The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [21]
I arrived at the Brooklyn Kitchen later that night toting a large, round loaf of cracked peppercorn potato no-knead bread. The top had mushroomed to a beautifully browned crust, and a deep crack ran across the top. It was fascinating to look closely at this crust and see how the dough had stretched and baked solid just inside that crater. The small, tidy store was located on a quiet block in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, which, for better or worse, is known for its youthful hipster scene. I’d met owners Harry and Taylor while writing a piece on the store’s opening for a local magazine. They had spoken of plans to hold regular events, cooking demos, classes, and contests like this bread-off, and so far I had gone to almost every one of them.
A group of ten or twelve was clustered around the large counter, where six or seven different-looking loaves of bread were lined up on cutting boards. I was running a little late. I took my loaf out of the bag and handed it over to Taylor, who was slicing the others.
“Wow, looks great!” she said. Then she smelled it for a moment. “Ooh, I see what you mean!” She shrugged and placed it on a cutting board at the end of the table.
My bread, even baked, did indeed give off that fermented, beery smell, but somehow, it was a lot more appealing now that it had been baked. It smelled more or less like ... bread. Like that smell when you’re walking past an industrial bakery. Only now, it was tinged with a peppery spiciness.
Taylor began slicing up pieces of my loaf to put out for everyone.
“What’s that?” a few people approached me to ask. When I told them it was just black pepper, their eyes widened, and they eagerly reached for slices.
“This is awesome. Whoo—that pepper is spicy!” said a tall, older man, who had for his part baked a delicious semolina loaf with golden raisins embedded in the dough. I liked my bread, too, which was pleasantly savory and had an airy texture inside and a crackly crust; each bite seemed to have a different-sized explosion of black pepper. I also chatted up my friend Bob, who had baked a rosemary-crusted loaf with olive oil brushed on top before it went into the oven. Taylor had baked a dark, crusty pumpernickel loaf using the no-knead recipe, which tasted earthy and spicy at the same time. I also enjoyed a whole-wheat loaf with cracked grains visible throughout its surface. I ate slice after slice of bread as I mingled with the other contestants and attendees. I’d seen a few of them around at previous events, but most were strangers. Taylor put out an assortment of flavored olive oils to dip the breads in, and a couple of bottles of wine.
“What was in your bread again?” a girl with blond hair and a pink sweater asked me. I told her the ingredients in mine, including the day-old water left from boiling potatoes. She took it down clearly in a notebook, beside a page’s worth of notes on all the other breads in the bake-off.
“Are you writing about this for something? A magazine?” I asked her.
“Yes, for Vogue,” she replied.
“Oh, cool,” I said.
“I’m Jeffrey Steingarten’s assistant,” she added.
I stopped chewing.
“He really wanted to come out to this, but he couldn’t make it. So he sent me to check it out,” she went on.
“Cool,” I repeated, looking at her as if I were looking at a fairy messenger from God.
She introduced herself as Marisa and told me that her boss was writing a piece on Jim Lahey and his no-knead bread for the magazine. She pulled out a business card of Jeffrey’s and wrote her e-mail address on the back before handing it to me. I told her I’d look out for the article and wrote down the name of my blog and my contact info on a spare piece of paper (for lack of a business card), telling her that I’d be happy to help answer any questions. Marisa had to leave before the contest winners were announced that night, but she took off with small slices of every loaf of bread in the competition.
“I think we can declare a winner for the ‘best overall bready appearance’ category,” Taylor said, after counting all the folded-up