ART IN FOOD
Food plays a major role in our lives, nourishing the important relationships around us. Food can shape where and how often we spend time with family and friends, as well as determine where we spend our vacation time. Many friendships blossom for the sake of sharing similar taste in food or for the love of food. This rings true in my life, and it serves as a passionate activity for me. Consider it functional, edible art.
Growing up in the Filipino culture, rice has always been a main staple of my diet. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that potatoes, pasta and bread entered my realm of food choices. I always thought of bread as a side dish or a snack; certainly not the sustenance of life as I think of it today. I didn’t have decent bread until my early 20’s. Marvelous Market in Bethesda comes to mind, as does fresh-baked bread from local bakeries in my travels to Europe and the restaurants of New York City. Nothing local or close to my home, unless you count Whole Foods or Panera. Traveling and meeting people from different cultures led to my desire to broaden my taste buds and learn to cook with different flavors. After all, one of the best ways to learn about a culture and its history is through their cuisine. As a self-taught cook and life learner, I decided to embark on learning to bake bread at home.
VIRTUAL BREAD FRIENDS
None of the foodie friends I knew baked bread at home. It wasn’t until my (ahem) mid-forties that I wanted to demystify what baking bread was all about. In the last few years, new friendships and acquaintances have emerged from bread-related connections.
Rewind back to 2008 when I was introduced to the idea of bread baking at home! I was intrigued by conversations I had with a work colleague, Alan who talked about making his own bread at home. He talked about spending a day with a friend who showed him the skills and technique of sourdough. His friend had spent a week learning to bake bread at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) which was taught by Daniel Leader, baker and author of Bread Alone. After prodding Al with questions and interest, he was kind enough to bring me a home-baked sourdough baguette. I was hooked. The fact that not many people around me knew much about bread baking intrigued me even more. It wasn’t long till I bought my first bread book.
Not knowing anyone locally who is as passionate about food as I am, I found enthusiastic cooks and bread bakers like myself on the web, through forums like The Fresh Loaf, Pizza Making.com, Wok Wednesdays and Artisan Bread Bakers on Facebook. The Bread Baker’s Apprentice was the first bread book I owned (I do read cookbooks like one reads a novel—just for the sheer pleasure of it). The aesthetically pleasing cover of a Korean girl embracing bread caught my attention. The bread book was written in English, but it may as well have been in Korean! I could not seem to follow the baking process or picture how the dough was supposed to look or feel, despite the many descriptive adjectives. Call it intimidation or whatever you like, but the book sat on my shelf for about a year. Here’s a photo of the first bread I baked in late 2009. This is solid proof that anyone can bake bread by following instructions. It looked like bread, I didn’t say it was pretty. Or tasty. Ha! 
THE ARTISAN BREAD SCHOOL
I am a visual learner and enjoy delving into interests by learning as much as I can from reading as well as first-hand in a classroom setting. After much internet research, I found weekend courses for bread baking at King Arthur Education Center in VT, as well as SFBI in CA. As luck would have it, I found a 5-day artisan bread course in Washington State, one of my favorite food destinations! Enrolling at the Artisan Bread School in October 2010 was the best decision I made in learning the basics of bread baking. The hands-on experience gave me confidence to try new bread recipes. Attending a bread course definitely sped up the learning process. I was drawn to making my own bread at home for several reasons. First I wanted to fill the kitchen with the freshly baked bread aroma. Also, the idea of controlling what I ate (unprocessed foods) appealed to me. In addition, playing with dough using my bare hands satisfied the need for a creative outlet.
Artisan Bread School
Sourdoughs baked in wood fire oven, Artisan Bread School, Hains House, 2010
My Bread Baker Heros
When I finished the artisan bread course, I became a seasonal home baker; practicing my new baking skills, honing my dough-handling techniques and experimenting with bread formulas from different authors. Jeffrey Hamelman, Richard Miscovich, Ken Forkish and Chad Robertson became my new bread teachers. I spent the cooler months baking in my home oven and the warmer months reading and talking about bread. Here are photos of the breads I baked after taking the bread course. Not too shabby for a seasonal baker, and it was quite delicious! 
THE LE PANYOL WOOD-FIRED OVEN
After spending a week at Hains House Bed and Breakfast where the Artisan Bread School was hosted, I was convinced that owning a wood-fired oven was in my family’s future. The quality of foods cooked and breads baked in the oven was impressive. The higher temperatures of the wood-fired oven produced rich caramelization in the foods I just couldn’t get from my mediocre home oven. The copper clad, white clay (“terre blanche”) Le Panyol wood-fired oven, weighing a mere 2400 pounds required a lift gate. It took an hour to level the oven on its 300 pound stand. Since this beautiful oven didn’t come with an instruction manual, I learned by reading through wood-fired oven books and hands-on experience. Getting used to the extreme high heat (up to 800 degrees) was both challenging and rewarding. 
PIZZA, AND MORE PIZZA
In the first year of learning how to use the wood-fired oven, pizzas were spewing out of the copper dragon’s mouth faster than I could make them. Pizza became a popular item on our family dinner menu. Then I got pizza on the brain in late 2012. After taking the family to NYC and joining Scott Weiner on his infamous Pizza Tour, I spent a January morning in Brooklyn with Giulio Adriani, owner and pizza chef of Forcella, learning the basics of Neapolitan pizza. The one-on-one training with Giulio was invaluable in learning to make pizza dough using 00 flour as well as managing a hot oven to cook Neapolitan pizza in 60-90 seconds. In May and August, I returned to NYC for a 10-day pizza training course at Don Antonio’s with Roberto and Georgia Caporuscio and became certified as a pizzaiola (pizza maker). Yes, the overpriced training was overkill, but baking Neapolitan pizza with Italian flour in a Neapolitan oven couldn’t be more authentic. If you are wondering what I learned in the 10-day training, it was just that making a great pizza takes lots of practice. The secret is using the right equipment (fork or spiral mixer), the right oven (wood fire oven) and the freshest ingredients. 
In March 2013, I attended the Pizza Expo in Las Vegas to learn from other pizza masters like Tony Gemignani, owner of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in North Beach, SF. His two-day demo proved to be invaluable for a visual learner like me. I continued to perfect baking Neapolitan pizzas in my backyard with dreams of sharing the authentic taste of Neapolitan pizzas with the local community. Selling my oven so that I could re-invest in a mobile oven did not happen. My original idea of vending pizzas in the farmer’s market on Saturdays rather than spending quality time with my family, made me rethink my strategy of sharing my passion for Neapolitan pizzas. I continued to bake pizza, throwing pizza parties for friends and family just so I could make the dough and fire up the oven!
NYC Pizza Marathon 2013 with Gabriel Bonci
On a recent trip to Rome, I visited Pizzarium and learn about Gabriel Bonci, a bread baker, culinary chef, and better known as a pizza TV celebrity. I had just met Tom Edwards, owner of MozzaPi, pizzaiolo (pizza maker), artisan bread baker, and woodwork artist, in Tuscany the week before, who put Bonci on my radar after he shared his experience with Bonci’s workshop and Roman pizza. So fast forward to October 18-21, 2013. It was my NYC Weekend Pizza Marathon with Gabriel Bonci. It was great fun meeting Elsia Menduni, co-author of the Pizza Book and fellow pizzahead, Ted Rosenberg from Pizza Making Forum during Bonci’s demonstration at Eataly, in the Flatiron District. We experienced a two-hour demo and tastings of his pizzas paired nicely with Italian wines. The following day, we headed over to Paulie Gee’s in Brooklyn for an amazing lunch by Bonci sponsored by Paulie Gee and Katie Parla, food blogger and writer of Walking Rome. It was a three-hour event of watching Bonci do his magic of baking the Roman pizzas in the wood fire oven. It was also fun to meet Jeremy Shapiro, another bread head and blogger of Stirthepots.com. The following evening was the NYCWFF, La Sagra Pizza. I got to enjoy different slices from Co. Pizza, Nicoletta’s, Motorino and Forcella. Thanks to Jeanette Catena, owner and pizza chef of Luna Pizzeria in NJ, who is the business development director of Orlando Foods, sole distributor of Caputo Flour. I love their flour! The weekend culminated at Sullivan Street Bakery where I attended a workshop with Bonci, learning to make his pizza style. I don’t speak Italian and Bonci doesn’t speak any English, but baking next to the pizza master was what I needed to learn the craft. That night, it was fun to meet the man responsible for revolutionizing bread baking, the no-knead technique, and owner of Sullivan Street Bakery, Jim Lahey. One of my favorite pictures taken in the early mornings at Sulliven Street Bakery. 
For a detailed post of my NYC Pizza Marathon with the Michelangelo of pizza himself, Gabriel Bonci, check out www.pizzastalker.blogspot.com Since early this year, I decided to spend more time baking bread using the Le Panyol oven, which is primarily a bread oven. I spent time collecting more bread books and studying them like textbooks to increase my knowledge on baking science and process. I found inspiration in several bread forums I joined through Facebook, especially Artisan Bread Bakers whose membership has grown to almost 1000. I jumpstarted my baking journey by taking a bread course. I have spent the last year or so regularly baking bread book recipes from baker/authors like Chad Robertson (Tartine), Richard Miscovich (In the Wood Fire Oven), Dan Lepard (The Handmade Loaf), Jeffrey Hammelman (Bread) and Ken Forkish (Flour, Water, Yeast and Salt). I have had several colleagues from work come to the house for a day’s lesson in baking different types of breads including pizza. Sharing my love for baking and teaching others that making GOOD bread at home is possible has been quite rewarding! 
BREADHEADS ARE EVERYWHERE
The one thing I’ve learned in my bread making journey is how receptive and genuinely friendly bakers are! The people I’ve met through the bread connection are the friendliest bunch. An example is the wonderful camaraderie from connecting with others on the Artisan Bread Bakers Forum on Facebook whose members reside in all parts of the globe. If distance was not a deterrent, I think many of us would be meeting for a bakery tour or a bake-off in someone’s kitchen. Which is exactly what I did! This past March while in San Francisco to attend MacWorld, I had the wonderful opportunity to Joy Plummer, an amazing chef, baker, and mom extraordinaire. We met on the Artisan Bread Bakers Forum months prior and developed a bond over bread. It was that simple. We met at Nanking Restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful meal and passionate conversations about bread, family, life, and more about bread. Thank you, Joy, for the wonderful fresh loaf of bread you brought me. While visiting my stepson at RISD, I had the pleasure of spending the day with fellow bread head and WFO owner, Ron Rathburn, who bakes up to 90 loaves of bread in a weekend in his hand-built wood fire oven in the backyard. Because of his expertise and willingness to share, I have learned to manage the heat in my wood-fired oven so I can bake up to a dozen loaves of sourdough breads. Thank you, Ron. Over the summer in Maui, I was introduced via email to a new baking friend who has her own micro bakery and lives part-time in Maui and California. We were so excited talking about bread and having found each other on a small island that she graciously loaned me her cloche baking pots to bake my sourdoughs in! While we haven’t met face-to-face yet, I feel connected to her because of the passion we share. Mahalo, Julie. So if I’m not baking or reading about bread, I love talking about bread with anyone who has a remote interest. An evening weekend stroll into William and Sonoma store led into an opportunity to bake my naturally leavened focaccias in their WOLF gas ovens. Amazing crisp crust with a tender crumb, filled with fruity olive oil. 
SAN FRANCISCO BAKING INSTITUTE (SFBI)
All of this has brought me to another new life adventure. A two-week training class at SFBI! I will blog about my experience each day, so stay tuned! 
Bread Simple. 