While I may not be a big fan of Jewish food, the truth is I'm quite fond of what are considered Jewish breads. From bagels to bialys, rye bread, pumpernickel, and challah, I love it all.

Because the Bay Area isn't exactly famous for Jewish breads, making them yourself can be very satisfying. Two books out right now are worth taking a look at in this regard. Secrets of a Jewish Baker is a reprint of the 1994 James Beard award-winning baking book. While not limited to Jewish-style breads, it is a survey of 125 breads from around the world. Each bread has separate instructions for making it using a stand mixer, food processor or by hand. There is also an interesting section in the back called "A Morning of Baking" that shows with a detailed timeline, how you can make 4-5 loaves of bread (sometimes one is for muffins or coffeecake) in the space of about 21/2 to 4 hours.

Secrets of a Jewish Baker has plenty of quick breads, biscuits and muffins in addition to sourdough breads, including rye breads, challah, pretzels and more. Because author George Greenstein is a retired third-generation professional baker, his knowledge is deep and broad. This is just a great all-around baking book to add to your collection.

The second book is a bit more unusual. It is dedicated to one specific bread--challah. A Taste of Challah is subtitled a comprehensive guide to challah and bread baking and I'm not sure I would agree. For one thing, the basic recipe is an eggless version of challah and makes 6 loaves. This is great for some cooks I'm sure, but for many households it's just too much. The book has a ton of illustrated instructions for how to form the bread into a myriad of shapes and sizes including braids, an edible bread basket, a pull apart loaf and rolls.

A Taste of Challah has a section on health breads, though no rich egg version of challah that I prefer. There are some other recipes for breads like bagels, bobka, and quite a few middle eastern breads. Because challah is a bread served during holidays, especially the sabbath, there is a section on blessings over the bread too. If you are a real challah enthusiast you might want to check this book out, but if you are looking for a more practical recipe--I'd stick with the one in Secrets of A Jewish Baker.

Continued from Part One on Monday April 16.

In California we have more than our fair share of live yeast in the air. Catching it and turning it into "sourdough starter" or "natural starter" is pretty easy. All one needs to do is to feed one's starter with cold water and bread flour every week or so. The concept of the 100 years old starter, though, is negligible. But I'm not here to rain on your sourdough starter parade. Although I will mention that sourdough is just that. It was not, originally, a nice thing to say about one's bread. It meant bad. It meant that your bread had gone off.

Like trifle, sourdough was originally a mistake. Or an exaggeration of a mistake. I have heard more than one Master Bread Baker disparage sourdough bread.

Also, for the sake of clarity, sourdough bread and sourdough starter are not the same. It is possible to make bread from live yeast cultures, whether they are from wheat or grapes or some other source, and not have it "taste sour." Although the nomenclature is the same, there's an argument here for saying starter when one means just that, and sourdough starter when one means the starter to make sourdough bread.

Now, who's on first?

All this being said, I had quite a lot of fun and education whilst hanging out with the humble Dylan of Sourdough Monkey Wrangler. A student of the live yeast culture, this man has come far in his self-education of all things involving bread flour. And he's neat and clean to boot.

Is there someone in your community you want to learn from? Maybe pick up a new skill? What stops you from calling them? Do you feel like they need to be paid for their time? Do you have anything to barter?

In my profession we have open doors for barter. I can give my time to just about any chef in whose kitchen I want to learn. We call this a "trail" or a stagiere.

In March, Dylan came to one of my classes, and afterwards brought me some sourdough inspired gifts. Very lucky for me there was a generous bag of homemade English muffins. I could not have been happier!

I love English muffins.

Dylan's English muffin recipe is based on one he found at Nicole's Baking Bites. He adapts his to include favorite locally grown and milled whole wheat flour from Full Belly Farm, as well as milk instead of water.

Milk is a traditional addition to English muffins, as well as Crumpets, which are basically English muffins, but griddled on only one side. In bread, milk becomes a softener. It feeds the yeast an alternative, tastier sugar, and the butterfat relaxes the crumb for a more pliable mouth feel.

When one bakes bread, a baked good of few ingredients, one must really know what each ingredient does, can do and is doing. Yeast, obviously, helps things rise. But the more you use, the faster bread goes stale. (The same goes for baking powder.) Flour and water combine to bind bread. But inherent in most flours is gluten. Gluten is protein, in its simplest terms, and, once "activated," is the structure builder, the 2X4's of bread doughs. Without gluten, there is no barn to raise. This, as we well know in Northern California, does not mean bread cannot be made without gluten. Tall, light bread, though, cannot be made without gluten.

Sugar, even the sugar that exists in the starch of the flour, feeds the yeast. Yeast is an animal, albeit a small single-celled one. (Ask the vegans if yeast is an animal they won't eat, and you will get a myriad of answers.) It eats sugar and emits gas (carbon dioxide), creating the bubbles that will, hours later, become the holes, or the nooks & crannies, in your bread. When flour has enough protein in it, the bubbles will keep their shape as they encircle the gas.

In bread, everything after yeast, flour, and water is dessert. Fat, in any form, is a softener. I'm not talking Wonder Bread here; I'm talking a palatable mouth feel. Think matzoh compared to challah, or French bread compared to brioche. Most people would rather make bread pudding or French toast with brioche, rather than ciabatta.

Flavorings are just that.

When working with natural starters one can develop far more flavor in bread. This is a funny sentence if you've not made bread. The concept is that the longer it takes to "proof" bread, or make it rise, the better the overall end result will be. Yeast does not like to be rushed. In turn, if you give it all the atmospheric elements it loves: humidity, mild warmth, time, it gives you rewards tenfold.

Bread tastes best when all you taste is bread. It's why Tartine's bread has such a following, even though it has more restrictions than a reservation at The French Laundry.

I have never been the type of person to have and keep a natural starter around. Dylan has a worm farm in his kitchen for easy apartment composting. I guerilla compost. Dylan rides his bike, I drive. Dylan feeds his starters on a schedule, I water my plants to keep them looking pretty on my window ledge.

But in the past weeks I've done some natural starter experiments. The recipes he gave me are a 3-day process. Day one you feed the starter and keep it out on the counter. Use a larger bowl than you need and make sure it's not metal. Day two combine starter with milk and flours. Day three add rest of flour, baking soda, salt and sugar, proof and begin muffin production.

English muffin production looks like this:

Knead dough a bit. The longer you knead it, the more likely it will hold it's round shape later and rise evenly. Roll dough out, cut, lay on heavily floured (or cornmeal covered) sheet, proof in a warm-ish, moist place (Dylan puts a measuring cup of very hot water in the oven for a more controlled atmosphere), and griddle until done. "Fork" to open, toast and eat with the best butter you can get your hands on. Have you eaten Clover's new Organic butter line yet? It's the bomb. So to speak.

I wouldn't call this the simplest, most efficient way to get to English muffins, but I will say that all the steps are important and worth it in the end.

Dylan and I use King Arthur bread flour, the blue paper bag. King Arthur has been extremely helpful when it comes to answering my questions about the protein contents and wheat origins of their flours. (Northern wheat is considered "stronger" with higher protein than Southern grown wheat that is considered "softer," White Lily being the best example.) Giusto's is a local company, but I can't seem to get them on the phone to answer questions to save my life. If you long to buy flour in bulk, which is less expensive than paying for the pretty packaging, head over to Rainbow Grocery in SF or Berkeley Bowl in the East Bay.

Most "sourdough" people will share a bit of their starter with you if this is the extra hobby you've been waiting for. For all your spare time.

But even if you take the time to make a starter which you keep alive for a few months in order to make two or three batches of these glorious homemade English muffins, I can guarantee you at least one happy mouth, your own, if not a messianic following. Not to mention the immeasurable learning one acquires from understanding the basics in the relationship between flour, yeast, air and water.

There's a chance that Dylan and I will co-teach a class on this very subject. Keep up with this link for announcements.

Almost 15 years ago, at the beginning of my career, I worked at Lulu (SF). Unbeknownst to my very naive self at the time, I would never work at another restaurant that would make all its own table bread. At Verbena (NYC), under the tutelage of Diane Forley, the pastry department was responsible for a number of breads, especially on the weekends when we would produce gorgeous ficelle, brioche and any number of elegant quick breads for the toast cart.

But no other kitchen would be like Lulu. With two stacks of bread ovens, a full time bread baker (who came in at 10 pm and left near 8 am) and custom designed wooden shelves to display and sell the massive pain de campagne (looking much like Poilane's signature loaf) Lulu's bread program was serious.

So serious, an entire walk-in was devoted to the bread's starter, loaf proofing, and our overstock of dairy. A separate refrigerated room for ingredients lacking in strong scents. Except the time when I backed into whole lambs hanging, waiting for butchering. But that's another story.

Because the restaurant made so much bread, our starter was kept in a plastic rolling garbage can sized container. Massively huge. Lets call it 50 gallons for the sake of a good guess. Whoever arrived first thing in the morning was required to roll it out of the walk-in, pull a few gallons for that nights bake and feed the monster. The last duty meant we had to lean over the lip, reach into the sticky abyss, and stir the gloopy gurgling mixture with a large wooden spoon.

No matter how much we rolled up the sleeves of our chef's jackets, some of the starter would creep into our uniform. But this wasn't the worst of it. Natural starter is stickier than glue. When we were done with our duties, we held out our arms like surgeons and entered the dish room, tackling skin with hot water and the high-pressure sprayer.

Even after countless showers, little teardrops of dried starter stuck to my arm hairs, eventually rendering me as soft and hairless as a Tour De France cyclist.

One day I arrived in the kitchen earlier than anyone. I turned on ovens, flipped light switches and then noticed something very weird. The 2nd walk-in door was slightly ajar. Walk-ins come equipped with self-closing doors and, for safety, door handles on the inside as well as the outside. Doors do not stay open, as they are pressure sealed and close with the fwooop! to prove it.

I was alone in the kitchen.

I stood in front of the door. I held my breath. Listened very closely. Nothing but the whir of the fan.

Then I tried the door. Although it was ajar I had a hard time getting it more open. I tried to peer inside. Nothing. Pulling as hard as I could, the door flew open, throwing me on the ground. Recovering just in time to catch the door before it closed again, I stepped inside.

Someone had not sealed the starter's lid. Usually we closed the lid and weighted it with a few half gallons of dairy. To keep the bears out.

Starter grew out of the 50-gallon bucket. Crept down the sides. Grew across the floor like lava. Scaled the cold box walls. Spread its wings, traversing 90-degree angles, and defied gravity by covering the ceiling. Starter dripped on my head, plop. Starter was everywhere. Alive, happy, wet, sticky, growing. I looked down. Like the first man on the moon I saw my shoes disappearing into foreign goo. Starter naughtily walked out the door.

The starter was having a party.

And I would spend the next many many hours cleaning up after it.

Lesson number 1:
Never leave a starter unattended. Never assume it sleeps a deep dormant sleep in a cold box. Never question the power of wild yeast you've wrangled in, microscopically, from the air. Never forget that day. Never say pshaw to a Californian sourdough.

Part 2: Monday April 23.

I've just returned home from a week in Boca Raton, Florida, where I was visiting family. My mother's side, the New York Jews. Besides making the rounds with my aunt, meeting my cousin's 1 1/2 year old twins and visiting my 86 year old grandmother in her new little apartment at an assisted living facility, it was important to eat a few times at Way Beyond Bagels.

It was there that I had my first authentic bagel and lox outside of New York City.

Not to mention Black & White Cookies, super almond-extracty Rainbow Cake, a pure, uncut version of smoked whitefish salad, the full line of Dr. Brown sodas, including the intriguing celery pop, and a delightfully familiar, and maybe a little grating, noise of thick lower New York accents.

Like any comfort food, when we re-experience it again, it is cause for a celebration and of memories. And like all memories, their arrival is bittersweet. Memories arrive because something's been lost. Or we've moved to a place where our tribe does not band together and make what we grew up with.

Luckily I moved mere blocks from Saul's when I came to live in the East Bay a year ago. It's here I can find chopped liver almost as good as what I remember. When I want to conjure my late grandfather, Samuel Gordon, I buy a few chubs and eat them alone. Shiny and wrinkly gold, the chub arrives wrapped in white paper, with all its parts except for the guts. Smoked whole, they're slick with a distinctly fatty fishy smoky taste and scent. I've never taken part in cold herring from a jar but my legs go weak for smoked fish and I was once graced by homemade gefilte fish.

But bagels? It is my ultimate opinion that there are no real bagels in the Bay Area. I have tried and retried them all. I've been cajoled by hopeful and starry eyed non-Jews as well as other deperate New York Jews. Nope, they do not exist here. Just because bread is round does not mean it's a bagel. When a bagel is a bagel, every gram of your being knows it. It's taste and texture, the smell of your grandmother's kitchen. It's whipped butter, freshly sliced red onions, and too much cream cheese.

So, nu? I just don't eat them here. I reason to my born-again-Californian self that bagels need to be eaten in their own climate. They need to be in season, and although Northern California is home to many an agricultural delicacy, bagels just do not thrive in this soil. Bagels must be eaten where there is a predominance of kvetching weather, schvitzing heat, and other New York Yids.

And Way Beyond Bagels cures this homesick itch. Even though it's in Florida.

I have a whole carry on bag full of 2 dozen said bread product to prove it. Now it's just a matter of sharing them with those who understand the gravity of such luggage...

If you're looking to cure your Eastern European and/or New York Jewish deli food cravings, I give you this small list of places to start:

California Street Deli
Moishe's Pippic
Saul's Deli & Restaurant
Old Krakow

Or if you want to read more about what those who long for Jewish deli food do in the Bay Area, check out this article in The Berkeley Monthly written by John Harris, a man who has even gone so far as to make a movie about the lost Deli. I'm excited to say I'll be privy to a screening of the movie this Thursday!

Pain is, of course, French for bread. When applying an English reading of the word, it describes the condition of my very soul when faced with the prospect of baking it.

For some people, bread making is a passion. There exist people in this world for whom the process is relaxing, even meditative.

Not for me. I become anxiety-ridden at the thought of baking it. It's too basic, too fundamentally a part of our everyday existence. Bread, in one form or another, has supported human life in most cultures for several millenia. What if I, a classically-trained cook, screwed it up?

Frankly, I doubt many people would care. I might get a "Jesus, don't take yourself so seriously." comment which, of course, brings to mind one of His more popular sound bytes:

"I am the bread of life
he that cometh to me shall never hunger." (John 6:35)

Oh. Would Jesus find disappointment in a baker who won't bake Him? The pressure weighs upon me like a ton of unleavened loaves. That is a Mosaic reference, sorry. I currently can do no better-- it's too early in the morning.

In all seriousness, I understand that this is a totally irrational fear, but a real one, like the one I have about driving a car with manual transmission. I could write volumes about my relationship to bread-- my love of consuming it, my loathing of its production. I will keep this brief and spare you the rest.

I have decided to conquer this culinary fear today. I have decided to make white bread or, as the recipe calls it, American Sandwich Bread. Here goes...

Master Recipe for American Sandwich Bread

This recipe was taken from The Best Recipe by the good people at Cook's Illustrated.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups bread flour, plus extra for work surface
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
1/3 cup warm water (110 degrees)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons honey
1 package (about 2 1/4 teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast

Preparation:

1. Adjust oven rack to low position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Once oven temperature reaches 200 degrees, maintain heat for 10 minutes, then turn off oven heat.
2. Mix flour and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Mix milk, water, honey, and yeast in 1-quart Pyrex liquid measuring cup. Turn machine to low and slowly add liquid. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until dough is smooth and satiny, stopping machine two or three times to scrap dough from hook if necessary, about 10 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface; knead to form smooth, round ball, about 15 seconds.
3. Place dough in very lightly oiled container or bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover with plastic wrap; place in warm oven until dough doubles in size, 40 to 50 minutes.
4. Gently press dough into rectangle 1 inch thick and no longer than 9 inches. With a long side facing you, roll dough firmly into cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure dough sticks to itself. Turn dough seam side up and pinch it closed. Place dough in greased 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan and press it gently so it touches all for sides of pan.
5. Cover with plastic wrap; set aside in warm spot until dough almost doubles in size, 20 to 30 mintues. Heat oven to 350 degrees and place an empty loaf pan on bottom rack. Bring 2 cups water to boil.
6. Remove plastic wrap from filled loaf pan and place in oven [ I assumed the authors meant for us to place the filled loaf pan in the oven, not the plastic wrap]. Immediately, pour heated water into empty loaf pan; close oven door. Bake until instant-read thermometer inserted at angle from short end just above pan rim into center of loaf reads 195 degrees, about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove bread from pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.

I did it. I made it. I made it and no one was killed or shamed in the process.

The bread turned out rather well for a first effort, I think. Except for the top. I didn't pinch the top of the loaf properly (don't snigger). The result-- and not an entirely unpleasant one -- was that, when sliced, the bread took on a shape that looked vaguely like Wisconsin. I toasted it and ate it with great lashings of butter and blackberry preserves. Sorry Thrasso, no marmalade in the house.

I admit to feeling a bit silly about avoiding this for so long. And relieved. What the hell was I so afraid of? I suppose my big question of the day is this:

Is there anyone else out there with performance anxiety (culinarily speaking, of course)?

Baking bread, I have discovered, is like having sex or speaking Spanish. You hear about it. You might watch people doing it late one night on cable television. You discover that there are even classes and workshops to help. You buy the instruction manuals and practice, quietly, when no one else can see you. The important thing is to try. And to practice-- whether alone or with a friend. I know for a fact that sex and Spanish are more practically done with someone else present. It is up to you to decide if that is the correct approach for you in terms of bread baking.

And try I did. I count that as one more thing to cross off my what-are-you-waiting-for? list of things to do, one more bogey man slain. I'm still not so sure about driving a stick shift, especially in San Francisco.

Learn more about bread at the Federation of Bakers.

Get some hands on experience at the San Francisco Baking Institute.