Raccoon and Lobster

(14:25) Stacy: ronnie the breadtective
(14:26) Stacy: with your sidekicks, max and minnie
(14:26) Stacy: i hope you’re wearing a fedora
(14:26) Stacy: or other suitable breadtective hat

Three months ago, the boyfriend and I went to a fancy restaurant for my birthday dinner, a restaurant we had first patronized last Thanksgiving. The food at Jiraffe is amazing, so it comes as some surprise that one of the revelations of the evening was a solitary slice of black bread that came in the bread basket. Despite being vigorously anti-black bread AND anti-anise as a rule, we both loved this bread, which the waiter told us was pumpernickel. He brought us 3 more slices with a wink and told us that it was frequently devoured by the wait staff before most of it has a chance to get to the guests. I am not unfamiliar with pumpernickel bread, and this sweet fluffy loaf was nothing like any pumpernickel I had ever had before (this, by the way, is what those hoity toity literature folk call foreshadowing) and I had to know more. Further prompting at the end of the evening revealed that while Jiraffe bakes some of their own bread for the basket, the “pumpernickel” was ordered fresh from La Brea Bakery daily.

That weekend found us at La Brea Bakery, giddy with anticipation of an entire loaf of this wondrous bread. Alas, the pumpernickel was a seasonal bread and was not in stock. However, a special order could be arranged given 48 hours notice…so obviously we ordered 3 loaves. Meanwhile, Nancy Silverton’s bread book was enthusiastically ordered as it contained the coveted recipe for Pumpernickel bread. Soon we would be inundated in delicious, delicious bread! Two days later, I am carrying 3 loaves of suspiciously dense bread home, still cautiously optimistic until the first slice reveals a disappointingly heavy brick of a loaf that was completely unlike the now-mythical black bread from Jiraffe.

I spent the afternoon on the phone with various customer service lines at La Brea Bakery, being shuttled from polite agent to agent, until someone was able to look up the order sheet for Jiraffe and establish the name of the bread: Sweet Anise. Further muddling the waters was the existence of two pumpernickel breads and some discrepancy in item numbering. The Sweet Anise, I was told, is 424, and the pumpernickel on my special order sheet said 475, but the bakery storefront told me that 424 was pumpernickel and sweet anise was 242. It took 3 more calls after that to pin down an educated guess (there is also, apparently, a 573 pumpernickel floating around) and another 2 day wait for it to be specially made.

This time, we did get the correct loaf and it was devoured in a single day. Oh glorious day! Soon the joy of discovery turned dismay as the 2 day wait time and $8/loaf charge began to add up. This recipe, of course, did not appear in the La Brea Bakery recipe book. The sole anise based recipe in the book was a Fig-Anise bread that used white flour, but my bread was a rye*. A dead end. However, in the introduction, Nancy wrote that she would freely offer recipes and even starter to patrons who asked politely, so my next step was obvious.

I phoned La Brea Bakery customer service once again, and overwhelmed them with effusive praise and begged for a recipe and possibly some starter. The woman I spoke with was initially cautious, but she appeared to be won over by my cajolery and by the end of the call had all but promised me the recipe. She would email the line director herself and contact me. One week passed, then two. I called back. She was on vacation and would contact me when she got back. On the appointed day, I called again only to receive disheartening news. Nancy Silverton was no longer the owner of La Brea Bakery, and recipes were now jealously guarded.

Depression set in. The secret to Sweet Anise bread would be lost to me forever. Weeks passed in a dark haze. Then, one day, a group trip was organized to Pizzeria Mozza, the pizzeria co-owned by Mario Batali and…Nancy Silverton. While Nancy apparently works the cheese counter at Osteria Mozza occasionally, she does not appear in the pizzeria. But this set another plan into motion. The Mozza press kit included the email address for Mario Batali’s assistant. I sent her my plea and she agreed to pass it on to Nancy’s assistant. Hope dawned.

One week later, she replied asking for more details on the bread I was looking for. I replied. A month passed. I wrote again. Despite the fact that she was still at La Brea Bakery and the bread is still being produced, the recipe could not be found. Once again I had been thwarted.

But no more! A recent revamp of the La Brea website included a listing of all of the bread they carried and the ingredients and nutritional information. Last night, I emailed La Brea Bakery one last time requesting the same information for the Sweet Anise bread. I frequently buy this bread for dinner parties, you see, and some of my guests have extensive allergies. For safety’s sake, it was crucial that I know what this beloved bread was comprised of. I received a reply this afternoon. Comparison has already begun between it and the ingredients lists of other breads whose recipes do appear in the book.  Fundamentally, it seems to be a molasses bread that substitutes anise instead of the typical ginger. The great experiment begins.

As an aside, I would normally be too big of a person to point this out**, but I was amused to read that the ingredients list contains caramel color, which Nancy derides in her recipe book as a crutch other bakers use. J’accuse!

*Or was it??

**No, not really, but let’s pretend, shall we?