I love reading about inspirational small businesses, so I thought we might follow the story of Lola’s Ice Cream truck with another built-by-hand establishment - The Big Sur Bakery. The Big Sur Bakery sits back off California’s famous Highway 1 a bit, nestled next to a gas station. It’s owners, three of them, abandoned the Los Angeles restaurant scene years ago, determined to turn a property with a lackluster track record into something special. They set their sights on a house-turned-abandoned-restaurant, eventually wrangling it into what is now the beloved Big Sur Bakery. It was tough choosing just one recipe to feature from their newly released cookbook, but a seed-packed pocket bread contributed by a good friend of the bakery jumped out at me. Sesame, sunflower, flax and poppy seeds, millet, oat bran, and a bit of beer impressively cram themselves into palm-sized hearty rolls in a way that doesn’t disappoint.
The cookbook captures a year in the life of the restaurant through a series of vignettes, purveyor profiles, and recipes. Anyone who dreams of starting their own restaurant should have a read. One of the things I like about this book, is the way it portrays many of the things that make creating a restaurant so fulfilling. At the same time it isn’t afraid to touch on some of the stuff that also makes it drop-dead difficult. As I’m sure many of you know (or can imagine) Big Sur is remote, and running any sort of business in a town connected by a single power line to Carmel isn’t without its challenges.
I’ve only been to the bakery once, mid-morning for a coffee as Wayne and I made our way north after a weekend get-away. I loved the dark wood, the beautifully rustic morning pastries, and mix of locals and people just-traveling-through intersecting at the counter. The bakery serves coffee and pastries in the morning and early afternoon, lunch on certain days, as well as dinner (hours listed here). The heart of the bakery is the wood-fired stove - and much of the food served (and featured in the cookbook) is inspired by it. The book includes a wide range of recipes, not simply pastries and baked treats. Also plenty for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike. I’ve earmarked the Dresden Stollen, Nine-Grain Pancakes, Date & Quinoa Muffins, and the Fresh Garbanzo Bean Stew.
The talented Sara Remington did the photography for the book - a beautiful combination of portraits, images of Big Sur, meals shared, and of course, no end to the photos of the food. In all, 262 pages, full color.
And to finish, a couple more notes about today’s bread recipe. It is a recipe from Terry “Hide” Prince, one of the bakery’s earliest friends. If you can imagine a dense, seed and grain-packed English muffin, you’re in the ballpark. Rather than using salt, Terry gathers kelp from the coast and uses it to season the bread. I used sea salt, but would have used dulse flakes if I had had them on hand. The key to enjoying these delicious little breads (and I can’t emphasize this enough), is splitting them open, toasting them until they are deeply golden, then slathering them generously with butter (or drizzling with olive oil). Then sprinkle with a bit more salt. Blissful buttery crunchiness. Breads like these make me wish I had a toaster oven just for convenience sake.
Continue reading Big Sur Bakery Hide Bread…
