November 2012

the BREAD issue s t. l o2012 u is’ i n d e pe n d e nt cu l i n a ry au th o r it y November

sau c e m aga zi n e .co m

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N o v em b e r 2 012 • VO LUM E 12, Issue 10 PUBLISHER MANAGING EDITOR ART DIRECTOR SENIOR STAFF WRITER CONTRIBUTING EDITOR SPECIAL SECTIONs EDITOR Fact checker PROOFREADER PRODUCTION DESIGNER ONLINE EDITOR EDIBLE WEEKEND WRITER CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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Allyson Mace Stacy Schultz Meera Nagarajan Ligaya Figueras Julie Cohen Stacy Schultz Robert Severson, Danny Steinberg Emily Lowery Michelle Volansky Stacy Schultz Byron Kerman Jonathan Gayman, Ashley Gieseking, David Kovaluk, Laura Miller, Greg Rannells, Kristi Schiffman, Carmen Troesser Vidhya Nagarajan Glenn Bardgett, Matt Berkley, Julie Cohen, Ligaya Figueras, Kellie Hynes, Byron Kerman, Cory King, Emily Lowery, Meera Nagarajan, Amrita Rawat, Michael Renner, Dee Ryan, Stacy Schultz, Beth Styles Erin Keplinger Sharon Arnot Erin Keplinger Angie Rosenberg Erin Estopare, Rachel Gaertner, Scott Hadfield, Erin Keplinger, Allyson Mace, Angie Rosenberg Jill George Danny Steinberg, Greg Baumann

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editorial policies The Sauce Magazine mission is to provide St. Louis-area residents and visitors with unbiased, complete information on the area’s restaurant, bar and entertainment industry. Our editorial content is not influenced by who advertises with Sauce Magazine or saucemagazine.com.

Our reviewers are never provided with complimentary food or drinks from the restaurants in exchange for favorable reviews, nor are their identities as reviewers made known during their visits.

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contents 9 A La Carte

Reviews 17 new and notable: Perennial Artisan Ales

by Michael Renner

21 Nightlife: Blondie’s Coffee and Wine Bar

by Matt Berkley

Home cooking 23 What in the world: Kamut

by Ligaya Figueras

24 Vegetize it: Chicken and Dumplings

features 31 short list Baguettes

By Ligaya Figueras

by Kellie Hynes

26 One ingredient, 8 ways: Day-Old Bread A Day Late and a Loaf Too Many

by Dee Ryan

28 The New Classics

32 Rising Stars Meet two very different men who are determined to change the way we think about bread

17 cover details

BY Stacy Schultz

Sidney Street Cafe’s Beignets

By Meera Nagarajan

37 The wonder of bread Local bakers share their tips to help everyone

Last course

– from newbie kneaders to veteran shapers –

46 Five questions for: Amir Habibollah

by Byron Kerman

become a better baker

BY Ligaya Figueras

(Flip your magazine over for a big surprise!)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and our Guide to the Holidays has everything you need to make it a smashing success. While the gift guide has dozens of ideas for everyone on your list – from the boozehound to the baker to the brand new cook – our Make-Ahead Holiday manual proves that a little planning goes a long way. Learn to batch up pre-dinner drinks, wrap up post-dinner dessert and finish up everything a day or two ahead so you can sit back and enjoy yourself.

Josh Allen, owner of Companion Baking Co., shaping one of his Old World loaves

Photo by Carmen Troesser

= recipe on this page

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Go to SauceMagazine.com/ extrasauce.php to see how you can enter our Holiday Party Pinterest Contest for a chance to win a Krups Espresso Machine.

READ | Every week on the blog at SauceMagazine.com, we cook and share recipes from cookbooks in our column, By the Book. We then give readers a chance to win that week’s book. This month in By the Book, we will attempt to conquer the art of baking bread in these beautiful books: Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson, Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish, The River Cottage Bread Handbook by Daniel Stevens, and Nick Malgieri’s Bread. Join us every Tuesday at SauceMagazine. com/blog/.

ENTERTAIN | In this year’s Guide to the Holidays (Flip the magazine over for a big surprise!), we give you everything you need to entertain with ease this holiday season.

Now, we want to see how you plan to spend the most wonderful time of the year. To enter our Holiday Party Pinterest Contest, create a Pinterest board called My Saucy Holiday Party for a chance to win a Krups XP1020 Steam Espresso Machine. Pin at least 10 images, 4 of them from Sauce. Each image should include #saucemagazine in its description. We’ll announce the winner on SauceMagazine. com/blog/. For more info, head to SauceMagazine.com/extrasauce.php.

LISTEN |This month, area bakers Josh Allen and Ted Wilson will answer your questions about the never-ending world of bread. Want to know how to feed your starter? Having trouble knowing when to stop kneading? Can’t quite master ciabatta? Tweet us @SauceMagazine, write on our Facebook wall, or email your burning bread queries to us at pr@saucemagazine.com. Then, tune in

Photo by carmen troesser

to St. Louis Public Radio 90.7 KWMU’s Cityscape on Friday, November 9 at 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. to hear Allen and Wilson answer your questions.

facebook.com/saucemagazine | twitter.com/ saucemagazine | pinterest.com/saucemagazine

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EAT THIS

The DRESSEL’S PRETZEL has been on the menu at DRESSEL’S PUBLIC HOUSE for so long, it’s been perfected. The dough, yeasty and soft, is twisted into a log, poached, set aside to rise and then baked to order. It comes to your table fresh from the oven with a golden exterior and a shower of coarse sea salt glistening on top. This bread has pull, so when you break it apart, the pale dough stretches. And when you eat it, you gotta chew. Dunk a piece in the rarebit – a bold blend of

Photo by carmen troesser

cheddar, cream, mustard, beer and a dash of hot sauce – for a final touch that makes this bread truly brilliant.

Dressel’s Public House • 419 N. Euclid Ave., St. Louis • 314.361.1060 • dresselspublichouse.com

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use this T-Fal Balanced Living Bread Maker

baker’s day off Since leaving his post as chef de cuisine at The Good Pie this past summer to open a bakery of his own, baker Ted Wilson has more time off than he’s had in years to visit the

restaurants he wants. But when he’s up waiting for his loaves to rise, there are only two things he craves at 2 a.m.: the Schnuck’s hot bar and a bottle of Guinness.

To hear more about Wilson’s new project, check out Rising Stars on page 32.

Want to fill your kitchen with the sweet smells of freshly baked bread without filling your days with hours of kneading, rising and shaping? All hail the bread machine. T-Fal’s newest model makes it easier than ever to whip up fresh bread at home.

Go button-happy choosing between 12 different settings – from whole wheat to French to ultra fast – and three crust settings to turn out the perfect 1½- or 2-pound loaf. A bonus for us impatient bakers: a viewing window that gives you a peek into all that rising goodness! $140. macys.com.

The production of beer and bread are surprisingly similar.

Both use water, yeast and cereal grains (barley, wheat, rye). The only thing bread is missing is the lovely presence of hops. The ingredients cross over so well, in fact, that a commonly known bread is actually named beer bread – made with grains that have already been used in a batch of beer. Primitive bread is thought to have been produced

by making a dough of grain and water and baking it into bread. Many believe that the first primitive beer making was done by taking the baked bread, soaking it in water, heating and then cooling the mixture, and then letting a spontaneous fermentation take place. This resulted in a very light, slightly tart, beer. So without bread, there may have never been beer.

– Cory King

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Rye breads traditionally have a more intense flavor, denser body and richer characteristics than whole-wheat breads. And, as you might imagine, these traits carry over into rye beers as well. The rye lends a spicy, luscious backbone to beer that’s often offset with hops, alcohol or maltiness. My favorite Rye Beer: Founders Red’s Rye P.A.

Whole wheat, when used in bread making, has softer flavors and a fluffier texture than rye breads.

Once again, these traits carry over into fine wheat beer examples.

American Wheats, German Hefeweizens and Belgian Wits have a light, cloudy white body, with a soothing mouth feel and medium-length finish left by the higher protein content of the wheat. My favorite Wheat Beer: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

A doppelbock is a malty, rich, strong German lager that was first produced by monks so they could have something hearty while they fasted during Lent. The monks called it “liquid bread,” because, since they couldn’t bake or eat bread during Lent, they would use the exact same grains that were intended for their bread recipe in the recipe for this beer.

My favorite Doppelbock: Ayinger Celebrator

November 2012

photo by ashley gieseking

[beer]

make this

For the last five years, you brought wine. This holiday party season, shock ‘em all with your mad culinary prowess. Enter garlic knots: yeasty, salty, doughy twists that no one can resist. For knots done right, take a cue from someone who knows: Onesto’s Brian Miller. On a lightly floured work surface, flatten a 16-ounce ball of pizza dough into a rectangle. Cut the rectangle into 3-inch strips. Roll 1 strip between your hands into a long snake. Tie a knot at the very end of the strip, pull it off right after the knot and place it on a lined baking sheet. Keep tying knots and tearing them off until you’ve used up the strip of dough. Repeat with the remaining dough. You’ll have about 25 garlic knots. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 7 to 9 minutes. While the knots are baking, melt ½ stick of unsalted butter and skim the froth off the top. Add a pinch of granulated garlic, 1 minced garlic clove, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss the baked knots in the butter mixture and sprinkle with a pinch of grated Parmesan and dried parsley.

photo by jonathan gayman

You could make the dough yourself, but who has the time when Onesto sells it by the pound and the party starts in an hour?

$5/16-oz. ball, Onesto Pizza & Trattoria, 5401 Finkman St., St. Louis, 314.802.8883, onestopizza.com November 2012

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[2]

A Tour of Ethnic Bakeries With festival season over, the UEFA Cup behind us and the next Olympics years away, we’re feeling a bit bereft of a hearty dose of culture. Then we remembered the best way to re-create the excitement of the exotic: We must start with our stomachs. Enter: St. Louis – the Epcot of Bakeries. Lucky for us, when it comes to baked goods, our fair city is brimming with fried, flaky, dense, sweet and spicy starches from all over the globe. And with the bulky winter clothes back in our closets, there is no better time to start exploring our future favorite carbs.

By Julie Cohen photos by carmen troesser

[1]

In the shadow of the Bevo Mill lies little Bosnia – or Big Bosnia, seeing as St. Louis has the largest Bosnian population outside of Bosnia-Herzegovina. When first entering the oldest Bosnian-run business and bakery in this close-knit Bevo Mill neighborhood, it’s hard not to feel like an awkward tourist. But at this bakery, the only two words you need to know besides “please” and “thank you” are lepinja and burek.

Lepinja, a ciabatta-esque,

St. Louis Korean Bakery With bright yellow and orange paint on the walls and white, swirly pendant lanterns hovering over the tables, this shop feels more like a Pinkberry than the only Korean bakery in town [1]. A variety of korokkes (stuffed and deep-fried rolls), breads and cookies come in individual plastic bags, which add to the air of crisp sterility. But don’t let the corporate feel of the place make you doubt the authenticity and freshness of the products.

To muck things up (and get your fill of crunchy, creamy, chewy and sweet in just one bite), try the potbingsoo, a Korean-style shaved ice that will unleash an avalanche of diced fruits, globs of red bean paste and a sprinkling of bite-sized rice cakes the second your spoon hits the bowl.

Don’t miss: korokkes filled with kimchi and ground beef.

Golden Grains Bakery and Grocery

Wei Hong Bakery

disc-shaped traditional Bosnian pita [2], is light, spongy and perfect for gyros, sandwiches and shoving in your mouth by the fistful as you drive home. While burek, a rich pig-in-a-blanket-like dish (if the herbed and greasy pig was only referred to as “meat” and the blanket was an endless pastry that doubled as a labyrinth), is best saved to share with friends.

Don’t miss: your two new favorite vocab words.

4573 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314.752.3004

[3]

Warning: Wei Hong Seafood Restaurant, which serves dim sum and other Cantonese fare in a giant old movie theater, can be awfully distracting when searching for the small bakery nestled next door – but don’t be set off course. From the unbelievably low prices to the gaggle of hanging roasted whole ducks to the rows of fluffy white steamed buns, this Chinese bakery won’t make you feel shortchanged on the authentic front.

Don’t miss: barbecue pork buns and egg tarts [3].

13357 Olive Blvd., Chesterfield, 314.523.1332

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7740 Olive Blvd., U. City, 314.726.0363 November 2012

[4]

Vitale’s Bakery

[6]

[4] Serving generations of Italian-Americans (and cannoli-loving Americanos) since 1976, this panetteria creates nostalgia for the corner bakeries of yesteryear.

(It doesn’t hurt that the bakery is on an actual corner.)

Don’t miss: the cannolis, the light-as-air ricotta puffs, the anise-laden cookies or the adorable photo of Peter and Grace Vitale’s grandson, Nicholas Anthony, prominently showcased on the bakery counter.

2130 Marconi Ave., St. Louis, 314.664.6665, vitalesbakerystl.com

La Bonne Bouchée Between the 14 flavors of macarons [5], bowls filled to their brims with madeleines and meringues, the display of decadent cakes, and row after row of French delicacies, deciding what to try at this French pâtisserie and cafe is nearly as hard as resisting the charms of owner and executive chef Olivier Leguet. Still going strong since 1981 in a space that’s been newly renovated and expanded, at this bakery, it’s easy to become inspired by your inner Proust.

Don’t miss: housemade chocolate croissants.

12344 Olive Blvd., Creve Coeur, 314.576.6606, labonnebouchee.com November 2012

[5]

Diana’s Bakery The sounds of Mexican tunes hit your eardrums the moment you open the door to this panadería. Rows of wooden cabinets line the walls, packed with colorful cookies, pastries, churros and rolls [6].

Few of the baked goods are labeled, so you won’t always know if that empanada is stuffed with mango or pumpkin. But with prices so low and life so short, do what I

do: Grab a red tray and a pair of tongs and load up – excessively and indiscriminately. That cheese bolillo (a small bread loaf) stuffed with jalapeños and cream cheese that you thought was a jellyroll just might change your life. It did mine.

Don’t miss: cheese bolillos and apple churros.

2843 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314.771.6959

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By the Numbers:

Baker’s Math When it comes to baking bread, there’s always more to learn.

Here, we offer you a few doughy digits to keep your brain – and bread – inflated. - Ligaya Figueras

00

An Italian grade of flour, usually milled from durum wheat and traditionally used for making pasta, although acceptable for baking ciabatta and focaccia.

2012 The year that McKaskle Family Farm in Braggadocio, Mo., launched its non-GMO, organic cornmeal. The grains hit the market this month. Sold at Local Harvest Grocery.

PHOTO BY GREG RANNELLS

75 - 80 PHOTO BY GREG RANNELLS

250

12,000

Commercial flour brands recommended by area bakers: Bob’s Red Mill, Hodgson Mill and King Arthur.

The average number of pounds of dough that bakers at Companion process in 1 day.

$2.19 Price per pound of soft red whole-wheat pastry flour from Terra Bella Farm in Auxvasse, Mo. Sold at Local Harvest Grocery.

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Farrier Presshouse Red 2009 Alexander Valley, Calif. Tasting this delicious blend of merlot, cabernet Franc and cabernet sauvignon, I initially thought it would pair well with barbecue. But on second thought, this $22 comfort red is best with a great braunschweiger and onion sandwich on some wonderful rye bread.

Pair it with rye bread

Iron Horse Wedding Cuveé, Green Valley, Russian River Valley, Calif. Eightyeight-percent pinot noir adds a touch of color to the bubbly deliciousness of this amazing sparkler. Though this bottle will work with almost any cuisine, its yeasty character made me want a big hunk of San Francisco sourdough. At about $40, it will outshine most bubbles from the French world.

PHOTO BY CARMEN TROESSER

PHOTO BY CARMEN TROESSER

Glenn Bardgett, Annie Gunn’s wine director and a member of the Missouri Wine and Grape Board, weighs in on which wines to drink this month. Check your favorite wine shop or liquor store for availability.

The ideal air temperature range (in Fahrenheit) for rising bread.

The weight, in grams, of a French baguette, as mandated by French law.

3

[wine]

Pair it with sourdough

100 The percent of flour, calculated by weight, used in a baking recipe. The weights of all other ingredients in the recipe are expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight. This standard method of expressing bread formulas is known as a baker’s percentage.

140

The temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which yeast dies.

Qupé Chardonnay Bien Nacido Vineyard Y-Block, 2010, Santa Maria Valley, Calif.

If you’re having an English muffin, there’s a good chance that some nice, soft butter isn’t far away. This beauty from Bob Lindquist is barrel-fermented, which loads up the flavor and toasty style, making this $20 white perfect for that warm, toasted muffin far past breakfast.

Pair it with an English muffin

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reviews

new and notable: perennial artisan ales p. 17 nightlife: blondie’s coffee and wine bar p. 21

New and Notable: Perennial Artisan Ales

by Michael Renner • Photos by Jonathan Gayman

I

t’s 6:15 as patrons belly up to the copper-topped bar at Perennial Artisan Ales for their free sample of the week’s new brew: a big, hoppy Imperial IPA pumped up to 10.5-percent alcohol. The week before it was a malt liquor called Haters Gonna Hate. Now that’s funny. It’s like this every Thursday starting at 6 p.m., when co-owner Phil Wymore and the Perennial brew crew tap the seasonal, limitedrelease beer of the week. It’s an example of one of the more exciting, not to mention thirst-quenching, local trends: the renaissance of good beer.

With the surge in microbreweries over the past five years, St. Louis is harkening back to our rich German brewing history. Not since those heady days before Prohibition, when the number of breweries topped 22, has St. Louis been so awash in beer. At last count, beer-lovers now have 19 craft breweries where they can practice Gemütlichkeit, that untranslatable German word connoting conviviality, celebration and camaraderie. In other words, 19 places where beer nerds can gather and geek out on hops, IBUs, and bottom versus top fermentation.

Perennial Artisan Ales, 8125 S. Michigan Ave., St. Louis, 314.631.7300, perennialbeer.com

Now, as then, beer is as fundamental to daily life as bread.

Last month, Perennial celebrated its first birthday. Since the start, it quickly gained a reputation for brewing audacious, categorydeyfying, farmhouse, Belgian-style ales with esoteric ingredients like fruits, nuts and spices. One popular ale, Peace Offering, even calls for maple-roasted squash. Another calls for pluots. Still another is brewed with cacao nibs, ancho chiles, cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans. You get the picture. Perennial is also gaining a rep for dishing out pub grub that, like its beer, has higher aspirations. After all, if you’re transcending the cult of pale ale, your food should follow suit.

Hand Pies

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The menu, which changes weekly, is based around bread and cheese. It’s pared down from last November when Perennial partnered with John Perkins and his Entre operation to run the kitchen. Between running a food truck, private catering and his popular saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 17

review new and notable: PERENNIAL ARTISAN ALES the second visit, it arrived perfectly golden brown. Both times the buttery crust was flakey, the filling piping hot. As with all the sandwiches, it came with Billy Goat chips.

Count on a hearty, rotating selection of fromage for the cheese plates, sourced mostly from the Midwest: Prairie Breeze cheddar from Iowa’s Milton Creamery, cave-aged Ocooch Mountain sheep’s milk cheese from Wisconsin’s Hidden Springs Creamery and blue cheeses from Hooks, also in Wisconsin.

From Burgundy, there’s the pungent, rich, ultra creamy Délice de Bourgogne.

Smoked Trout Tartine Sandwich

mobile underground dinners, Perkins exited seven months later. Since around June, the kitchen has been in the capable hands of Claire Mendez, the sister of co-owner Emily Wymore. You won’t find rillettes of rabbit or bowls of pasta carbonara, as on the previous menu, but you will find enough interesting sandwiches, snacks and cheeses to keep you sated while quaffing.

the jam, and a good match for a pour of the dry-hopped Hommel Bier. There’s a smoked trout tartine sandwich, served open-faced on a slice of grilled sourdough, that’s elevated by the addition of pickled beets and, when pea shoots were not available one evening, arugula. Using creme fraiche as the binder provided a sharper, more pronounced kick than the usual mayonnaise base. The creamy tartness paired well with the Saison de Lis, a farmhouse-style ale brewed with chamomile flowers. The pork belly, meltingly tender from its slow braise with maple syrup, came on a baguette that had been brushed with a mustard vinaigrette and mounded with pickled red cabbage and apple slaw. Those not accustomed to sandwich-size servings of pork belly will find the cabbage not vinegary

Memories of childhood grilled cheese aside, Mendez layers slices of Prairie Breeze cheddar and Widmer Cellars brick cheeses with onion-thyme jam between two thick slices of sourdough bread and griddles it until golden.

For two bucks extra, you can add tomato, bacon or ham. It’s a molten mess, deliciously creamy and crunchy, a hint of sweetness from

enough to cut through this much fatty meat.

The rest of us will regale in its unctuousness and drink more Brew for the Crew, a malty Munich-style lager brewed for Kevin Willmann’s restaurant, Farmhaus.

There are other sandwiches, some of which won’t be available by the time you read this.

One that is sure to stay – that must stay – is the hand pie, or as I call it, hand-held comfort food. Technically, it’s a pasty – a baked savory pastry filled with meat and vegetables. The fillings change regularly: One time it was Wagyu brisket, caramelized onions, peppers and fontina cheese; another, it was chorizo, sweet potato, corn and Chihuahua cheese. During my visits it was chicken potpie: roasted chicken, sweet and white potatoes, butternut squash and onions blanketed in a creamy béchamel. My first order was burnt around the edges. On

The brewery-cum-tasting room is located in the Patch, the funky area on the southern tip of the historic Carondelet neighborhood in south St. Louis city. Beware, finding the place can be tricky. While the address is on Michigan Avenue, the parking lot and entrance is actually around the corner behind the building at Virgina Avenue and Davis Street. There’s a patio section just off the parking lot. Inside, there’s that long, coppertop bar and a nice bar back, but the overall atmosphere is austere: concrete floors, wooden tables and chairs scattered about, a corner for playing darts. After all, this is a brewery (On Saturdays you can take a tour.), so expect all the aromas associated with the process. Service is casual and can lag at times, even when the place isn’t busy. You order at the bar, but the food is brought to your table. Designated drivers can sip on house-made sodas, like Apple and Spice made with Missouri apples.

Perennial’s trademark logo is the ginkgo leaf, a fitting symbol: The ginkgo is a distinct species of tree with no close living relatives.

The leaf is known as a “living fossil,” because living leaves look the same as those preserved in their fossil record. The connection seems obvious given Phil Wymore’s academic training in anthropology and archaeology: Practicing the ancient art and science of brewing using unique ingredients unlike any other brewery. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for ginkgo beer.

AT A GLANCE Where Perennial Artisan Ales, 8125 S. Michigan Ave., St. Louis, 314.631.7300, perennialbeer.com

Don’t Miss Dishes Grilled cheese, hand pie, smoked trout tartine sandwich

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Vibe Industrial, Spartan garage-like setting that won’t make a bit of difference with a table of friends.

Entree Prices Snacks: $4 to $10; sandwiches: $9 to $12; cheese plates: $6 to $7

When Wed. and Thu. – 4 to 10 p.m.; Fri. – 4 to 11 p.m.; Sat. – noon to 11 p.m.

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review nightlife: Blondie’s Coffee and Wine Bar

Nightlife: Blondie’s Coffee and Wine Bar

by Matt berkley • Photos by Jonathan Gayman

I

t’s hardly surprising that Washington Avenue, the gentrified mecca of St. Louis’ urban crowd, recently welcomed a female-friendly coffee and wine bar to its ever-evolving fold. What does defy logic, however, is how Blondie’s, with its glamorous girlfriend vibe, so effortlessly succeeds in appealing to the males who might have originally despised any plan that involved even passing by the place.

Make no mistake; this den of sweet alcoholic decadence is geared toward the ladies. Still, this chick packs a punch.

Here are a few reasons why guys should be thankful to be dragged along.

The Booze: Drinks are supplied well and in generous amounts. A multi-page wine list offers a lineup of unsurprising and reasonably priced California reds, Malbecs, cabernets, chardonnays and November 2012

liqueurs, brandy, and a healthy dollop of Serendipity Tahitian Vanilla ice cream. I ordered one for the girlfriend. Then I stole it.

The Food: It’s tough to figure out whether Blondie’s menu lends itself better toward a gaggle of gal pals on a night out or a cozy couple on a Blondie’s Coffee first date. Honestly, and Wine Bar, 1301 this type of high-end Washington Ave., comfort food works 314.241.6100, St. Louis, for both occasions. blondiesstl.com Just one warning: The portions are small. If you’re looking for something substantial, avoid items such as the scallop and shrimp combo, a treat that gives new meaning to the term “small plate.” A better choice is the Margherita flatbread, which, in a fantastic new take, is smothered with savory slices of Calabrese salami (Thank you whoever thought of this one.). Equally enjoyable are the variety of cheese and charcuterie plates. With additional sandwiches such as the Brennan Reece – a combination of roast beef, mild cheddar and horseradish on sourdough – Blondie’s menu makes for some serious and none-too-healthy drunk food.

And I haven’t even mentioned the desserts.

Order a blondie. You’ll thank me.

The Vibe: Management would like to say that Blondie’s is super laid-back. The whole sauvignon blancs. A shocker, though, is “living room” theme is evident in the space, in the adjacent menu of bottled and draft which appears as if someone went a little too beer, which boasts more of a solid and wellnuts with his or her Restoration Hardware thought-out collection of IPAs, lambics, charge card. As a result, there are certainly a ales, stouts, Pilsners and ciders than any few cushioned spots to lean back and enjoy pub found on the strip. For something a faux fire, but it all feels a bit over-thesimple to start, throw back a bottle of top. Still, decadence is what this place is all Scrimshaw, a smooth Pilsner with a clean about. And the steady stream of clientele finish that reminds you why you started doesn’t seem to mind. Late on a Saturday drinking in the first place. For something night, while nearby hotspots are spilling out, more substantial from the bar, vodka Blondie’s still retains a strong crowd: mainly martinis abound. Otherwise, you can heat older, 30-something girlfriends and groups up a cold winter night with a Spiced Apple of couples. Needless to say, this is a winner Martini – a strong diversion laced with for the first, second or whatever number date copious amounts of 10 Cane Rum, apple you might be on. juice and cinnamon. Dessert drinks are

similarly well done. A standout with a nice The Verdict: OK, here it is. I never bite is Blondie’s Chocolate Martini. A little thought I’d admit to something like this: less harsh, though overwhelmingly easy to I really want to go back to that chick bar devour, is the Jane Mansfield – a milkshake down on Washington. Sorry, the place is concoction of chocolate and almond good.

order it: Blondie’s Coffee and Wine Bar

The menu boasts a bevy of small plates, some of which may be too tiny to share. Safe for a party of two: the Margherita flatbread, complete with salty slices of Calabrese salami.

Now that you’ve had a nibble, let’s get down to the real reason to go – the sweets. For a decadent sipper, order the Jane Mansfield: an unapologetic mix of vanilla ice cream, brandy, and chocolate and almond liquors. And, while this seems like a no-brainer, we have to say it: don’t leave Blondie’s without the blondie.

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November 2012

what in the world: kamut p. 23 vegetize it: chicken and dumplings p. 24 one ingredient, 8 ways: day-old bread p. 26 the new classics: beignets p. 28

what in the world is

kamut?

This ancient wheat

berry called khorasan is

sold commercially under its trademarked name, kamut. Although the large, tan grain is still grown in Egypt and Turkey, it has become more widely available since first being cultivated on U.S. soil in the mid-20th century. The trendy, slow-cooking grain offers a sweet, nutty flavor and chewy texture.

Use it: Cook up a pot of kamut – 1 cup of dried grains cooks up to about 2½ cups – then add it to grain salads. Substitute kamut for rice and other grains in pilafs and soups.

When baking, kamut flour performs best as a sub for whole-wheat flour or in combination with oat flour, but if you want the “What’s that?” reaction, soak whole kernels in water overnight, then add them to bread dough and muffin batter.

photo by greg rannells

Buy it: Kamut flour and whole-grain kamut is available at Local Harvest Grocery, 3108 Morgan Ford Road, St. Louis, 314.865.5260, localharvestgrocery.com – Ligaya Figueras

November 2012

Honey, Walnut and Date Bread with Kamut 1 loaf ¼ cup kamut, uncooked 2 cups whole-wheat flour, plus extra for dusting 1 tsp. salt 2 tsp. baking powder ¹∕³ cup finely chopped dates ¹∕³ cup finely chopped walnuts 4 Tbsp. honey ½ cup plus 3 Tbsp. apple juice • Soak the kamut overnight in 2 cups of water. Drain, rinse and set it aside.

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

• In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the dates, walnuts and kamut.

• In another bowl, combine the honey and apple juice.

Stir into the the flour mixture.

• On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough until firm, about 3 minutes.

• Shape the dough into a round, then flatten it to about 2 inches thick.

Using a sharp knife, cut a cross in the dough, nearly through to the base.

• Bake for 25 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool.

• Serve with blue cheese and ripe pear slices.

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home cooking Vegetize it: chicken and dumplings

How Not To Be a Snotty Vegetarian This Thanksgiving

BY Kellie Hynes • Photo by Carmen Troesser

vegetables that transformed the simple broth into a rich stew. But how to thicken it without flour?

An old chef’s trick is to purée a few of the ingredients to give the whole soup some substance.

Unfortunately, I went a wee bit manic and puréed all the vegetables in the pot, making a lovely vegetable sludge. We immersionblender junkies must show restraint and purée only a quarter of the vegetables. OK, I’ll let you do a third, but that’s IT. Leaving most of the vegetables intact keeps the stew from becoming too thick.

Now, everyone loves a dumpling.

The good news: Vegan dumplings are actually easy to make. My first try yielded dumplings that were light and fluffy and soaked up the stew. But on their own, they looked and tasted bland. I added dried parsley for color and a teaspoon of nutritional yeast flakes* for savory flavor. Dumpling perfection.

T

rue story: I once attended a Thanksgiving dinner where every single dish contained meat. Even the mashed potatoes were made with chicken broth. And I couldn’t be mad; no one likes a snotty vegetarian. Plus, Thanksgiving is the heptathlon of hosting. Those nice people spent weeks planning, polishing, cooking and, yes, probably shooting, to get the meal on the table. It’s hard enough to remember where the napkin rings are let alone the guests’ culinary particulars.

So, I picked the bacon out of the salad and filled up on pie.

A better solution, of course, is to bring a dish that both meets your dietary needs and is yummy enough to share. This year, I’m

bringing a vegan “chicken” and dumplings.

The chicken and dumplings of my youth (and probably yours) was made from bags of frozen vegetables and Campbell’s cream of chicken soup. Using fresh vegetables would be an automatic improvement. To update the ingredients, I substituted leeks for cocktail onions, parsnips for carrots, and omitted the peas entirely. I hate peas.

After boiling the veggies in vegetable broth and thickening with flour, I had … floury vegetable soup. And it was a blah shade of brown. Trying again, I roasted the vegetables first, including some carrots for color. Like magic, roasting created amazingly flavorful

24 I SAUCE MAGAZINE I saucemagazine.com

And lastly, there was the issue of the chicken. What to use instead?

Some people swear by soy chicken substitutes, and if you are one of them, add your favorite and be happy. I’m not a huge fan – they’re like costume jewelry to me. No matter how much it looks like the real thing, deep down I know it’s a total fake. Instead, I added a can of cannellini beans.

They’re packed with protein, not too mushy and have a pretty white color that could almost, almost pass for diced chicken.

Enjoy. And yes, even if you bring this dish to your Thanksgiving diner, you can still fill up on pie. *Nutritional yeast is a vegan product that is packed with B-vitamins and

tastes salty, nutty and kinda cheesy.

It’s not to be confused with brewer’s yeast or active dry yeast, both of which will make your stew bubble like a third-grade volcano. You can find it in the bulk-food aisle at Dierbergs and Whole Foods.

Vegan Dumpling Dough 10 to 15 dumplings 1 cup all-purpose flour 2 tsp. baking powder ½ tsp. salt 2 tsp. dried parsley ½ cup soy milk 2 Tbsp. Crisco 1 tsp. nutritional yeast • Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium mixing bowl.

• Add the parsley and make a well with the dry ingredients inside the bowl.

• Pour the soy milk into the middle of the well. Add the Crisco and use your fingers to pinch the mixture into a sticky, wet dough.

• Sprinkle the dough with yeast and pinch again until incorporated. Set aside.

“CHICKEN” Stew with Dumplings Approximately 6 cups 1 leek 1 lb. parsnips, peeled 2 celery ribs 1 large carrot, peeled 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. kosher salt ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper 1 batch vegan dumpling dough (recipe above) 6 cups vegetable broth

¼ cup dry sherry or white wine 2 bay leaves 1 15-oz. can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

• Spray a roasting pan with cooking spray.

• Remove and discard the dark green leaves and roots from the leek. Slice in half lengthwise, rinse to remove soil and pat dry. Place the leek, parsnips, celery and carrot in the prepared roasting pan.

• Trim the vegetables as necessary to make sure they sit in the roasting pan in a single layer. Brush the vegetables with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the leek begins to brown and the other vegetables are soft. Remove from the oven and set aside.

• While the vegetables are roasting, make your dumpling dough (recipe at left).

• Combine the vegetable broth and wine in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid.

• When the vegetables are cool to the touch, slice them into bite-sized pieces and add them to the broth mixture.

• Place an immersion blender into the stew. Pulse a few times so that a few – but not all – of the vegetables are puréed and the stew is slightly thickened.

• Add the bay leaves and beans to the pot. Bring the stew to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

• Using your fingers, shape the dough into golf-ball-sized dumplings. Place the dumplings on top of the stew, and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Cook on low for 15 minutes.

• Remove the bay leaves and serve hot.

November 2012

November 2012

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home cooking one ingredient, 8 ways: Day-Old Bread

A Day Late and a Loaf Too Many

By Dee Ryan | photo by carmen troesser

S

ometimes the twist tie just didn’t get twisted tightly. Sometimes last night’s dinner party involved a bit too much wine and not enough bread. In any case, don’t dismiss the value of day-old bread. This artisanal treasure can be turned into a number of sweet and savory dishes that may actually (dare we say) be better than the loaf itself.

1. Croutons Slice any day-old loaf into ½-inch cubes. Toss with olive oil or melted butter (about 1 tablespoon per cup of bread) and sprinkle with garlic powder, Italian seasoning or dried herbs of your choice. Add grated Parmesan.

Place croutons on parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve atop salads or soups.

2. Chocolate bread pudding Cut day-old brioche or other light white bread into ¾-inch cubes (about 12 cups). Combine with 6 ounces each of semisweet chocolate and white chocolate chips. With an electric mixer, mix 4 large eggs with ½ cup sugar. Gradually pour in 2 cups whipping cream, ½ cup whole milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Pour egg mixture over bread and chocolate and stir well. Pour into buttered 13-by-9-inch baking dish, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over top and bake in 350-degree oven, uncovered, for 1 hour, until sides pull away a bit from edges of pan and custard is set in the middle.

3. Strata In large bowl, whisk together 6 large eggs, 2½ cups whole milk, ½ cup whipping cream, ½ cup grated fontina cheese and 1 teaspoon oregano. In a skillet, brown 1 pound hot Italian sausage or chorizo and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from skillet and saute 1 cup each of diced red pepper and diced onion until soft. Combine drained sausage, pepper and onion. Slice any kind of day-old bread into ½-inch-thick slices and add to generously buttered 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Pour half of egg mixture over bread and spread half of sausage mixture evenly on top, pressing down with back of a wooden spoon. Repeat layering. Sprinkle 1 cup fontina cheese on top and cover with plastic

26 I SAUCE MAGAZINE I saucemagazine.com

wrap. Weigh down with another baking dish for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake in 350-degree oven for 1 hour or until brown and puffy. Let sit 15 minutes before serving.

4. Baked French toast Butter 1 side of 12 slices sandwich bread. On other side, spread peach or blackberry jam, orange marmalade or apple butter. Combine to make “sandwiches” with buttered side facing out. Place in baking dish.

Whisk together 6 large eggs, ¼ cup whole milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Pour egg mixture over bread, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 15 to 30 minutes. Remove plastic wrap and sprinkle ¼ cup sugar on top. Bake in 350-degree oven, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes or until top browns.

5. Romesco Toast ¹∕³ cup blanched almonds.

Place nuts in food processor with 4 garlic cloves, 1 slice day-old white bread (crust removed) and ½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes. Pulse 3 or 4 times. Add ½ cup roasted red peppers (drained), 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar and ½ teaspoon salt. Purée until well mixed. Drizzle in ¼ cup olive oil until incorporated. Serve with baked or broiled fish or vegetables.

6. Ribollita In large pot, saute 3 minced garlic cloves, 1 small diced onion, 1 peeled and diced carrot, 1 diced celery stalk, and 4 ounces diced pancetta or bacon in 3 tablespoons olive oil for 5 minutes. Add 15-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes (and their juice), two 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, 2 cups chicken broth and 1 tablespoon herbes de Provence. Simmer for 1 hour, until beans break down. Stir in 3 cups freshly chopped kale and 1 torn slice of day-old bread. With immersion blender, blend to thick, “porridge-like” consistency. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

7. Garlic breadcrumbs Place ¾-inch slices any kind of day-old bread on baking sheet and bake in 375-degree oven for 15 minutes, turning each slice halfway through. Rub clove of garlic over toast. Place toast in food processor and pulse until no large pieces are visible. Store cooled breadcrumbs in airtight container.

8. Soup Place 2 slices any kind of day-old bread in bottom of a bowl. Cover each slice with mozzerella, fontina or Monterey Jack cheese.

Pour hot chicken or beef broth in bowl and sprinkle with Parmesan.

November 2012

November 2012

saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 27

home cooking the new classics: beignets The beignets at Sidney Street Cafe are barely sweet and light as air. They’re the texture of doughnuts: pillowlike and yielding to the slightest touch. Best of all, these little golden nuggets arrive at your table still warm from the fryer for the cost of on the house. Table bread that’s this good shouldn’t be free, but we’re happy to oblige.

Serve ‘em at your next dinner party, and watch as guests swoon – and pop them by the handful.

– Meera Nagarajan

Beignets Courtesy of Sidney Street Cafe’s Kevin Nashan Makes approximately 30 beignets

• In a bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and water. Let bloom in a warm area for 5 minutes.

• Add the flour and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until fully incorporated.

• Slowly add in the wet mixture and continue to mix until fully incorporated.

• Next add the eggs, 1 by 1, and knead the dough for 3 minutes inside the bowl. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

• Now on medium to high speed, incorporate the butter a little at a time. Once a ball has formed, place the dough in another bowl and let it rise until it has doubled in size.

• Once it has doubled, punch the dough down once.

• On a clean, lightly floured work surface, portion the dough into ½-ounce balls.

• Meanwhile, heat 5 inches of oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until it reaches 325 degrees. Working in batches, fry the balls for 3½ minutes, or until golden brown.

• Remove to paper towels and cover to keep warm while you fry the rest of the balls.

• Serve immediately.

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November 2012

Photo by jonathan gayman

1¼-oz. packet instant yeast ½ oz. granulated sugar 4½ oz. cold water 1 lb. all-purpose flour plus more for dusting ¼ oz. salt 4 eggs ½ lb. unsalted butter, softened

November 2012

saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 29

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November 2012

Photos by Greg Rannells

Call me a snob, but just because I don’t live next to a Parisian boulangerie doesn’t mean I have to accept an inferior baguette. I dismiss those lightweight, flimsy, 3½-inch-high loaves that are nothing like the real-deal baton. I ask the bakery for a plastic napkin so I can squeeze (gently, of course) the French stick to better scrutinize the texture – and avoid losing a tooth to a rock-hard heel. Meet the finalists whose baguettes made the list after being subjected to seven – yes, seven – tests to crust, heel and interior. Oh, and one more thing: If you want it really fresh, call ahead.

– Ligaya Figueras

222 Artisan Bakery

Companion

The Daily Bread Bakery & Cafe

222 N. Main St., Edwardsville, Ill., 618.659.1122, 222bakery.com

8143 Maryland Ave., Clayton, 314.721.5454 and 9781 Clayton Road, Ladue, 314.218.2280, companionstl.com

11719 Manchester Road, Des Peres, 314.909.0010, thedbcafe.com

Do the residents of Edwardsville realize how lucky they are to have easy access to such a great baguette?

The crust is the beautiful color of yellow corn. The loaf exhibits a springiness that’s spot on and offers fabulous flavor from heel to heel. 222’s artisan baguette holds up beautifully to wet and dry heat, making it an outstanding morning bread to be toasted, smeared with butter and jam, then dunked in some of that locally roasted Goshen coffee.

A baguette may simply be a combination of flour, water, salt and yeast baked fresh in a stone oven, but Companion’s delicately aromatic loaf boasts Old World charm, like the dusting of flour around a golden crust and the free-form shape of the heel that has “craft” written all over it. The distribution of large and small air pockets, known as alveoli, makes Companion’s rustic baguette the perfect, well, companion to an olive oil dip.

The baguette at The Daily Bread attracts us for its look and feel, which bespeak patient proofing and perfect baking – just the right temp for just the right amount of time. The bread mavens at this Des Peres bakery are clearly adept at working with dough, balancing vigorous handling to achieve structure, and delicate shaping and folding to attain an irresistible inner softness.

ONLINE EXTRA| Visit the Extra Sauce section of saucemagazine.com to see this month’s Short List Runner-Up.

November 2012

saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 31

rising stars Meet two very different men who are determined to change the way we think about bread

By Stacy Schultz | Photos by greg rannells

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Ted Wilson and Alex Carlson have never met. And while they’re the

same age and share a hometown, an affinity for flour and an innate ability to strum a guitar string, they are two very different men. Wilson’s words are measured, questioned and finally decided upon, disappearing just as slowly as they were pronounced: shyly, softly and without eye contact. Carlson’s thoughts have far fewer pauses between them. His words are sharper, harsher and often four-lettered, spoken with an air of confidence that borders on arrogance smoothed only by a fierce internal standard.

The two have traveled very different roads. Yet they both have arrived upon the same goal: to raise the bar on bread in St. Louis. How each plans to do so, however, is unequivocally distinct.

Nine years ago, Alex Carlson was in the woods. Not figuratively, though he had just driven 270 miles with a printout of his route crumpled up in the passenger seat, but literally – knee deep in sticks and dirt, letting the thick granules of dirt sift through his fingers to find the long, green leaves of a member of the onion family that had a garlicky bite.

Figuring he should spend the summer between his first and second years of culinary school in an actual kitchen, he’d responded to an ad for a line cook at The Washington Hotel and Restaurant, located on a tiny island in Wisconsin. The hotel had recently been purchased by an Indiana farmer-cumcity planner who took a liking to the property after his wife

small stone mill that sat atop a prep table in the kitchen.

At the center of it all was a wood-burning oven where the sous chef would bake hearth breads and artisanal pizzas.

The oven was a beast – equally the heart of the kitchen and the imposing creature in the middle of it that no one quite understood. No fan of structure, Carlson related to the oven’s unpredictability and spent every spare second he had trying to understand its inner-workings.

By the time he returned to the island the following summer, he had finally gotten a feel for how the brick-stacked behemoth breathed. “It’s a very particular beast and it has all of its advantages and also its drawbacks,” Carlson explained. “But I like that there’s a line, that there’s no way I can get the oven to bend to my will. It’s ready when it’s ready and that’s it.”

When Carlson traveled back to Chicago for his last semester, his culinary school had been purchased and tuition rates had sky rocketed. So he returned, sans diploma, to his native state of Missouri and got a job as the savory chef opening a new late-night dinner and dessert spot in St. Louis’ Lafayette Square called Baileys’ Chocolate Bar. But after three years of very long days, Carlson was burnt out. The kitchen, a place that had inspired him on a tiny island in Wisconsin, had begun to frustrate him to the point of pure exhaustion. So he set down his knives, picked up a wrench and landed a job at Motorrad St. Louis, a motorcycle repair shop in Dogtown.

Some 1,000 miles away, Ted Wilson was looking for a way out of his personal assistant job at Universal Music in New

And Wilson began asking questions: what he could do, how he could help, how this worked, how it affected that. It was an ethos of curiosity that ran through to the very core of how Lahey ran his bakery. “Jim was always questioning method, process and why and what,” Wilson recalled. “Not only, how does that impact the bread, but what is that doing to the baker? When he was going through the height of his no-knead thing, [he brought up] just things that I’d never thought about: the fact that you weren’t running this threephase, god-knows-how-many-volt mixer for 20 minutes; you’re running it for six minutes.”

Lahey looked at bread’s roots – what it was before people had massive mixers and massive amounts of energy, when fermentation was something that was fostered, not forced.

And when he put Wilson in charge of the bakery’s nightly production, Wilson soaked up that back-to-basics philosophy like a sponge. “One thing that Jim put in my head is that bakers really put too much of themselves into the product. There’s really no need for it, to handle it as much. Some of the best bread, you might have your hands on it for like two minutes.”

Wilson was churning out everything from pizza Bianca – a Roman-style, six-foot-long flatbread with rosemary and sea salt – to filone, a large, long, dark-baked loaf similar to a pugliese. He was thrilled to be diving so deep into the world of bread, but the hours were getting to him.

Waking before dusk, working through the night, he knew he couldn’t keep this nocturnal routine up forever. “I was sort of thinking, I don’t want to be doing overnights and doing the whole bakery thing and I thought, OK, Neopolitan pizzerias. I could learn that; I know that. I

“Good, decent, real bread should be accessible to everyone.”

— Alex Carlson

stayed there for a knitting conference. The farmer wanted to breathe new life into the hotel and to use the restaurant inside it to revive the island’s agricultural economy, which had fallen by the wayside more than 50 years earlier.

Within minutes of slamming his car door and stepping onto the hotel property, Carlson was told to come talk to the chef. Leah Caplan was a CIA graduate who, aftering living in New York, California and Hong Kong, had returned to her Midwest roots to help revive The Washington Hotel and Restaurant. As soon as Carlson stepped into her kitchen, Caplan put him to work. “My first job, before I did anything else, was to walk into the woods like 300 yards and forage for ramps,” he recalled. “I was in love from that point.”

Caplan’s six-course tasting menus revealed a relentless commitment to local ingredients, filled with fish caught in nearby Lake Michigan just hours earlier and bread made from whole wheat grown down the road and ground in a November 2012

York City. He responded to a job posting at Sullivan Street Bakery, a bread-focused bakery in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen led by Jim Lahey, the brainchild of the bread world’s no-knead movement. It was a retail position but, he figured, a good way out of a passionless day job. Plus, it would give him a foot into the world of making bread, a hobby he’d coveted ever since he used the skill to woo a girl back at John Burroughs School.

When Wilson began at Sullivan Street, the bakery was undergoing a restructuring. Traditionally, the mixer is considered the most important person in the bakery, but Lahey was looking to flip that standard on its head, making it so the mixer didn’t needs years of experience. The recipe should be in tune enough with the weather and other factors, he thought, that the mixer just needed to stick to the recipe and press a few buttons. Wilson became the first mixer in this new hierarchy. At first, it was terrifying. Having never mixed more than 900 grams of dough at a time, suddenly he was working with 600-pound batches. But he caught on quickly.

love pizza, and I was convinced I was going to open a Neopolitan pizzeria.”

It wasn’t long before an old friend, Andrew Latt, told him about a buddy of his who was planning to open a Neopolitan pizzeria called The Good Pie in St. Louis. Wilson peppered Latt with questions: Who was Mike Randolph? What would his place be like? Who was he working with? When Wilson and Randolph met a month later, something clicked.

Randolph was passionate and talented and his plan was exactly what Wilson was looking for: normal hours, minimal cooking and, most importantly, lots of time working with bread.

Spending most of his time under a motorcycle, Carlson hadn’t baked in three years when he heard over a beer at

Newstead Tower Public House after a shift one day that the gastropub’s owner, Anthony Devoti, was looking to create an in-house bread program at both Newstead and his fine dining restaurant, Five Bistro. Sure, Carlson was a saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 33

“I go in and out of a lot of obsessions but it’s just weird that this one sticks,” Wilson, top left, noted. “I still can’t describe it. I don’t know how to. But yea, once it became bread, that’s all it ever was.”

Carlson, bottom left, is turning 10,000 pounds of brick and 4,000 pounds of concrete into a woodburning oven that will bake 75 loaves with every fire. “A smart baker gets a three-deck, steam injected, $10,000 monster and turns it on when he comes in in the morning and it’s ready. But I’m not a smart man.”

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November 2012

good mechanic, but he was a better baker. He decided it was time to get back in the kitchen.

As soon as he met Devoti, he knew it was the right move. “His philosophy is pretty much exactly the same philosophy that I grew up with at the hotel, so it was a perfect match: just local sourcing, ingredient driven, not imposing your will on the product but letting the product tell you what to do with it. We always sort of joked that he was the most Italian restaurant on The Hill because it’s all just ingredients, not a ton of technique, just letting the food do the talking. That’s absolutely what I believe.”

Once in the kitchen at Five, Carlson began making focaccia using a recipe he’d been tweaking since culinary school. Next, Devoti wanted a bun to top his wildly popular Five Burger. As Carlson regained his feel for baking, he started making the Old World breads he loved: pan bigio using whole-wheat flour from Cape Girardeau; pan au levain made with a wild yeast starter; ciabatta; a “St. Louis sourdough;” and a smoked whole-wheat loaf for which he smoked the wheat berries until they released a near bacon-like flavor and aroma. Devoti was thrilled, calling Carlson’s creations “the future of bread,” and even encouraging him to see where his skills could take him when the demand for his hamburger buns began to spread beyond the wooden tables of Newstead and white linens of Five.

In 2011, Carlson went out on his own, creating an independent business called Red Guitar Bread. He traded Devoti bread for

an expectation. That’s not what it’s supposed to be about. This is supposed to be a higher quality product but it also shouldn’t be something that’s just ridiculously exclusive. Good, decent, real bread should be accessible to everyone.” Carlson knew that there was only one way to do it: He would open his own bakery.

In December 2008, two months after they met, Wilson and Randolph opened The Good Pie. The tiny Midtown pizzeria

may have been Randolph’s baby, but Wilson was pulling his weight. He manned the wood-burning oven that had been sent over from a village outside of Naples and baked artisanal pizzas under the orange embers of its open flame. He was also responsible for the dough: that chewy, crunchy, bubbly, crackled, just slightly burnt Neopolitan crust for which The Good Pie has become known for – and which almost instantly earned the restaurant a cult-like following from area pizza-lovers.

Thanks to an ever-rotating lineup of taps, The Good Pie also became a destination for local craft beer-lovers, giving Wilson the opportunity to meet some of the major players in the city’s booming beer scene. He watched as Jake Hafner opened The Civil Life Brewing Co., as Kevin Lemp tapped the first keg at 4 Hands, and as Florian Kuplent and Dave Wolfe hung their sign for Urban Chestnut just two streets over from The Good Pie. He was inspired. “I’ve gotten to know these guys while they were going through the process, which has been inspiring for me to do this myself – to say, alright, let’s get moving. These guys are really passionate about what they’re doing. They care about it. They care about where they are and their neighborhood.

it really, really well. “I’m very likely shooting myself in the foot because I’ve never seen a successful bakery that doesn’t operate with flavors and additions and all sorts of junk, and there’s nothing wrong with that by any means, it’s just not my own particular style. And I intend to find out just how far I can push that philosophy and only grudgingly break from that philosophy when absolutely necessary.”

When Wilson left The Good Pie to pursue his own bakery,

Loafers, in summer 2012, he also had a clear picture in mind. Loafers will be part bakery, part cafe and all bread.

Five to six styles will be available each day and change with the season, the weather, even the week. A deli case will display everything you’d want with a warm, toasty slice: good cheeses, salty cured meats, briny olives, fresh herbs, grassy olive oils, bright vinegars and a hand-picked selection of craft beer, wine and whiskey. He will bring bread back to its roots – using a mixer only to incorporate the ingredients and spending the rest of his day hand-kneading the dough, all the while keeping in mind that some of the best breads, you only have your hands on for a couple minutes.

Their bakeries will be different. Their breads will be different.

But there is one thing this duo whole-heartedly agrees on: The typical baker’s hours just won’t cut it. Having seen firsthand the toll long hours can take on a baker, Carlson and Wilson know that, to make a living out of changing the way St. Louisans look at bread, they need a business plan that will keep them passionate, prosperous and, most importantly,

“Bread for dinner, toast for breakfast – I love that. I like this idea of being able to have bread so [people] can pick it up to take home and have dinner with their family.”

— Ted Wilson

kitchen space and expanded his reach to restaurants like The Mud House, Franco, Cyrano’s, Big Sky and Salume Beddu, whose owners believed that the bun holding their burger should be prepared with as much precision, passion and attention to detail as the flavorful, fatty, juicy patty inside it.

After receiving acclaim from his restaurant accounts, Carlson gained the confidence to take his bread straight to the consumer and began selling Red Guitar Bread from a stand at the Webster Groves Farmers Market. The leap into retail came with its hurdles. “When you’re making $5 and $9 loaves, you get some comments about the price. But there was one customer who was always the most vocal about the prices, and she came back every week. Every week, she’d say something about the price, and every week she’d buy something.”

Carlson realized he was on to something. He was selling out at the market every week. He had outgrown the kitchen space he rented at Five. And he had more and more restaurants carrying his Old World loaves. If he could just get his bread in front of people who expect quality, he could begin to make them realize just how great bread can be. “We need to get away from commodity bread,” he explained sharply. “We need to get away from fucking free bread on the table before the meal. It’s November 2012

It’s being part of a community.” Wilson was ready to create a community of his own – a community around bread.

When Carlson found the Cherokee Street building he purchased eight months ago, he wanted his bakery, Red

Guitar Bread, to be a place that combined the woods he’d foraged, the kitchens he’d learned in and the passions he’d fostered. A small stone mill will sit atop a long, metal prep table. The bread will taste clean, like grain and fermentation, and be baked in the wood-burning oven he’s building by hand and will tend to each morning, sweeping the ashes from the hearth and loading the fresh loaves that he left to rise as he slept. He will bend to the oven’s will.

He’ll start off with a single dough – a simple combination of flour, water, salt and wild airborne yeast that he will spend much of his day shaping into loaves of many shapes and sizes, reveling in the way the variance in structure changes the crumb-to-crust ratio so greatly that the end products are nearly incomparable. Eventually, he’ll add dinner service with sandwiches and some pizzas baked inside the brick-oven’s chamber, but for now, he will push one dough as far as he possibly can, banking his business plan around the idea of doing just one thing – and doing

a part of the bread-loving community they’re hoping to build. That means sleeping when it’s dark, rising when it’s light and having fresh bread ready when people actually want it: after work. It’s not an entirely unforeseen business model. Bread maven Chad Robertson made it famous at his San Francisco bakery, Tartine, confessing that he wanted his mornings to surf. But it has yet to be seen whether it can be successfully duplicated outside of San Francisco’s nurturing food community. But to Carlson and Wilson, if they’re going to do it, they’re doing it their way. “Bread for dinner, toast for breakfast – I love that,” Wilson said with a smile and a loud clap of his hands. “I like this idea of being able to have bread so [people] can pick it up to take home and have dinner with their family.”

Many years after beginning their journeys, Wilson and Carlson are in a very unsettled place. While Carlson has

begun answering inquiries about his open date with a snide “Your guess is as good as mine,” Wilson has yet to sign a lease on a building. The variables are infinite. They know that failure is possible. But if Wilson and Carlson succeed, they just might prove, once and for all, that bread isn’t a commodity that comes free before the meal. It is the meal.

And that’s a risk they’re extremely excited to take. saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 35

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The Wonder of Bread The smell. The crust. That perfect crumb. What’s more satisfying than a loaf of homemade bread fresh from the oven? Oh, but transforming the staff of life into something that’s picture-perfect and delicious is easier said than done. While some might call bread-making magic, local bakers know that the secret to turning out an exceptional loaf is practice – and patience. Now, these experts share their tips to help everyone – from newbie kneaders to veteran shapers – become a better baker.

BY LIGAYA FIGUERAS | PHOTOS BY CARMEN TROESSER

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easy

Yeast-free breads are the easiest and fastest breads to make, which posits them as the perfect introduction for the novice baker. Numerous breads can fall into the yeast-free category: sweet teatime breads such as cranberry or banana-nut, unleavened flat breads like tortillas and Indian roti, batter breads like cornbread and, of course, tried-and-true soda bread.

When you pull that freshly baked bread from the oven, it’s full of steam and still cooking, so place it on a cooling rack to let the air circulate underneath. Cut into this Irish soda bread too early, warned Annie Gunn’s pastry chef Danielle Bush, and it will crumble.

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Irish Soda Bread Courtesy of Annie Gunn’s Danielle Bush 4 Loaves

You can swap the shallots with the same amount of chives or a handful of chopped, roasted garlic.

Keep the skin (the outer layer of the dough) from drying out by spraying the top of the dough with cooking spray before covering it with plastic wrap.

8 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 3 tsp. salt 2 tsp. baking soda 6 shallots, peeled and chopped 4 cups buttermilk Vegetable oil • Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda and shallots in a large mixing bowl.

• Add the buttermilk and knead until the dough holds together. Spray with cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap and let rest on a table for 20 minutes.

• Place the dough on a clean, oil-free, flourless surface.

Sprinkle the dough with a dusting of flour, just enough so that the dough doesn’t stick to your hands. Cut the

dough into 4 equally sized pieces.

• Shape each piece into a round loaf: Cup your hands around the dough until your pinkies come together, and then pinch the dough to make it tight. You’ll see the dough start to stretch on top. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat this process to keep the dough shaped like a ball. Repeat until you have formed a round ball. (Generally, it will take 4 or 5 turns to form a round shape.)

• Rub the loaves with vegetable oil to keep them from drying out. Let sit for 20 minutes.

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

• Using a sharp knife, score the center of each loaf with two, ½-inch deep cuts to form an X. • Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown.

• Let cool halfway, about 20 minutes, before slicing.

mind the mix “A lot of people think that once they get a recipe, to just base everything off the recipe,” said Caroline Pender, owner-baker at 222 Artisan Bakery in Edwardsville, Ill. “You have to consider humidity.”

Other bakers around town echoed similar sentiments. “Pay attention to the mix, not just the recipe itself,” said Danielle Bush, pastry chef at Annie Gunn’s. “With Irish soda bread, I measure by cups. But, depending on how humid it’s been, it will change how the bread comes out. Sometimes I’m mixing and it’s super-wet or super-dry. There are days when it is 100-percent humidity and I need to add more flour.”

illustrations by vidhya nagarajan

scoring savvy Bakers score bread to create a visually pleasing pattern and to identify the type of bread coming from the oven. More importantly, scoring is a way to control the direction in which a loaf expands and to prevent it from bursting at weak spots created during shaping.

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The angle the blade of the knife makes with the surface of the loaf determines how the cut will open up. For cuts to spread equally and open quickly, hold the knife vertically at 90 degrees from the surface of the loaf and cut ¼- to ½-inch deep.

For the cut to spread slowly and create an “ear,” hold the blade at a more shallow angle and make the cut ¼-inch deep.

Bakers use a variety of tools for scoring: a double-sided razor blade with a curve; a special baker’s tool called a lame, available at kitchen supply stores; or, like the bakers at Companion, serrated knives from Bertarelli Cutlery on The Hill. saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 39

Intermediate

One of the most heavenly kitchen scents is that of a rising batch of yeast bread. The intoxicating aroma comes from the fermenting yeast. That’s because yeast, when mixed with flour and liquid, produces enzymes that convert starch to sugar and then to carbon dioxide and alcohol, which are excreted to waft in the air and make us all salivate. But you’ll need more bread bullet points than this to get your loaf to rise sky-high.

Want that golden crust? Do what the pros do: Wash the surface of the loaf with a liquid such as water, milk or beaten eggs before baking. Water will result in a lighter colored crust, while a milk or egg wash will yield a darker, richer hue.

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Italian Dinner Loaf Courtesy of Missouri Baking Co.’s Chris Gambaro

“A lot of bakers use warm water, but I use cold water because I don’t want the yeast reacting too quickly.” - Chris Gambaro, co-owner, Missouri Baking Co.

Weight Watchers Most bread bakers around town measure their flour by weight, not by volume. A digital food scale lets you measure accurately every time. For the home cook, our experts recommend a scale with a 10- or 11-pound capacity that measures in both metric and imperial units.

3 Loaves

illustrations by vidhya nagarajan

2 lbs. bread flour plus more for dusting 1 oz. salt 1 oz. shortening 2 cups cold water ½ oz. cake yeast (or substitute with one ¼-oz. packet of dry yeast or 2¼ tsp. of dry yeast) Poppy seeds or untoasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional) 2 to 3 Tbsp. butter (optional) • In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt and shortening.

• Pour the water into a separate bowl. Add the yeast to the water, whisking to dissolve.

• Make a well in the center of the flour mixture inside the bowl. Pour the water and yeast mixture into the center of the well. Using your hands, begin incorporating the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, folding the mixture over gently until the dry and wet ingredients are fully combined and form a rough dough the shape of a ball.

• On a clean, lightly floured work surface and with lightly floured hands, begin kneading. Using the palm of your hands, press the dough as you fold it over again and again, adding flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until it becomes elastic.

• Preheat the oven to the lowest temperature possible (around 100 degrees).

• Place the dough in an oven-safe bowl sprayed with cooking spray or lightly coated with vegetable oil. Cover the bowl with a slightly damp cloth and place the bowl in the oven for 10 minutes.

• Remove the bowl from the oven. Punch the dough down.

Replace the cloth over the bowl and return the bowl to the oven for another 10 minutes. Set a shallow, rimmed baking sheet filled halfway with water in the bottom rack of the oven to create some steam and keep the dough moist.

• Remove the dough from the oven and divide it into 3 equal pieces. Mold each piece into an oval shape. Place the loaves on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking oil or lined with parchment paper.

• Set the baking sheet in the oven. Remove the loaves from the oven once they have risen about ½ inch, approximately 15 minutes.

• Increase the oven temperature to 420 degrees.

• Using a sharp knife or scoring tool, make three ¼- to ½-inch deep diagonal slashes across each loaf. If desired, brush the loaves with water and sprinkle with poppy seeds or untoasted sesame seeds.

• Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the loaves for 13 to 15 minutes.

• Remove from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. If desired, melt the butter and brush the finished loaves with the melted butter while still warm.

• Let cool for 5 minutes before slicing.

November 2012

Active dry yeast, often labeled as instant-, rapidrise or fast-rising yeast, comes in powdered form and has a long shelf life. Cake yeast, also known as wet, fresh or compressed yeast, is sold in blocks and must be refrigerated and used within 10 days of purchase. Cake yeast should feel firm and not smell rancid.

“Punching: You fold it on itself gently, so there’s a little bit of pressure but not so much that all the air is knocked out.” – Bobby Sweet, collective member, Black Bear Bakery

Here, 3 brands they trust: Escali, Taylor and Soehnle.

“In culinary school, it was almost ‘by pain of death’ if you didn’t weigh.”

– Danielle Bush, pastry chef, Annie Gunn’s

Handkneading know-how Kneading is necessary to develop gluten, which gives the bread structure.

Here’s how Chris Gambaro, co-owner of Missouri Baking Co., manipulates dough by hand.

A. “Fold the dough from the outside to the inside.”

B. “Use the palm of your hand to push down on it and fold over. I always have a little flour – about 5 ounces – off to the side that I put my hand in because it is sticky.”

Signs to stop kneading “You should be able to pull on it a little bit and it doesn’t crumble apart. It’s got a little Silly Puddy texture when you pull it apart. And it’s a time thing for me – about 10 to 12 minutes of kneading.” – Chris Gambaro, co-owner, Missouri Baking Co. saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 41

advanced

When wild yeast feeds off flour and water, you’ve entered the bubbly, frothy, smelly world of the pre-ferment. Many Old World breads start with a pre-ferment and – when shaped to finicky perfection, delicately dressed with a light coat of flour and scored with masterly skill – result in the deep flavor, thick crust and timeless look of hearth bread.

After shaping the dough, dust it with equal parts all-purpose white flour and light, airy rice flour to give it a rustic look. Another option: Let the bread rise on a tea towel dusted solely with rice flour.

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Peasant Bread

Shape Up

Courtesy of Companion’s Josh Allen 2 Loaves

Hand-shaped breads result in beautiful, naturally formed loaves, such as this trio of classic French Bs that steal your soul and have you dreaming of Parisian boulangeries.

For the pre-ferment 8 oz. whole-wheat flour 11 oz. water (at 75 degrees) ¼ tsp. instant yeast

16 oz. unbleached white flour 10 oz. water (at 75 degrees) ¼ tsp. instant yeast ½ oz. sea salt

Bâtard

Baton

Proof·ing The final rising of a shaped loaf before it is baked.

Re·tar·ding Slowing down the

fermentation of the dough, usually by refrigeration.

November 2012

Mix together 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of flour in a large bowl, whisking well to combine. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on a counter at room temperature to catch the natural yeast in the air.

2

At the first sign of fermentation, when little air bubbles begin to surface, feed the starter by adding 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of flour to the starter, whisking well to combine.

3

The next day, discard half of the starter, then add to the remaining starter 1 cup each of warm water and flour, whisking well to combine.

4 Boule

“When shaping, be gentle but firm, just like how you raise your kids.”

- Josh Allen, owner, Companion

Talk the Talk and rise.

Levain is a starter, or fermenting dough, used in sourdough baking.

The term sourdough broadly applies to bread made with wild yeast marked by a slower fermentation and a sour flavor.

The crew at 222 Artisan Bakery in Edwardsville, Ill., have been feeding their levain for eight years now. Here’s how they did it:

1

• First, make the pre-ferment: Combine the whole-wheat flour, 11 ounces of water and ¼ teaspoon of instant yeast. Mix with a wooden spoon until well incorporated. Let rest on a counter covered loosely with plastic wrap for 3 hours, then place in the refrigerator for 9 to 15 hours.

• The next day, combine the pre-ferment in a large bowl with the unbleached white flour, 10 ounces of warm water, ¼ teaspoon of instant yeast and the sea salt. Mix all of the ingredients with a wooden spoon until well incorporated. The dough will be shaggy; the surface will not be smooth and some dry flour will still be visible.

• Turn and fold the dough a couple of times every 30 minutes for 3 hours.

After the final turn and fold, let the dough rest for another 30 minutes.

• Divide the dough into 2 equal portions, and gently form each into a round. Let rest on a well-floured cutting board or work surface for another 30 minutes.

• To shape, flip 1 rounded piece of dough and gently flatten it into a rectangle. Very gently roll up the rectangle of dough widthwise, being careful not to destroy all of your beautiful fermentation.

Repeat with the remaining dough round.

• Place both of the loaves seam-side-up on a well-floured kitchen towel or cloth, using a bit of the towel to separate the 2 loaves. Let the dough proof for 1½ to 2 hours.

• Preheat the oven to 460 degrees. Ten minutes before baking, place a baking stone in the oven. Place a rimmed baking sheet on the bottom rack of the oven.

• Using a sharp knife or scoring tool held at a 45-degree angle from the side of the loaf, make a ½-inch deep cut that runs lengthwise down the center of the loaf, leaving 1 inch at each end of the loaf untouched. Repeat with the remaining loaf.

• Place the loaves atop the preheated baking stone. Immediately place 10 to 12 ice cubes directly on the preheated sheet pan. Close the oven and don’t open it for at least 15 minutes. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the loaves are golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Fer·men·ting Letting the dough rest

Make your own levain

Pre-fer·ment Also called a sponge,

a pre-ferment is any of a number of mixtures of flour, water and yeast (and sometimes salt) that is combined and left to develop before being added to the rest of the dough components. Biga, levain and poolish are all types of preferments.

Repeat the process for 7 days, each time discarding half of the starter and then feeding it with 1 cup each of warm water and flour.

5

After 7 days, when fermentation becomes vigorous and regular, the starter is ready for use.

6

The starter can be used with any bread recipe that calls for a sponge. Store the remainder of the starter in the refrigerator, covering it with plastic wrap or in a storage container with a fitted lid. Feed the starter every other day, discarding half (or baking with it) and letting the remainder sit at room temperature for 1 hour before feeding it with equal parts warm water and flour. saucemagazine.com I SAUCE MAGAZINE I 43

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5 Questions for Amir Habibollah Nestled snugly in the back of the Village Too store on South Grand Boulevard, Amir Habibollah’s Afghan Bread House is a small bakery that fills a unique niche – baking authentic Afghani and Iraqi bread.

Afghan Bread House, 4164 S. Grand Blvd., 314.749.2988

How did you start your bakery? I’m from Afghanistan and I wanted to do it like people do back home. I asked some people from there to list the ingredients for me. In ’97 I worked on getting everything together, and finally I got it done. The local people who are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq love it.

What types of loaves do you make? The round pita, I got the recipe from a guy from Kansas. I tried to do it last year and couldn’t figure it out, but this year I got it. The round naan is just like Indian naan. The chapati is made by women in Afghanistan. I watched them and learned how to make it. It’s white flour, yeast, water and salt – that’s it. It has the same ingredients as naan, but it’s thinner. The samoon is Iraqi bread. I had an old man in who worked with me for a couple of weeks in ’03 or ’04 and taught me how to do it.

You had to rebuild your business after a fire?

In June of last year, yes. I really don’t know how it started. It burned the whole market and I lost everything, and I had no insurance. I borrowed money for a new oven. I found a guy in California who built it for me. It took two-anda-half months to build and then he delivered it, and we started using it last February.

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Where do you see your business heading? I want to do an “international bread house,” where each employee is from a different country and each makes [his or her] country’s bread. I really want to do that.

– Byron Kerman

November 2012

Photo by greg rannells

Pick up a loaf of Habibollah’s bread at Global Foods Market, Jay International Food, Local Harvest Grocery, Mideast Market, Salam Market and Afghan Bread

Any new breads on the horizon? A Lebanese bread called “hash bread,” which is like pita but very, very thin, like paper, and an Afghan loaf that is 2 feet long and 1 foot wide. I need longer plastic bags for that one. You put some sesame or poppy seeds on top of it, and it’s great.

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