There’s something
you need to know about my friends Sergio and Ana, if you’re
planning on buying bread from them: Bread is not their
only passion.
You would be forgiven
for believing that bread is their only passion because
their bread tastes like the product of people who are
absolutely, unequivocally, single-mindedly infatuated
with heartfelt perfection in the realm of baking –
to the point that you would imagine that these two hard-working
souls never spend a moment of time obsessing about anything
else except bread, bread, bread.
But this is not true.
Because Sergio and Ana
are also obsessed with their dogs.
If they aren’t
talking, dreaming or thinking fanatically about bread,
then you can be sure they are talking, dreaming and thinking
fanatically about their dogs. (Or sometimes, to be honest,
about their cats. Or wine. Or vegetables. Or travel. Or
art. Or olive oil. Or marriage. Or politics. Or the heartbreaking
complexity of family and friendship.)
OK, so it appears that
Sergio and Ana have many passions. But none of their other
obsessions distract from their central passion of bread-making.
On the contrary -- everything that they love, everything
that fascinates them and excites them, everything that
brings them wonder and puzzlement ….all of this,
every single bit of it, they put into their bread. And
you can taste it. To the point that – even when
you’re not sure why you’re feeling such a
strong emotional reaction – you just feel it.
And everyone feels it
-- believe me. A waitress at a fine restaurant in Hunterdon
County told me recently that a customer once asked if
she could have a doggy bag for her meal – not to
take home the remains of her lamb roast, mind you, but
to take home every last bit of bread on the table. Now
this woman – the restaurant customer – didn’t
know that she was eating bread from a place called Rise
Bakery. She didn’t know she was eating bread made
by a pair of young immigrants, who had moved to urban
Newark from rural Portugal as children, and who had to
learn how to open their minds wide enough to accommodate
the confusing conflicts of life in a new world. She didn’t
know that the bakers were two people saturated by the
demands of tradition, yet exposed every day to bold, bright
newness. She didn’t know she was eating bread that
had been baked by a young married couple who have only
ever loved each other, and whose love is the fuel for
all their labors and ambitions. She didn’t know
that the wonderful bread she was wrapping up to take home
had been baked the previous morning, at 3AM, by two people
who had been working 80 hours a week for months to start
up their own bakery – and who experimented in those
week hours with bread recipes that would be the central
emotional expression of their own union. The customer
didn’t know – in short – any of this.
How could she have? All she knew was that she wanted more
of it. That this stuff made her happy. That this bread
reminded her of goodness. And that (like all good things),
it was a miracle best served buttered and warm and abundant
and shared.
For my friends Sergio
and Ana, bread-making is not just a trade, or even an
art, but something more like a holy communion –
a place where life meets life, where tradition meets innovation,
where mystery intersects with history, and a rising can
occur. If they could explain all this in words to every
single person they met, they would. But it’s easier
for them just to bake it into bread, every night of the
week. And then come home to their dogs – who understand
everything automatically, without having to be told.
Enjoy.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert is
a critically acclaimed writer whose most recent book is
the # 1 New York Times Bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love,
about the year she spent traveling the world alone after
a difficult divorce.
