For a few years, I didn’t eat much bread. I had realized that commercially baked breads, which use industrial monoculture yeast, domesticated and bred for strength, didn’t agree with me. It smelled good, but I simply didn’t feel great after eating it. Some time later, I figured out that bread that had been made with wild yeast didn’t make me feel that way. I also noticed that bread made with freshly milled whole grains made my body feel nourished. Recently, I found that the bread made by brothers Marlon and Matt, which they sell at their BAKESHACK stand at our Saturday Farmers Market, is divine!
Once one has had the pleasure of eating REALLY GOOD BREAD, you don’t want to eat anything else. Marlon’s passion for bread has led him to travel as far as Italy (for his 200-year-old starter). He and Matt hunt down freshly milled organic grains and flour from small providers and you can tell when you take your first bite of their bread that that there is LOVE in this bread, both from the ingredients and the hands that knead it. The bread is flavorful with crust that is as delicious as the middle, which has perfect density and is not too doughy like lots of other breads I’ve tried. They bake delicious varieties — sprouted quinoa, faro, multi-seed, brioche, rosemary, carrot, olive and more.
To eat their bread and to talk to them makes one understand what this quote by Confucius means:
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
OR…
Whatever you do, do with all your heart.
If you read my post about The Poem Corner at the Farmers Market, you already know about Topacio Althaus. If you didn’t read my earlier post, here’s the link: http://twointhemiddle.com/2013/12/21/two-poems-journey-5000-miles/
I asked Topacio to write a haiku poem about Marlon and Matt’s bread. She listened intently, the way she does, as I told her about how much we love the bread, how much Matt and Marlon love baking bread, and what a big difference it makes to eat food that is made with such pure and simple ingredients. I think she wrote the perfect haiku, about the “bread in life” and the “life in bread.” Here it is…
A Bread Haiku
We rise to this task
Mimic bread growing in oven
To nurture this life
You can find BAKESHACK currently at three markets – Anaheim, Redondo Beach, and Playa Vista. Here’s their Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/bakeshackoc
