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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Some photos made in the USSR when the Iron Curtain still existed periodically circulate around the Internet. This set is a pretty good compilation without confusing Russian text. Some people react with nostalgia, others with hate. It was a controversial time and as it moves further into the past people tend to forget the bad and only remember it to be simple, happy and care-free. It wasn’t, but it’s nice to think otherwise. Take a look for yourself (click on Lenin to see the rest).

Here are more photos although some are the same.

Some more a here, here, here, here (these are made by National Geographic’s Dean Conger)  and here.

If you have any questions about the photos, please submit it together with a link to the photo in the comment section.

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Preface:

If you are traveling from London to Amsterdam, there is no better way than an overnight trip on the Stena Line, not only it’s comfortable, inexpensive and pleasant, but it also saves money you would otherwise spend on the night at a hotel.

After spending few days in Amsterdam I realized that there is a crucial piece of information every visitor should know – all of the online reviews for things to do, eat and see in Amsterdam are written while high. OK, maybe not all of them but a large part; definitely every one that I’ve read while lazily preparing for the trip at home. So just like you automatically add “in bed” to the Chinese fortunes, feel free to add “when high” to anything you read about Amsterdam. With this little secret in mind everything falls in place, things like “the best apple pie in the world” (when high), or “the funniest comedy club” (when high) now start making sense. Since I traveled as a responsible parent who wasn’t high (second-hand high doesn’t count) many of those things seemed a lot less stellar as some clearly euphoric reviewers have suggested. Yet I didn’t find it discouraging, although you had to be really really high to enjoy the aforementioned comedy club.

Face:

Amsterdam is awesome. At the first sight of canals and bicycles a visitor grabs the camera and doesn’t let go until the last-minute in the city (and not because it might be stolen).

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I’ve used a few photos from this batch in my previous posts about the tough looks of old-time bosses,  about a day in life of a Kansas City Ford dealer (this one received a comment from someone in the photo), and about the schoolchildren visiting the Nelson-Atkins. These pictures were taken for the feature story “Kansas City and St.Louis: Picture portfolio shows some contrasts between striving city and a settled one“, published in March of 1954.

Back to back in the middle of the U.S., 235 miles apart across the state of Missouri, ate the two cities – Kansas City (pop. 456.662) and St.Louis (pop.856,796) – which together sum up a good part of America. In many ways the two are alike. Both were founded by French traders (St.Louis in 1764 by Pierre Laclede Liguest and Auguste Chouteau, Kansas City in 1821 by Chouteau’s nephew). Both are on great rivers, both lie in the same farm belt, both are famous for their newspapers and both are prospering. But in outlook and temperament the cities are radically different. Old and mellow, St.Louis reflects the East and South of the U.S.; its most prominent statue is that of Louis IX, the saintly French monarch for whom the town is named. Young and brash, Kansas City faces the wide-open energetic West; its favorite statue is of an American Indian who gazes out over the stockyards.

Nowhere is the contrast between St.Lois and Kansas City more noticeable than in civic improvement. Kansas City is eager to better itself; efforts to make St.Louis pay for its own civic health run into endless delays.

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Continuing my previous post about the comparison of the American and the Soviet education systems I will now post a few photos of Stephen Lapekas – Alexei Kutzkov’s American counterpart.

According to this article:

Lapekas became a Navy pilot, then a commercial pilot for TWA; I am told Kutzkov works for the Russian equivalent of the FAA.

Despite the seemingly different education systems in the Soviet Union and the United States, the article didn’t mention that the most important factor was not how the students were educated but how their country utilized their talent and knowledge after the graduation. In the USSR the graduate was likely to be drafted to serve in the military and after eventually graduating from college be assigned a low-paying job anywhere in the country. Most of the intellectual jobs such as engineering, science and medicine were paying less than manual labor to maintain the socialist class hierarchy, where intelligentsia was not considered a class like workers and peasants, but was tolerated as a mid-layer in order to serve the cause of the working class. Therefore, a welder was making more money than a doctor or a scientist with a PhD.

In the end, the quality of life was probably better for the fun-loving American kid, than for his serious Soviet counterpart, whose abilities could not deliver him the material success he deserved.

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