIRTHDAY AND I LOVE PRESENTS), and i'm going to give a sweet idea a good ol fashioned try - thanksgiving bread by bicycle. ohhh yes. 'tis the season emmer effer.

here's the deal - on Thanksgiving day (Nov. 25, which is 2 1/2 weeks from today) i'll bake all morning. you can come by my spot (20th & Shotwell) and pick up bread any time before noon. if you're feelin like keeping it nice and cozy and staying home, or laying low at your boy/girl/whateverfriend's house, then i will bike the bread to you sometime after 12:00, before you feast. so sweet. you get to stay in your pj's, and i get to see your place. maybe you'll even have an extra candy corn (or a few of those sweet candy pumpkins [or maybe just maybe a delicious frosty beverage]) on hand so that i can bike on to the next delivery without passing out.

and to make things fun i'm going to have a little competition amongst my breads. please vote for your favorite thanksgiving bread out of the choices below. the winners will make their way into your greedy little fingers on thanksgiving morning. possible thanksgiving breads:

* cranberry walnut whole wheat levain (so festive!)
* seed feast (so hearty!)
* olive levain (so addictive!)
* rosemary, fig, gorgonzola (so sexy!)
* black pepper parmesan (so oozy!)

and here's the thing team - you gotta order bread ahead of time! i'm anticipating more bread orders than i can handle, so if you really want bread you gotta let me know soooooon.

love all ya'll so super hard

<3 jo

p.s. this is the most perfect loaf of bread i have ever baked. i hope you like it.

whole effin wheat

i need to get into healthy brown breads. and they need to not taste like healthy brown breads. they need to be sexy and yummy and not make you think "healthy brown bread." maybe i will stop calling them that, so that you don't get it stuck in your mind...

i remember a few years ago my friend rafi was doing lots of fermentation experiments, inspired in part by the book Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Katz. rafi is a gifted man in many ways, the kitchen being one of the places he shines the brightest. but his whole grain sourdough breads tasted like poopoo. this is rafi:

anyway, the other day rafi suggested that i get into whole grain breads. i thought about it for a few, and now i know that that boy has a point. sooooo, here is my first foray into healthy brown bread - whole wheat levain.

and here is some corn bread i made. my buddy bronwen suggested i make it using a recipe from Peter Reinhart's Crust & Crumb.

and here is my roommate brendan about to get a homemade tattoo.

sorry ladies, he's taken.

<3 josey

i heard someone say... new gear... stamped bags?!?

my bread looks a little angry lately, doesn't it?

i heard someone say...

people have been telling me things about the bread i'm baking. usually it really gets me all pumped up, cuz they're telling me they like it. here are a few of the things i've heard from people after they ate it:

"your bread is the f***ing best, makes all others taste like s**t."
- MTG

"This truly was the best bread ever!"
- JR

"your olive loaf made it across the bay and onto my dinner table last night. paired with cultured butter and fig red onion jam... delicious. spectacular really. the topic of conversation for a good half hour as dinner guests slowly trickled in."
- ALM

"Oh man, I got my nards severely rocked this morning by some amazing toast. Call the fire department, call the Vatican, call the NSA, there's an amazing baker on the loose!"
- MJ

ya'll are makin me blush... but please don't stop.

new gear...

holy frikkin cow i got a HUMONGOUS new peel so that i can bake MORE MORE MORE bread for YOU YOU YOU. look at this thing, it's really a monster.

my plan is to bake 12 loaves at a time. WHAT?!? 12 LOAVES AT A TIME?!? shut up, im gonna do it, and you can't stop me.

stamped bags...

after thinking about it for a long time, i finally made myself a little linoleum stamp.

i thought that i would really like making it, but i got bored and frustrated pretty easily. luckily my friend rafi hung out and made delicious soup, so i didn't get all pissy all alone. and now i really like it. thanks rafi. oh, and thanks to my new roomie lana, too. she offered up very helpful advice about how to get a good stamp out of it, and even let me use her little rubber roller.

i love my friends.

<3 josey

p.s. i miss you, brother.