I finally found the old KC Star article I was referring to:

The Art of bread Old World artisan loaves are growing in popularity, picking up where Wonder Bread left off

The Kansas City Star – April 14, 1999
Author: MARY SANCHEZ, The Kansas City Star

Everything about Manuel de la Rosa speaks of Old World ways. When he travels his tools are hand carried in a worn leather satchel, its seams repaired with metal coiled as thread.

The main ingredient for his craft, wedge-shaped red bricks , are imported from Barcelona, Spain. That is also where de la Rosa lives.

He is one of five people in the world trained to lay the bricks of a special hearth oven for bread baking – the type that has been used in Europe for generations.

In February, de la Rosa brought his art to a surprising place – a new HenHouse store being built in Overland Park at 123rd and Metcalf due to open in late May. For a week, he worked 12-hour days to build the wood-stoked oven .

Several years ago de la Rosa constructed an oven at Wheatfield’s, a specialty bakery in Lawrence. That such an oven would be constructed in a supermarket is indicative of the impact Old World breads are making in mainstream America.

“The fact that they are putting in this oven is really pretty bold,” says Thom Leonard, production manager with Farm to Market Bread Co. “But I think the time has come. People want really good bread and they want it fresh. And here they will be able to get bread that is being removed from a wood-fired brick oven .”

Farm to Market brought de la Rosa to Overland Park to construct the oven . The breads baked in it will be sold under the Farm to Market label, just one local example of what is commonly known as artisan breads.

The public’s desire for the breads is growing here and nationally, yet many say marketing them also must include a liberal dose of education. After all, most Americans were raised on Wonder Bread.

Many of the true artisan loaves have a unique appearance – they sometimes are allowed to rise in baskets so the weave imprint forms on the dough, and their crusts are hard and rough, often dotted with cheeses and herbs. Most are hand-shaped into loaves much more rustic and irregular than the uniform slices found wrapped in plastic on most store shelves.

The artisan breads do not keep well because they are made without preservatives. In Europe people buy their bread fresh that day, for consumption that night. Americans tend to buy for a week at a time.

One local baker talks of “transition breads,” loaves that are a softer, less exotic variety and perhaps more palatable for someone used to grabbing a few slices out of a plastic bag.

“Whenever someone comes in and buys several loaves, I always ask, ‘What are you going to do with all of that bread? ‘ ” says Larry Schanzer, co-owner of Napoleon Bakery & Cafe in Westport.

Schanzer tells of one customer who called distraught because she didn’t know what was wrong with her loaf of bread. She had placed it atop the refrigerator for five days and now it was as hard as a rock.

“I had to tell her, ‘Dear, you can’t keep our bread,’ ” he says. “Our bread is best consumed on the date purchased.”

Although it might be blasphemy to a European baker, many of the stores include a plastic bag with the loaves they sell; in case there is unused bread that must be frozen, most recommend doing so after two days.

But some bakers warn you can deviate only so far from the origins without spoiling what makes artisan breads unique in the first place.

“People need to understand that it is an art and a science to understand the dough and the long process to make these breads,” says Sara Welter, general manager of the Breadmaker Bakery Cafe in Fairway, which sells to the public and also supplies many area restaurants.

“Some days the cuts in the loaves are made just perfect and the bread is just beautiful,” Welter says. “It is really an art.”

Americans knead it So what is an artisan bread?

One local baker says that if you can squish a slice, crust and all, and roll it into a golf ball, it isn’t artisan.

Generally, artisan bread is handmade, not mass-produced by heavy machinery. Most have crusty tops, which come about in part because of how they are baked, without pans, usually in a hearth oven as opposed to a convection oven .

But even the Bakers Guild of America admits defining artisan can be difficult.

“The word artisan certainly does not apply exclusively to any one style of bread product, or to any one method of baking,” the Guild’s Web site says. “Rather, it has more to do with the individual baker.”

Ultimately, the guild settles on this definition: “…it is the work of a knowledgeable, skilled and conscientious baker who is attempting to make the best possible product.”

Which, the guild notes, leaves the definition up to the individual baker.

If time and loving care are the determinants, Tony Arni, lead baker at Dean & DeLuca, qualifies.

Arni and executive baker Pat Whitaker are the only two people at the Overland Park store who are allowed to handle the dough during some parts of the baking process. This is to ensure a consistent quality in the store’s dough.

The process is as scientific as it is artistic. Even the temperature of the flour can have a huge impact on the outcome of the bread.

Yet Arni speaks of the dough in familial terms.

He talks of the “mothers,” starter doughs kept in buckets. The starters contain natural bacteria that make it bubble and ferment.

The buckets are “fed” three times a day, adding more water and flour to keep the mixture active. “Babies” are pulled off, usually in 3-pound chunks to be shaped into loaves.

It is a long process. Some of the doughs must rest for up to five hours before being shaped and baked, Arni says. That means he, Whitaker and the other bakers often arrive at the store by 3 a.m. Baking at Dean & DeLuca, like most area bakeries, occurs in a stone hearth. The stones are 8-foot long, nearly tomblike slabs, Arni says. He uses a dusting of cornmeal for cushion between the bread and the hearth stone. Steam is injected into the four-deck oven , which helps form the hard crusts typical

A unique feature of the new Hen House oven is that it doesn’t depend on steam injection for its moisture. In de la Rosa’s oven , the steam comes primarily from the breads that are in the oven , says Farm to Market’s Leonard.

“The bread can expand more fully, so the complex crust flavors are deeper and the crust will set quickly,” Leonard says.

A light bulb is the oven ‘s only electrical part. The wood that fuels the oven is stoked through a metal grate. The entire oven weighs about 4 tons.

Instead of several decks of stone, de la Rosa’s oven has one giant hearth stone. It can be turned with one finger using a silver steering wheel outside the oven , similar to what you might find on a car. A door allows bakers to remove and place loaves as they finish.

The oven can hold up to 100 loaves at once. And each loaf will get individual care, Leonard says.

He is training the bakers in how to handle the dough. “There are things about dough that you can only tell by touching it,” he says.

“If it is too soft, sticky, warm.

“Handling dough is still a very human thing. A baker might even decide to wait a half an hour before shaping dough. A machine doesn’t have that capability.”

De la Rosa has returned to Spain now and is planning his retirement. After building the ovens for 42 years, he sees the business changing. There is more competition from other companies, many making more modern electric and gas ovens . De la Rosa insists his wood-burning type is supreme.

At one time the world had 20 master masons such as himself, specializing in building the ovens for the J. Llopis Co. of Barcelona. After he retires, there will be four.

“I’ve helped a lot of people make a lot of good bread,” he says. “But there is more competition now. Some of the new hearth ovens don’t need bricks .”

‘The Starbucks of bread’ That Europe is turning toward more American methods of mass production is an irony many bakers note. Especially now that the Old World ways of baking bread are gaining popularity here.

America won a few more bragging rights for its bread in February when a three-man United States team won the 1999 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, the World Cup of Baking.

France took second in the Paris competition.

“That the American team could win the gold medal, that is an indication of where bread is going in this country,” Leonard says.

Another measure is the way America is selling artisan breads, trying many avenues to introduce it to new customers. Farm to Market sells its products in about 30 area groceries. In Europe, the lone bakery, not a giant grocery, is still the standard.

An American spin to the trend of artisan breads is franchising.

Breadsmith opened in November 1997. The Brookside store is part of a franchise that began in Milwaukee in 1993. There are now 55 Breadsmith stores.

“Our goal would be to be the Starbucks of bread,” says founder Dan Sterling.

Chris Akers, co-owner of the local Breadsmith, didn’t come from a culinary background. He spent three weeks training in Milwaukee first. Then, a company trainer came to Kansas City for 10 days when the store first opened.

“It’s not rocket science,” Sterling says. “We have really simplified the techniques.”

A former architect, Akers found the art of bread baking appealing. “Like architecture, there is a sense of craft with bread baking,” he says.

Napoleon, perhaps the Kansas City area’s grandfather store in artisan baking, welcomes the competition. “Anytime anybody opens up a competitive market, it brings the awareness of that product up,” Schanzer says.

Napoleon is in its 16th year of business, first operating at an Overland Park location and now in Westport. Schanzer says that although his wares sell well, it is hard to make a living selling bread for $1.50 to $3.50 a loaf.

And it is not an easy business to enter. Imported hearth ovens cost about $75,000.

Most bakeries depend on deli and catering business as well, even Napoleon. “We have to do lunch, and we have to have the pastries as well,” Schanzer says.

Several area bakers predict the artisan bread trend will grow for at least 10 more years. And, for now, Napoleon and the other bakers in town are welcoming the popularity of artisan bread.

“This invigorating growth and interest in the bread makes more people aware of it,” Schanzer says. “And over time that makes them eventually want more of it.”

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Development of my art skills stopped in the second grade when a teacher couldn’t recognize a watermelon in my drawing. However, I would have definitely applied more effort if I knew that a career in art allows for unlimited hours alone with nude women, who will not complain if their features will not look so flattering on the painting. It’s art, you know.
Life Magazine archives have some images of Thomas Hart Benton working on his painting “Persephone” with Imogene Bruton as a model.

The following photo located on Google server was deemed in violation of adult content policies by Google. Go figure. You can still see it by clicking the link.

Students sketching nude model in painter Thomas Hart Bentons studio class at the Kansas City Art Institute. Model is the same one Benton is using for his painting Rape of Persephone.© Time Inc. Alfred Eisenstaedt

Here is the final version:

More photos of Thomas Hart Benton and his works.

P.S. Nude models can apply here for free painting or just to hang out.

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While browsing through some old photos, this image caught my attention:

The caption reads:

Repatriation of Allied war prisoners. Allied war prisoners, freed by the Soviet troops head for the port of Odessa where a ship is ready to take them to their home countries. Photo by M.Ozersky. SIB photo
service

I was born and raised in Odessa but I’ve never heard any mention of a transit POW camp for American and other nationals. I knew that the German POW’s were used to rebuild the city after the war well into the 50’s, but the Allied soldiers were sent home relatively shortly after the Victory Day.

Interestingly enough, Odessa is mentioned in the correspondence between Stalin and Roosevelt in relation to the POW issue.

There is also an order from NKVD concerning the prisoners. (*source, translation mine).

Partial Extract
Copy №1
Order of the NKVD №0015
January 8, 1946, Moscow.

On the partial release of the POW’s from camps and special hospitals.

In furtherance of the directive (telegram) from NKVD № 2943 from December 16,1945 I order:

1.All POW Czechs, Yugoslavs, Italians, Dutch, Belgians, Danes, Swiss, Luxembourgers, Bulgarians, Turks, Norwegians, Swedes, Greeks, Frenchmen, Americans and Britons, who are currently located in separate camps in accordance with the directive of NKVD № 3943, to be moved to Lustdorf (near Odessa) to the repatriation camp № 186. …

3.This order does not apply to persons who served in the Waffen SS, SA, SD, Gestapo officers and members of other secret police.
Signed: The People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov.

There are few other mentions of Odessa Repatriation Camps: a short list of 7 POW’s dispatched home in May of 1945; Stalag prisoners were repatriated through Odessa.

This site contains a few bits about Odessa:

During 1945, the Soviet Army overran, in two sequences, German camps that held US POWs. The experiences of the prisoners released by the Soviets was considerably different depending on whether they were liberated during late-January to early-February in Poland and East Prussia, or during April and May in central and northern Germany.
Most of the US prisoners in the early sequence came from Oflag 64 at Schubin, Poland, Stalag III-C near Kustrin, Poland, with a few from Stalag II-B, Hammerstein, Germany.
The Soviets evacuated these men to the east and most of them eventually came out through Odessa. They comprise a relatively small portion, about ten percent, of all American prisoners that were in Soviet hands; contemporary accounts have 2,858 evacuated by way of Odessa. But because of the smaller numbers, the more direct involvement of the US Military Mission to Moscow, and the somewhat more routine evacuation procedures, the Odessa evacuation is better documented and more frequently written about than the liberation of POWs which took place later in central Germany.

American POWs freed by the Red Army were in the main treated very shabbily and came to hate the Russians. Many of them were robbed of watches, rings, and other personal possessions which they had managed to retain even after extended periods of captivity under the Germans. Their food at Odessa was very poor, consisting mainly of soup with cucumbers in it and sour black bread. The Russians generally tended to throw obstacles in the war of repatriation, frequently calling off shipments at the last minute and insisting always upon clearance from Moscow for every prisoner released. American POWs at Odessa were guarded by Russian soldiers carrying loaded rifles with fixed bayonets, and Russian security was more stringent there than German security had been in the various Stalags and Oflags.

This is all the information I was able to find about the role of Odessa in the lives of many American Prisoners of War, but it was interesting to discover a bit of American history involving my own hometown.

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When Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev came back from his trip to the United States he had the answer to all of the USSR’s agricultural and other problems – corn. A directive was issued and pretty soon corn was being planted everywhere with joyous reports pouring in from all corners of the country  even from places where corn had no chance of maturing due to the short growing season. Just like in the Special Olympics it wasn’t the results that counted, people got points (and awards) for participation.
I thought about overachieving and stupidity when I came home the other day to see my neighborhood lined with blue trash carts.

With these trash carts the City of Olathe is about to start its recycling program. I am skeptical about the benefits of recycling and until now did not participate in the program since it was not mandatory and cost an additional charge. My household doesn’t produce enough recyclable materials as outlined by the City to even bother. As a matter of fact we just don’t have that much trash in general. When the City supplied everyone with 95 gallon trash carts few years ago I immediately traded down to a smaller 65 gallon size and even that is almost always half-empty. I hardly ever have any items that fit the description other than an occasional phone book, a rare plastic bottle, or a piece of cardboard, so the 65 gallon cart represents about 65 times more volume of recyclables my family can produce in a year. The City did a test-run and feels that I will have enough stuff to fill it every two weeks. Obviously this is not going to happen.

In addition to the fact that I never volunteered to participate and wasn’t consulted with before the cart was dropped off in my driveway I literally don’t have any room in my garage to keep two 65 gallon containers. Hardly anyone in this neighborhood has more than one-car garage and most of the people already keep their regular trash carts out on the street (against the regulations), so now it will be adorned by two giant trash bins per household. However, the main non-benefit of the recycling program is a mandatory increase in the cost of the trash pick-up. While no one has to participate, everyone has to pay supposedly to attain a “long‐term stabilizing benefit to recycling because landfill costs are increasing”. Now I am torn between wanting to get something for the money I suddenly have to contribute and the realization that I will probably never have enough recyclables to even bother rolling the cart out on the pick-up day. Most likely I will just return the cart and curse the City every time I pay the bill.

I realize that many people believe in recycling, Jesus Christ, hope and change, world peace and  global warming/cooling or both. Nothing wrong with that. What I find idiotic is the city investing in enough of the $65 trash-carts for every house, special trucks and equipment, with many people like me who will opt out of the program for various reasons. I have no idea how many people will return the carts or just leave them outside as decorations. The time will tell. I wouldn’t have any problem with just a price increase without the recycling gimmick, I realize that the costs are rising, but what may be a good idea for some, was imposed on all by the same type of thoughtless overachievers who long ago were planting corn inside the Arctic circle.

In the meantime you are welcome to drop off your recycling at my house – it’s already paid for.
If you have thirty minutes of spare time, watch this episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit, maybe you’ll recognize yourself.

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The second most annoying trend in food writing after using the repulsive word “foodie” is overusing the word “Chef”. If everyone who just happened to be in a kitchen is considered a chef, then real chefs need to come up with a different work description. Apparently I am in a minority with this opinion and here is the proof – a screenshot of a recent episode of Hell’s Kitchen.

Introducing J – the Food Court Chef:

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