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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us, whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm grateful you are here on today's show. We'll talk to filmmaker and CNN host W. Kamau Bell about his new film about interracial families. It's called 1,000% Me: Growing Up Mixed, and The Tony Awards where the nominations were announced this morning. We'll tell you who got nods later on the show, and we'll speak with Ukrainian artist Lesia Khomenko about a new exhibit of her work, her first big show in the States. That is the plan for today. Let's get this started with the new book Bread and How to Eat It.

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Okay, true story. This past weekend, I was at a restaurant in Williamsburg called Sunday in Brooklyn. That's where I saw this bread. I actually stalked it, inching closer to the waiter as he approached another table. I may have audibly gasped. When it was my turn to order, I asked about it and was told it was a family recipe, and sure that was a nice touch, but all I really wanted was access to the warm puffy pita with a slightly crispy edge, and it was just everything on a cold rainy night. Let's talk bread. Rick Easton is the James Beard Award-nominated owner of Bread and Salt Bakery in Jersey City, so he knows a thing or two about bread.

His partner Melissa McCart is a writer and editor for Eater New York and worked closely with Mark Bittman and as a former restaurant critic, so she knows a thing or two about bread and recipes. Rick and Melissa have joined forces to make a new cookbook for the bread lover in your life, Bread and How to Eat It. The book doesn't just teach you how to make great bread, it instructs you on how to buy and store the loaves, teaches you how to make a killer sandwich or toast, and explains the many many uses for stale bread. Whatever you do, just don't throw it out. Rick Easton and Melissa McCart join us now to discuss their new book which is out today. Happy pub day.

Melissa: Thank you.

Rick: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, Rick and Melissa will be taking calls about all things bread. What questions do you have about baking bread, buying bread, storing bread? Do you want suggestions about what to do with your old stale bread or maybe you want to share your favorite local bread bakery. We are taking calls about bread. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Our social media is @AllOfItWNYC. That's both Twitter and Instagram. People are standing by, screeners are standing by to take your call about bread. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Melissa, there was a time and still for a lot of people who won't touch bread, low carb diets, keto, all of that, as an advocate for bread make an argument that should be a key part of our diets.

Melissa: Well, the whole thing isn't just whether you eat or don't eat bread, it's the kind of bread that you're eating. If you're essentially going to a bakery or making it yourself, where you're using a starter, and it's naturally fermented, and you're not getting all the bad few ingredients that are fast turnaround breads, then it is significantly better for you. That's the first thing. You're basically looking for a naturally fermented product. The second part is, as in all things, moderation is key. Everybody's going to have a problem if they're eating half a loaf of bread.

[laughter]

I think that if you're balancing it with vegetables if you eat a little bit of meat, then moderation is key. Rick?

Rick: Yes, how the bread is made, of course, is bread is not bread is not bread, I think is the key. Breads are made in different ways. Breads are made using different flours, for example. There's so many options now. I think there's been a real revolution of baking in this country, that seeking out better bread is probably the smarter move than just avoiding it altogether.

Alison Stewart: You write in the introduction that the popularity of bread and bread making on social media has had some positive effects, but "It has also created a culture of imitation severed from any historical cultural or geographic context." Rick, what's an example of that historical cultural, or geographic context, that you'd like people to know about, just one example?

Rick: Well, one example I can think of off the top of my head is a place like [unintelligible 00:04:49] Sicily. They've been making this [unintelligible 00:04:52] there for quite some time. It is made with grains unique to that area. It is a style of bread unique to that area. That is why I got interested in bread-baking traditions in Italy. In part it's like you go all over the country and each region or town has a specific bread made with specific grain that is connected to the landscape. That's an amazing thing. I think we're pretty far removed from that in the United States, but it's also common in France, it's common in parts of Spain, and Portugal, Germany, and so on and so forth. That's something that existed long before social media and it's important to people in specific areas. It has a time and a place.

Alison Stewart: Melissa, you all are advocates of going to local bakeries-- I'm sorry, did you want to add something Melissa? I'm sorry.

Melissa: Sure. It goes back to your first question. If you look at cultures around the globe, they're all eating bread. It's a funny thing that as Americans, we would advocate cutting out something that's so integral to so many cultures. I would say that there's a real value to connect with culture and identity through eating bread.

Alison Stewart: As you can imagine, our phone lines are pretty full. Let's take line two. Chris is calling in from Long Island. Hey, Chris, thanks for calling All Of It.

Chris: How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great. How about you?

Chris: We're good here. I just dumped 38 grams of starter into my bowl. I'm just curious, when you do cold rise, because I'm making [unintelligible 00:06:45], and I've changed it up. It's Julia Child's original TV recipe. Does that give you more of the milk, the lactose yeast as opposed to the wild yeast that's in these two different jars because I'm using two different ones?

Rick: Yes, changing temperature of your fermentation, of course, there's the activity of the yeast, but then there's a bacterial fermentation that happens for people who are maybe less aware of that, and there's either lactic or acetic. You can definitely develop more of that lactic flavor with a slow cooler rise, but of course, it also depends on just what temperature you're trying to use.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Natalie on line three, calling in from Gramercy. Hi, Natalie. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Natalie: Hi, Alison. I've been listening to you since you were on WBRU in Providence when I was a kid.

Alison Stewart: Nice.

Natalie: I just wanted to say, I love bread. This show is perfect for me. I love eating all kinds of bread. My problem is I can never keep a good bread fresh for more than a day. We've tested Ziploc bags, wrapping it in paper, putting it in cloth, keeping it in the microwave as a breadbox. Nothing seems to really work. I'm hoping your guests have advice.

Alison Stewart: Natalie, thank you so much for the kind words, and also wow, microwave as a breadbox. Did not expect to hear that today. Bread storage, how can you help out our friends?

Rick: I am a huge advocate of just keeping your bread cut side down on your counter or your cutting board, and also depending on the type of bread and how that bread was made. The breads that we make here at my shop in Jersey City, that bread will stay soft inside for five, six, maybe up to seven days depending on atmospheric conditions, but some drying is, of course, a natural part of the process. I think that was part of the point of the book is to encourage an enjoyment of bread in those various stages of aging instead of placing all of the value on that fresh bread. All things age; bread, us, everything.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] My guests are Rick Easton and Melissa McCart. They are the co-authors of the book Bread and How to Eat It. It's out today. Listeners, if you have any questions about bread baking, bread buying, bread storage, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. To Rick's point, if you have something that you do with your bread as it ages, we'd like to hear from you as well. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Social media is @AllOfItWNYC. We're getting a lot of calls about making bread and we'll get there, but I did want to say that you folks advocate for going to a local bakery, getting to know your local baker, and getting quality bread for everyday. What are some ways to identify a great loaf of bread? What should I be looking for?

Rick: A lot of that depends on personal taste, of course. I think it's important to look at the shape of the bread, look at the size of the loaf of bread. Think about how you're going to use that loaf of bread. What color is it? I think that you can identify a lot about a bakery in the way that it smells when you walk in the door.

Alison Stewart: What do you think it should smell like? Is it very yeasty?

Rick: I think it should smell like wheat. There's a cooked wheat smell. That's a very specific smell. I prefer to smell that over a very, very pungent, yeasty smell. Yeast is [unintelligible 00:10:47] too.

Alison Stewart: Is there any smell that should make you turn around and leave?

Rick: Anything remotely unpleasant. If you're in a bakery, if it smells unpleasant [unintelligible 00:10:57]

Melissa: Are you basically looking for bread that's out, not in plastic bags to go, yes?

Rick: Yes, absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Melissa, you insist that you should not buy pre-sliced bread? Why not?

Melissa: I think I'm really bad at cutting my own bread. I know that seems ridiculous, but for whatever reason, I haven't mastered it. Essentially, the crust acts as a protector and keeps it fresh. Once you're slicing that bread, then its shelf life essentially decreases.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask this, but you may not get angry at me. Can you freeze bread?

Rick: Sure.

Melissa: Yes. It's the refrigerator that's the problem.

Alison Stewart: Okay, wait. Oh, explain that to me. Refrigerator's problem, freezer okay, why?

Rick: Refrigerators do weird things. If you ever have leftover rice and you put it in your refrigerator, you know how it gets all nubbly and hard? The same thing's happening with bread. It's starches in the refrigerator, cooked starches, they aren't real happy. It accelerates a staling process.

Alison Stewart: Melissa, anything you want to add?

Melissa: No, I was just going to segue us into freezer. Freezer, essentially, you're protecting it before it goes in the freezer, and so the chances of it drying out and the chances of it drying out decreases. How long would you keep bread in the freezer, Rick?

Rick: I think if it's stored properly, a couple of months.

Alison Stewart: Let's take another call. I also want to remind listeners, we cannot take calls from people who are driving. If you want to call in, you got to either pull over or just listen and call in another time. Let's talk to Peter from Brooklyn. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hey, hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

Peter: I'm calling because, hi, this is a great show. I'm enjoying it. I've been baking for years, and I've been really trying to up my game lately, and I'm working my way through Ken Forkish's book and Tartine Bakery, just going by recipe. Then sometimes I have to make a bread for somebody. I don't have three days, I have to make it that day. I find that the flavor profile isn't that different when people enjoy homemade bread. Whether I made it starting in the morning and I baked it in the afternoon, [unintelligible 00:13:29] it's super fast but as opposed to making a pre-ferment, feeding it, waiting, and having a starter to keep alive. I feel like maybe I'm not getting it but I find the flavor profile doesn't add up to all the time it takes to have that pre-ferment. That's my question.

Rick: I think there's a lot of ways to skin a cat, and I think it depends on your style of pre-ferment. I do think that there is this kind of, especially in home baking communities, people who are avid home bakers [unintelligible 00:14:10] become this fetishization of this really, really long process is going to always be better. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think you can get a lot out of a loaf of bread that's made in a shorter span of time. I think that the key is just making sure that it's adequately fermented.

Melissa: What about styles of flour or flour blends? Does that affect the flavor profile?

Rick: Sure, but then that's the flavor of flour, not the flavor of fermentation. I think those are different questions.

Alison Stewart: Irene is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Irene. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Irene: Hi, Alison. I love your show. Thanks so much for taking my call. My question is about the fluffy pita bread that you saw at the restaurant. I've been to restaurants in New York where also they have these delicious fluffy pita bread. I've tried many times to reproduce that but I feel like whenever I get a good pocket, then my bread is very thin and I would like a fluffy bread with a pocket. I don't know if there's a trick to do that.

Rick: I think that the key, I can tell you, is you have to roll out your pita very, very evenly. If you want it a little fluffier, you have to roll it thicker but the key is you have to roll it very evenly. You could bake it on a baking steel or some baking stone in your oven as absolutely hot as it can go to make sure that you get that pop that's going to give you the pocket to begin with. You can do it a little thicker. It just has to be even.

Alison Stewart: Irene, good luck. Happy pita making. We are talking to the authors of Bread and How to Eat It. The book is out today. My guests are Rick Easton and Melissa McCart. You're my guest as well. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. If you have questions about baking bread, making bread, bread storage, maybe you want to shout out your favorite local bakery. We're going to take a quick break. After the break, we'll get into some gluten, we'll get into some recipes. I do have starter questions. This is All Of It.

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You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are the authors of Bread and How to Eat It. It's out today. Rick Easton is a co-author and owner of Bread & Salt Bakery in Jersey City. Melissa McCart is a co-author and a writer and editor at Eater New York. We are taking your questions. I have some of my own. I can't use the language you used in the book, Rick, but one of your tips is you say you should use crappy baking pans instead of fancy ones when you're making bread. Why and when is that applicable?

Rick: That's more in the book specifically about making any focaccia or pan pizza. I think that, for one thing, a lot of people with home baking want to go out and spend all kinds of money and buy all this fancy carbon steel and this, that, and the other thing. I think the thing to remember in these contexts, you're at home, your oven's not really designed to do any of this anyway. I have found in my own experience that these flimsy, terrible cookie sheets actually conduct heat in a much better fashion and can get you a nicer, crispier product.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Samantha calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Samantha. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Samantha: Hi, thank you for having me. I love bread as an eater, not so much as a baker.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] What's your question?

Samantha: I had a question about, I guess it's wheat in the United States as compared to other countries. I've heard anecdotally from friends who have either lived abroad or grew up abroad that basically they have sometimes negative reactions to the bread in the US that they don't have in their home countries and they had maybe attributed to our wheat having more gluten or a different type of gluten or just some fundamental difference. Is this a conspiracy theory or does our wheat really have more gluten?

Alison Stewart: Can you put a conspiracy theory to rest?

Rick: Gluten I don't think is really the problem here. I think gluten is a protein. Most people are perfectly capable of digesting it, except in the case of severe celiacs or a terrible wheat allergy. The main issue is that I think it just depends on what type of bread you're buying. I think carefully made bread with well-sourced flour is going to be just as digestible here as it would be in Europe. There's terrible bread everywhere.

The other issue that I've heard a lot of Europeans make these complaints, again, this goes back to flour sourcing, is we have this nasty stuff called Roundup and in non-organic wheats, in some cases, people spray this on their crop. It's a terrible pesticide or herbicide situation that is known to cause cancer and illegal in most parts of the world but in the United States, we tend to think it's okay. People can report having some issues from that. I think that it's just, go to better bakeries. You'd probably be all right.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about bakeries. Let's talk to Lynn from Ridgewood who wants to give a shout-out for her favorite bakery? Hi, Lynn.

Lynn: Hi. Hi, Alison. Yes. Now, I've lived in Ridgewood for a long time and our favorite bakery is Catania on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood. Specifically, they have the best [unintelligible 00:20:13] seeded Semolina. It is crusty. [unintelligible 00:20:17] makes it home, I always have to buy two of them when I go. It is fantastic. That's basically what I love about that place.

Alison Stewart: Lynn, thank you for calling in. Melissa, let's talk about some of the recipes in the book. We say bread and then you think, "Well," aside from making bread, how did you decide what kind of recipes you wanted to include?

Melissa: Well, Rick and I are partners on this book, but we're also partners in life. It was very conversational and a lot of these things are recipes that Rick makes at home or in his bakery. I think that Rick is a big fan of beans and I'm less a fan of beans, but I think that, for example, Rick would want to have 20 bean recipes and I would say, "No, maybe not. People might not be as enthusiastic about beans and bread as you are." It was really a series of conversations. Rick did a lot of the writing too and I edited it and set my job outside of writing cookbooks, but every once in a while when we were under a deadline, Rick would write a recipe on butcher paper, which I absolutely loved and saved, and I would just make it readable for everybody else, but it was really an organic process.

Alison Stewart: We've got a question from Deborah from Twitter. How do you tell that your bulk fermentation first rise is done and for the second after it has been shaped? Years of baking sourdough and I'm really not that confident with it.

Rick: Well, I think that that's really one of the hardest things in baking, and I think it comes from the experience in doing it too soon and too fast or letting it go too long and realizing, "Well, that didn't work or give me the results I want." What you're looking for in terms of bulk fermentation, depending on the style of bread you want to make, of course, but you want to make sure that there's some life that you've definitely seen some rise. I think when people are doing naturally leavened sourdough baking, I think letting that rise one-and-a-third to one-and-a-half times its original volume is enough, and then you want to go ahead and shape it. The other thing I generally recommend is to put your dough in a straight-sided graduated container and mark where it starts so it's much, much easier to see that rise.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Gloriana, calling in from Westchester. Hi, Gloriana. Thank you for calling All Of It.

Gloriana: Hi, this is my first time calling in. I just had a comment about what traditional, what we used to do in my family in terms of bread. I've never made it before. I won't do it the justice, but my grandmother used to make bread and she used to wait for it to go stale and then use it in her summer salad almost like a Panzanella. I never really got what the name Panzanella was until I actually looked it up, but I just wanted to know what you guys thought about Friselle and Panzanella in general.

Rick: Oh, it's one of my favorite things in the world. Friselle, that's one of the very few bread recipes in the book or one of my favorite things to eat, one of my favorite things to make, and very much because of that idea that or Panadoro, it's bread designed to be hard and dry to then be rehydrated with other ingredients like salads or soups and things like that.

Alison Stewart: What are some of your favorite recipes? Things to do with bread what most people would call stale and you see as an opportunity?

Rick: Personally, some of my favorite recipes in the book are the various dishes known as [unintelligible 00:24:16] or cooked bread where you basically cook chunks of this stale bread in with some brothy beans or with some vegetables and add a little water if you need to, to make a very thick soup, almost a porridge. I think it's a simple cooking that not a lot of people do that's just incredibly, incredibly satisfying. It almost could take the place of a pasta.

Melissa: I love everything with breadcrumbs and when you use this good bread that you've bought and make breadcrumbs out of it, it's transcendent in terms of how you think of breadcrumbs. In the recipes, there are a bunch of pastas with breadcrumbs, which is life-changing because I'd never would think of using breadcrumbs on pasta, but it's delicious. Then we have a bunch of photos of souply and [unintelligible 00:25:13] essentially variations on rice balls and Rick makes them to order at his bakery and they're so delicious and they're so worth making at home.

Alison Stewart: I love that there's a whole section devoted just to crumbs. What's the secret to making good breadcrumbs from old bread, Rick?

Rick: Good bread.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] That all comes back to good bread.

Rick: Then let it get as dry. Of course, there's a difference between dry and stale, but you really want the bread itself as hard and dry as possible, and then pulverize them in whatever means you see fit.

Alison Stewart: Let's take some more calls. Stephanie is calling in from Jersey City. Hi, Stephanie, thanks for calling All Of It.

Stephanie: Hi. Thank you. I love your show. I wanted to recommend my favorite [unintelligible 00:26:08] in Jersey City, which is a resource of family-owned bakery on Central Avenue. I tear it, not cut it, and it freezes pretty well.

Melissa: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for the sh--

Melissa: We love that place.

Alison Stewart: You know it?

Melissa: Yes.

Rick: Oh, absolutely.

Melissa: It has such great people. It's a great place.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Alison from Montclair. Hi, Alison. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Allison: Hello. Thanks for having me on. I wanted to give a shout out to Bread & Salt where my daughter and I visited for the very first time couple weeks ago when they were hosting Corrado Assenza, the Sicilian pastry chef. We tried, of course, the pastries and the granita, but the Focaccia [unintelligible 00:26:54] at Bread & Salt was in a different galaxy of bread and my 11-year-old daughter sat down in the car, said, "We can't wait. We have to eat this." She said, "Mom, this is great bread." That made me so happy to hear her have that reaction and we ate it all within a day.

Alison Stewart: You hear that, Rick? You got a new fan. You got fans of all ages.

Rick: Well, thank you, [unintelligible 00:27:14]

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. I was going to actually ask. When the other woman called in about the place that you all like and about your place, I can think about you get to know your local butcher sometimes, or you get to know your local fishmonger. Is there a relationship that one can develop with their local baker?

Rick: Absolutely. I think you should. I say this as somebody who probably doesn't have time to talk to as many customers as I might like, but if you shop in the a small place and you have a local bakery and you have a butcher and you have those things, you get to know them. You return regularly, you ask questions, you get answers, you become more informed, but then you also form a relationship. Those people want to make sure because it's personal that then you're getting the best stuff.

Alison Stewart: You strike me as the kind of person who would be really honest about this question. Both of you do. What's an overrated bread? Silence.

Rick: What happened?

Melissa: What's happening?

Alison Stewart: Oh, can you hear me?

Melissa: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Oh, I asked you a tough question. I thought you were giving me the silent treatment for a minute.

Melissa: Oh, no, we didn't hear you.

Rick: No, you cut out.

Alison Stewart: I was saying you strike me as very honest people and you would answer this. What is an overrated bread?

Melissa: Oh, god.

Rick: Oh, that's a tough one. An overrated bakery or an overrated rated type of bread?

Alison Stewart: Overrated type of bread.

Melissa: Oh, I have an answer for that.

Rick: Okay, you go ahead and answer.

Melissa: Baguettes.

Rick: Agree.

Melissa: If you buy a baguette as a layperson and I'm speaking as more of a layperson, you don't know how it was baked or what the quality is until it's no longer edible in like five hours because it's so hard. It's edible if you want to reconstitute it, but chances are you're buying a baguette-- It's not something that you keep in your house for four or five days. It's usually the type of bread that you're eating right away.

Rick: A baguette is designed for immediacy. It's a city bread, it's a bread designed for modern urban life and bakeries in France, for example, are baking these multiple times throughout the day. They're designed to be eaten. You buy what you need, you eat it. It's more of a disposable bread. Also, I'm against baguettes because I'm against the total French dominance in American baking.

[laughter]

Let's do something different.

Alison Stewart: Gauntlet thrown down. Anything you would like our audience to know or think about Bread before we conclude? Rick, why don't you start?

Rick: Just enjoy it. Don't be afraid of it, live with it. Make it part of your life.

Melissa: I feel like I want to reinforce that idea of going to visit your baker. There's been a lot in the news about people being lonely and what have you, and just getting off of our couches and going to a place that's in your neighborhood, that's a regular place where you might see people that you recognize and can befriend. I think investing in these local businesses essentially connects you to your own community.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Bread and How to Eat It. It is out today from Rick Easton, owner of Bread and Salt Bakery in Jersey City. His co-author is Melissa McCart. Thank you so much for taking listeners' calls. This was a lot of fun.

Rick: Thank you.

Melissa: Thank you.

 

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