The Artisan: StoneGround Breads

[SoCalDem]

This is a fun story about filling a niche, in a difficult job-market.. and also interesting to me because , in Germany there's a SEVEN year course in artisan crafts...and because artisan bread is just so damned good!

enjoy!


By Jenn Garbee, Special to the Los Angeles Times

September 2, 2010


In the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana, Abby Franke and his team of bakers at StoneGround Breads are braiding thousands of egg-and-honey-rich challah loaves by hand. The breads are kosher, as are the hundreds of other Jewish-German products in the Agoura Hills bakery's lineup.

Only the 52-year-old baker isn't Jewish. Franke and his staff are baking those loaves in honor of his friend and former baking partner, Paul Sherman. The chatty, ponytail-sporting Franke, who comes from Hagen, Germany, readily admits he prefers the rustic whole grain crusty loaves he made while earning his baking meisterbrief (Germany's rigorous seven-year, guild-regulated certificate program for artisan crafts). And that initially he wasn't that crazy about the guy who became his business partner either.

"I didn't like him at first," says Franke, dodging sheet pans of chubby challah dough in the bakery's cramped kitchen. "He was a little too shy for me." Sherman, who died two years ago, was a reserved Jewish baker from Tel Aviv who operated the Sherman Oaks-based Sherman Bakery in the '80s and '90s — a kosher bakery with its shelves piled high with challah. But eventually they hit it off. "We realized we really weren't all that different," Franke says. "We both specialized in bread."

snip

[DesertFlower]

1. challah bread is delicious especially

french toasted, but OMG the calories.

[SoCalDem]

2. I made it once & it did not last long enough to even cool

My "specialty" is crusty french bread..

[DesertFlower]

13. i love crusty french bread.

in new york almost all the diners make challah french toast. it's cut into wedges and deep fried with some confectioners sugar sprinkled on top.

i'm salivating thinking about it.

the diners in new york have the greatest food. you could get everything from breakfast to dinner and they were open 24 hours 7 days a week.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. Is he Ted was back from the grave?

[deaniac21]

4. Are any of them carb free?

[SoCalDem]

5. for you? I removed the calories & carbs

:)

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. It looks like you edited out the Kennedy-esque photo as well

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/08/the-artisan-stoneground-breads-in-agoura-hills.html

[SoCalDem]

9. I came up bigger than I expected it to be & I was too lazy to "smaller-fy" it

:rofl:

He does look like teddy :)

people will have to click the link for the pic:)

[deaniac21]

12. SOLD

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

8. Challah, because of all the eggs does have a little less carbs. ;)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

7. I make a challah to die for, and I get it started in the bread machine.

Now I know what I'm going to be doing Friday! I have lots and lots of eggs!

[SoCalDem]

10. I hope you have "safe" eggs

:rofl:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. lol! I was going to add that they were and said to myself....

fuck it and left it out! :rofl:

PS...pardon my language, but I'm still pissed off by the "great dog story"!!!!