In her book Animal Vegetable Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver discusses the lack of an American Food Culture.  Because we can truck or fly in any ingredient from anywhere in the world, we’ve lost seasonality in our cooking.  Asparagus in Fall makes as much sense as Broccoli in Summer.

Our lovely state is one of the places that Barbara Kingsolver cites an exception.  We understand that Satsumas are only available in Fall and early Winter.  We know when we can and cannot get a sack of crawfish for a boil.  We only expect raw oysters on a menu in cold months.  We gorge on an ingredient when it is in season, savoring every morsel, and then right around the time we’re sick of it, it is out of season and we move on to the next seasonal item.

While we understand that it is frustrating for some people that we rotate our menu, we like to follow this mindset of seasonality with our breads.  That’s what makes Pumpkin Swirl, Pumpkin Bars, and Pumpkin Muffins such a joy for us to make every Fall.  Just as the weather starts to turn, you can expect to smell Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Ginger in the air around the bakery when you walk up.  Every morning you can walk in and grab a muffin or bar on your way to work.  On Wednesdays and Fridays you can expect to see orange bread with seasonal pumpkin blended into the dough.  You can expect Manny to hand you a slice with a smile when you walk in and you can enjoy it right about the time the pumpkins are at their seasonal best.

Pumpkin Bars are available every day that we’re open.
Pumpkin Muffins and Teacakes are available with either chocolate chips or pecan pieces on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Pumpkin Swirl is available on Wednesdays and Fridays.

G. Harvest was a man who experienced more in one month than most men experience in one decade.  His adventures inspire the breads that we make.  This Fall we have Santa Fe Cornbread on the menu.  It's great as a sandwich bread, toasted as croutons in a Taco Salad, or served as a slice alongside soup.  Here’s the story behind it.

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I spent one summer on the Pacific coast of Mexico doing some long board surfing, spear fishing, and decompressing from the frenetic pace of American life in the town of Sayulita.  This was back when it was a sleepy little village before Gringo dollars corrupted it.  On days that I wasn’t in the ocean I took a job cooking Western dishes in a villa for the occasional High Dollar Tourists that made their way here for a vacation.  It was a great summer, with my long board riding Hurricane Fico’s massive swells and my spear slicing through more types of fish than I can name.  My food preparation in the villa was my most frustrating experience- the kitchen’s Western ingredients were limited in number.  While the guests loved my Mediterranean dishes, my French cuisine would get mixed reviews because I didn’t have access to key ingredients.

One afternoon, after riding a great set of waves in the morning, I walked into the villa’s kitchen and noticed that the atmosphere had changed.  Instead of men laughing and singing along to the AM radio, there was silence.  Everyone on staff walked quickly from post to post within the villa.  When I inquired as to why everyone was so nervous they just looked at me and said “El Magico”.  Because my Spanish was limited I thought they were saying “El Mexico” and assumed some dignitary from Mexico City was in the villa this week.  I set up my station and awaited the order, which soon came in: swordfish steaks, some South American dish I’d never heard of, a seasonal fruit salad and … bread.  Everyone gulped and looked at me.  They knew I was a baker but they also knew we didn’t have adequate ingredients to prepare a true bread… we didn’t even have enough wheat flour for a single loaf!

I set to work, walking around the kitchen and grabbing ingredients.  I immediately took all of the wheat flour in the storage room, as well as some cornmeal, and the little yeast we had on site.  I grabbed some Yucatan honey, sea salt, and from there just let the regional ingredients inspire me.  I shucked an ear of corn and removed the kernels from the cob.  I stewed tomatoes, minced an onion, and sliced local peppers.  It was a Southern-Cornbread-Meets-European-Bread-in-Mexico creation. 

By the time I threw the loaf in the oven the other dishes were already on the table.  Everyone was wringing their hands and worrying about what El Magico would say about my bread being late.  I told them –mostly through hand gestures and Cajun French- that anyone who could afford this villa must realize that great bread cannot be rushed.  My words did not comfort them.

When the bread came out of the oven I sliced it, plated it and handed it to the waiter to send out.  He refused out of fear.  I shook my head, washed my hands, and walked into the dining room to present the bread myself.  What surprised me was that there were two conversations happening in the dining room- one in Spanish and one in English.  The conversation in Spanish I automatically tuned out and the one in English I automatically honed in on… it was about getting Cocaine across the border and included airports, dates of arrival and what types of vehicle were available for pickup and delivery.  When I rounded the corner the conversation that was taking place in English stopped.  They could tell I was American and they knew that I heard them.  Thankfully I had spent many years in the bars of South Louisiana playing poker and had developed a good poker face.  I kept walking, acted oblivious to what I had just heard, and presented my loaves to the table.  That’s when I realized that “El Mexico” actually was “El Magico”, AKA Pablo Escobar, and I later learned that one of the Gringos at the table was George Jung.

I apologized for the tardiness of my bread and explained to them what a truly fantastic fusion cuisine they were about to enjoy.  As I left the dining room a conversation in whispered Spanish picked up.  I returned to the kitchen and cleaned my station, the whole time I realized that I was probably a dead man.  The waiter soon returned to the kitchen and motioned for me to come back out to the dining room… our guests wanted to speak with me.

I stood before the table of Who’s Who of Drug Trafficking and one of the men began to translate Pablo Escobar’s words for me.  He loved the bread and said it was worth the wait.  I told him it was an honor to cook for him and looked forward to doing so for the remainder of his stay with us.  The whole time he was sizing me up.  His mouth was smiling but his eyes were daggers.  I’d seen this look many times after I’d laid down a winning hand at the poker table.  El Magico told me he would send one of his workers to the closest large city for more flour and that he wished to have one of my European breads the following evening.  I bowed and returned to the kitchen.

That night I left Sayulita with the clothes on my back and that night’s pay which, thankfully, included a very generous tip from Senor Escobar.  Once I was away from the streetlights of the villa I left the roads and ran cross country towards the highway.  I hopped on the back of a truck headed for the American border and was seized by Border Patrol agents at the New Mexico border for not having proper paperwork.  When I told them my story they put me in a car and high-tailed it to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I met with DEA agents.  When I told them everything I had heard at the dinner table the color left their faces… every employee in that villa went missing the morning after I left and was presumed dead.

Years later one of El Magico’s underlings testified about that week in Sayulita.  He said that my loaf of bread was the only reason we weren’t all killed on the spot in the evening.  Because it had satisfied Senor Escobar, he went to sleep in a great mood.  Once he woke, however, he realized that no matter how happy his stomach had been I had heard too much and couldn’t be spared.  Without that loaf of bread, I wouldn’t have had the time to get away.  That Cornbread saved my life.

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Santa Fe Cornbread will be available Wednesdays and Fridays this Fall.        

New Biscotti Flavor
We’ve got a new type of biscotti on the menu.  It’s loaded down with roasted, rough chopped almonds, a splash of bourbon, and organic vanilla.  I generally don’t like biscotti but this one amazed me when I took a bite of it after it was pulled out of the oven.  The subtle mixture of bourbon, vanilla, and almond fills the air when you crack it in half and the flavors awaken when it is dunked in coffee.

Fair-Trade Gifts
JP and Michelle are great bosses (they aren’t paying me to say that, I promise!).  We get to take home bread and sweets at no charge.  If we want time off, they give it to us.  They let us play eclectic music that they don’t particularly like.  What we appreciate most off all, though, is that they live up to the mission statement on the wall- they truly Give Generously to Others.  JP had this grin on his face the other morning when he walked in and saw a box on the floor by his office.  When we asked about why he was so happy he informed us that he had finally found a Fair-Trade basket for us to use.  The owners are even generous with our vendors, which means that a gift basket you buy in our store is even more giving than it used to be.

Shrinking the Footprint
We’ve recently added recycling bins in our seating area and have a huge bin in the back that we’ve been using for about a year now.  We’re also using local ingredients when possible like Steen’s molasses, Louisiana pecans, Kleinpeter milk, and Baby’s Coffee.  Another thing we do is give away our old wheat bags and five gallon drums to anyone who asks- first come, first serve.  Just ask for ‘em and we’ll gladly hand them over to you!

(submitted by Michelle)
Because of the awesome crew that we have, we were fortunate to enjoy some time in Colorado last month.  The first stop was the Lyons Folk Fest.  After being on the road for 18 hours, we arrived to meet our dear friends from the Springs for 3 days of awesome, close-up & personal music & tent camping. 

The first conversation was about how we had just missed Peter Himmelman's set - we were truly bummed especially the kids since he writes awesome kid music (the kind that adults like, too).   Peter was conversing next to the car so I decided to approach him & tell him how sorry we were to have missed him on-stage.  "Peter, look at my license plate...we drove all the way from Louisiana to hear you play & I can't believe we just missed you!  I think we'll just have to turn around right now.  Kids, get back in the car...."  The kids had that zombie-like glazed look that was interpreted as..."We are so sad...." but was really "I don't want to see the car for 3 days!"

Peter's reply:  "Well, let's see what we can do...."  He took us backstage to the warm-up tent.  Man, we had no idea how close-up & personal!  The kids were in shock as seen on the video.  He played for 20 minutes, and at the end of our brief visit, Mr. Himmelman, the genius song-writer, made up 2 songs on the spot.  One about eating gator meat & one about Amanda and her 5 brothers (2 were actually friends but Peter didn't know that).

What a gift!   It was the start of an awesome vacation.  Thanks, Peter!

It’s an overcast day in South Louisiana and the oven is off, which means the air conditioner is actually conditioning the air in the bakery.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear we were actually into Fall now.  Rob Perillo reminded me that we still have about a month to go while I watched the news this week.  While I love the relative accuracy of his forecasts, I loathe being reminded that my camping gear and sweaters will stay in hibernation for another four weeks.

South Louisiana summer is fantastic for the first month or two.  Everything is a lush, decadent green and I remember how fun kids splashing in swimming pools are and how refreshing a glass of lemonade is.  Then May ends and all of a sudden the sadness of a six month, subtropical summer hits me.  It will be this way until mid-October.

Today I can fool myself, though.  With the A/C on and the clouds overhead I can make a soup or chili, grab the green cashmere blanket next to the sofa, throw it over my legs, and live like it really is Fall. 

I was talking to JP a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned that Santa Fe Cornbread was coming back on the menu… what a perfect bread for this time of year.  It has just enough kick from the jalapenos to warm the mouth but it is perfect alongside soup or chili, adding a layer of depth to an otherwise flat meal.

Summer’s cruel, sticky fingers still grip South Louisiana but today we can imagine what it will be like soon when sweaters come out of boxes, tents get set up in the Kisatchie Wilderness, and soup replaces barbecue on our kitchen tables.

G. Harvest was a man who experienced more in one month than most men experience in one decade.  His adventures inspire the breads that we make.  Here’s the story behind our Pepperoni Roll.

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While living in New York and saving money for my second trip around the world (this time a trip through the Southern Hemisphere), I worked in a small, neighborhood pizzeria owned by and named after Luigi Romano.  He was a man of small stature and his patience matched is size.  His temper, however, should have been paired with someone the size of the Incredible Hulk.  To this day, I work up to Luigi’s exacting standards when I am in a kitchen.  Getting slapped in the face by a little man after you leave streaks on his dishes will encourage you to develop an attention to detail.

One summer evening Luigi and I were closing his shop.  As always, he sat in the kitchen and counted his money while singing happy songs in Italian.  Occasionally he would look up, point at something he felt I didn’t clean well enough, and curse at me for a few minutes before returning to his stacks of money and happy songs.

I had finished cleaning, was clocked out, and was grabbing a pepperoni pizza I had left in the now-cooling oven.  Every night I would sit down at home with a pepperoni pizza and enjoy it as I watched black-and-white movies on TV.  I lived close enough to Pizza by Luigi that, when I sat on my sofa and opened the lid to the pizza box, a cloud of steam would rise up to my face and the cheese would still be nice and stringy.  Those free pizzas made the verbal abuse from Luigi worth it.

Anyway, Luigi was almost done counting/singing when the back door to the kitchen flew open.  Two masked men with knives ran into the pizzeria and one of them slashed Luigi across the arm he had raised to defend himself while the other kicked him in the groin.  Luigi collapsed onto the floor and was soon surrounded by an expanding puddle of blood.  One of the men stood over Luigi, throwing the just-counted money into a bag.  The other turned his attention to me.

Adrenaline started coursing through my veins and I don’t remember much after that but, from what Luigi told the police, I rolled up the pepperoni pizza I had in front of me and hit the man attacking me over the head with it.  He screamed in pain as the mozzarella and tomatoes shot out of the end near him and burned him.  He ran out of Pizza by Luigi, screaming like a little girl as he ran down the road.  The other burglar came at me with a fury.  I simply unrolled the pizza and threw it at him.  Because of my time on the high school track team throwing discus, I have great aim when throwing anything circular in shape.  Keep this in mind if you dare to pick a fight with me.  I hit him in the face, too.  He fell to the ground and I took away his knife.  This is when came out of my adrenaline high and returned to a clear state of mind.

Once the police showed up they informed me that I had single-handedly defeated two of the Mob’s best henchmen.  I simply shrugged and told them that this is how men are raised in South Louisiana.  Luigi, grateful that he didn’t lose that night’s earnings, gave me a $50 bonus, which I spent on two steaks, a bottle of wine, and a Puerto Rican woman named Vilma.

This story became Luigi’s favorite story to tell his customers.  He told it so many times that his customers actually started asking for a rolled up pizza, similar in fashion to the one I had defended myself with on that fateful night.  It immediately became the most popular item on our menu.

Luigi sold the idea to a major food producer and the rest, as they say, is history.  He made enough money off of this recipe that he closed the store and retired.  The location of his former pizzeria is now a Starbucks.  This is the only Starbucks I will drink coffee in.  Luigi offered me enough money to cover my trip around the globe but I told him I wanted the right to continue making my Pepperoni Roll.  He granted my wish, much to the chagrin of the major food producer.

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Our Pepperoni Roll starts with our pillowy Focaccia dough.  We stuff it with sliced pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, and a butter garlic sauce.  We then top it with a blend of Italian herbs and pull it out of the oven just in time for your lunch break... and in time to thwart any noontime robbery attempts.  The Pepperoni Roll is available Tuesdays and Thursdays.

When someone walks into our bakery and says they want something we don’t have, we will write the request in a little notebook.  Believe it or not, we actually read it!  One of the requests that we see over and over again is the request for a savory breakfast of some kind.

We’re working on it!

Today we whipped together our first version of a savory breakfast sandwich.  While, like most of our staff, you might want to see this on the menu tomorrow, it will take us a little while to get it there.  Because our staff is so talented, we try to involve as many people as possible in the creation of our new items.  As a result, we’ll go through a few rounds of revisions as we put our culinary noggins together but, man-oh-man, was this a great breakfast today!

There’s a sign above our kneading table that says “All We Knead is Love”.  While it might seem like fanciful marketing on the surface, there is some wisdom behind it.  One of our employees who went to Culinary School talked about how the first lesson they were taught in baguette making was that you can’t make a baguette while angry.  She talked about how easy it was to spot a loaf made by someone who was angry... it was completely flat and there were no beautiful, random air pockets inside the loaf because they had all been pounded out by the angry kneader.

While we all have days where we bring our fights from home to work or the days that we didn’t get enough sleep, by and large we love what we do.

There was a day last week where one of our bakers observed what was going on around him: one of the Customer Service staff was laughing with a regular customer, a kneader was carving a delicate design into a loaf and was totally immersed in the art, another kneader was singing the song playing in the bakery while they cut loaves from the large pile of dough, and the baker was telling a joke to the other kneader.  Everyone in the store was having a blast.

While we can’t scientifically prove that you can taste the love in a loaf of our bread, we hope that you enjoy it a little more knowing that a lot of joy goes into making it.

G. Harvest was a man who experienced more in one month than most men experience in one decade.  His adventures inspire the breads that we make.  Next week we’ll be introducing our Spinach Wrap.  It’s a 100% whole grain bread that is loaded with Spinach, Cheese, and Italian Spices.  This loaf is perfect for a quick lunch, as an appetizer for a larger meal, or as your contribution to the party you’re attending this weekend.  Here’s the story behind it.

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On one of my earlier trips through Europe, I made a stop in Italy.  I intended to be there for one week but that week quickly stretched into three.  I was a young Cajun lost in the great sea of Europe and the joie de vivre of Italy called to me like a mythological siren of the sea.  Every day was a whirlwind of adventure with olive skinned women and olive oil covered food.  “Ciao, Bella!” became my calling card.  I left it scribbled on notes in kitchens as I snuck out of front doors.  I yelled it over my shoulder as I was occasionally chased out of apartments by boyfriends that women never told me about.  All of that ended when I arrived in Assisi.

The hometown of St. Francis of Assisi made quite an impression on me.  On an impulsive whim, I swore off evenings of decadent food, endless bottles of red wine, and the embrace of vivacious women.  I donated every Traveler’s Check I had left with me to the first church I found and vowed to hike back to Rome, relying on the generosity of strangers and the moving of the Spirit to provide for me.  I would experience Italy like Saint Francis did.

Two days later I arrived, ragged and starving, at the small village of Campello sil Clitunno.  It was past dark and there was no one out… except for that one older woman.  She spoke no English and the Italian I had become accustomed to speaking would have gotten me slapped if I spoke it to her.  The hunger in my eyes met the loneliness in hers and everything we needed to say to one another was communicated in that moment.  She beckoned me into her small home and directed me to the sofa in her living room.  The fire crackling in the fireplace warmed both my body and my heart.  I sat in silence and watched her prepare a simple dish for me in the kitchen- olive oil, garlic, red pepper, salt, and spinach.  She put it in front of me, alongside a slice of buttered bread, and did so with all the love and care of a mother giving her son his dinner.  I put my hands together in a gesture of appreciation and ate ravenously.

She fed not only my body on that night but also my soul.  My faith in my fellow man and my God was restored.  On the plane ride home I swore to capture the essence of that evening in one of my breads.

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Our Spinach Wrap will be available Tuesdays and Thursdays in August.

Sue Rabeaux came by the store to pick up the check for the Acadiana Humane Society.
Over $1000 was raised for the society from a portion of the Honey Bunnies sold at Easter.
They are using the funds to pay vet bills and for maintenance on their facility.