November 12, 2014 - 12:54pm
Josey is one heck of a baker and owns The Mill
But he took a road trip to see a real 'traditional artisan baker' who bakes bread just like they did 150 years ago. This guy is pretty famous now :-)
http://joseybakerbread.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/my-trip-to-meet-the-baker/
Josey also has one of the best bread blogs around with fantastic pictures.
http://joseybakerbread.wordpress.com/
Happy baking
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Josey Baker got a little notoriety in SF for the "$4 toast" served for breakfast which is a symbol of the techie, black window busses, gentrification of the city. I went by to check it out (he's maybe 6 blocks from where I used to live in the Lower Haight) and tried a morsel of bread and was blown away. Really good, earthy, whole grains which he grinds himself and mixes with a whole wheat starter.
When I commented how good it was to the server she said "would you like to meet the baker?" and there he was, eager to talk about preferments and flour vendors. Stop by if you are in the area... one of the best loaves I've had.
on one of his 'bake with me' nights and spend a Monday night at one of his really crazy pizza bashes he throws every Monday, He is one crazy character who makes some of the very best bread around. The Mill is a happenin' place for sure. i've got to get his book too.
Can we figure there are some whole grains in the crust?
I made a quiche a few days ago with swiss chard, leeks and aged Gruyere - added about 20% WW to the crust. Worked out great! Didn't get a pic until it was half gone...
fantastic and had to taste great. I have a fondness for stuff in some kind of pie shells:-) It seems we put Swiss chard in just abot everything since I have it growing on pots and it takes a couple of years to die off:-)
You are correct. The crust of the galette has 20% whole grains made up of the ancient ones, emmer, spelt, einkorn and Kamut 5% each. The really fine part of this galette was that there are 3 apples, Grannies, Honeycrisp and Fuji, snockered dried fruits, The best part is Lucy took 64 oz if apple cider and boiled it down to 16 oz and used some of it to saute the apples and fruits in it with some brown sugar, fresh ginger and pumpkin pie slices to really bring out the apple taste and make a killer caramel sauce that was thickened a bit with some cornstarch. Best apple galette ever but a bit more work and time involved.
Then Lucy added in some sugar to the thick left over cider and made apple cider jam to glaze the top. She really is incorrigible,
http://www.communitygrains.com/
A high energy, passionate guy, who knows his way around whole grain bread. I've seen several interviews with him and he was among panelists for the Community Grains Conference. It would be an enormous pleasure and honor to bake with him, though I'm not sure I could keep up! I love his blog, it's earthy and more than a bit irreverent, but oh, so cool.
I had some of his whole-wheat sourdough a while back. Being whole wheat it was nothing at all like the old-school S.F. sourdoughs and they tell you up front that it's not supposed to be, but it is excellent bread nonetheless. It's great eaten plain, without any butter or other spreads.
He's in a location on Divisadero north of Haight that doesn't get very much foot traffic going by. I took the 24 line right to his door, just like when I used to ride it in the '70s, but the line has since been electrified so you have nice, quiet trolley coaches instead of those diesel GM buses roaring by.
That is one thing I love about him. He was a teacher who moved from New England to SF and somebody turned him onto some starter they had cadged from Arizmendi (I have the same starter, also purloined) and the rest was history. Love, instinct and a lot of practice got him where he is today.
He has a lot in common with Chad Robertson of Tartine including the new England background, the surfing, the beard and the tattoos. But that is more than cool. If these guys are clones, let's get some more of them.
BMF: He and Chad are both heroes if they can manage to stay afloat running small bakeries in a competitive city for bakeries like San Francisco with its astronomical rents. I'll have to teach Josey how to make REAL S.F. sourdough (but he'd have to use white flour).
of today isn't anything like it was in the very early 70's. All those great bakeries are now long gone and SFSD today is making a kind of mild, woosie SFSD if you ask me - but is what most people like. so no worries The Hippie Bread in town back then was also very good sort of like what Josey likes to make today in fact, At least there are a few bakeries that are trying to hang on to something resembling the old but how many people can afford $9 white bread? Not enough to keep them open I'm guessing but they so make a lot of dough with the food service to keep the door open! You almost have to have a cafe today to make the bakery part work financially. We can only hope they manage to hang on and not go away like the old ones did.
Came across another video about Josey from earlier this year here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8etqxsbqFo
Very interesting guy and a lot of passion for bread
He doesn't impress me. He's narcissistic, impulsive, immature, preoccupied with himself and big on self promotion. His bakery makes a good product but hasn't made a big splash in the area. At least Steve Sullivan honed his craft and bothered to learn how a bakery operates before starting Acme. Josey just took the plunge and was grossly undercapitalized when he started up, and now he's not even sure if he'll stick with it. So what's to be impressed with besides his zeal?
his bread
Have you had his bread? I have. It's good, but not beyond the skills of any of the more experienced bakers here.