The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Hlaf - that's a word that hasn't been used since around c1200. No, it is not a typo - it's the Old English word for "loaf". This is what our forebears called bread. Since the switch there's been no other name for it in the Eng- lish language.

Sometime around 8000 BC, some nice folks were sitting around smashing up grain they had gathered to have as a side dish with their gnu entre. It must have rained because a paste formed of this rudimentary flour and in disgust at the mess made by the inclimate weather the blob was tossed into the BBQ. Some intrepid and very hungry soul poked it out to the edge, picked it up, took a bite - probably thought "could use a little salt" and thus bread was born. Or something like that.

Flour and water. That's bread. Some bakers add a little salt, yeast for leavened bread and sometimes sugar (don't you dare!). That's it. Flour and water = bread. You want to put nuts and olives in it? Don't call it bread. It's not. It's something else and it may be yummy, but it's not bread.

That does not mean that all breads are the same. Far from it. Most breads out there in the mass production world are awful, plain and simple. That's just fact, and easily verified by looking at the label at all of the other ingredients listed. That fluffy white stuff that you can ball up into a pea of com- pressed flour and sugar? That's not bread! That's garbage and you shouldn't be putting that into yours or anyone else's body!

There's so little nutritional value in mass-produced sliced white bread that they actually have to enrich it! Really? You have to enrich something that is so simple, that starts out as something so pure, that the makers have to add things to bring it up to some standard of nutritional value to allow it to be sold as food? Wow! Shouldn't that come with a warning label like pesticides and prescription medicines do?

Real bread is uneven and ugly. It's mean. It has nooks and crannies, ridges and valleys. It looks like a wreck! It has a golden brown hard crust that works your jaw hard. It has a firm yet airy center that's full of pockets - not one the same as the other. It is divine! It was also hard to get around here - until now!

The Weinhard Café - we all know they do great food and amazing desserts! Now they do real bread too! Their secret weapon? Mandi Wendt - an ambitious young woman for which pastry is a particularly strong passion. Mandi is the desserts and bread chef at the Weinhard, and the good news is that you can buy her bread - real bread - at both the café AND at the Dayton Farmer's Market!

Mandi is no kitchen amateur. A graduate of the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy in Spokane, she has done it all - from pantry to line cook. She is a kitchen professional with the energy and drive it takes to succeed in a very tough industry that loves to chew up and spit out the majority who smell the call of the kitchen.

I sat down with Mandi the other day to talk about baking. As an amateur chef in the kitchen, I feel comfortable throw- ing together a delicious meal. However, I am not a baker - that art form is reserved for those with patience, of which I have none. The repetitive and precise detail it takes drives me crazy. Measurements must be precise, temperatures and humidity just right and timing is everything.

Mandi confirmed this as we discussed her passion for baking, stating, "the detail and patience it takes, plus the simplicity of the ingredients, makes it a challenge to produce that perfect loaf every time. But I love it." She waxed enthu- siastically, with that wistful look that people who love what they do possess.

While Mandi does allow for some new-world convenience by using a machine to start her mixing, she finishes every- thing by hand. The necessity is driven by the demands of the restaurant plus the overwhelming response from the Dayton Farmer's Market.

I can personally attest that if you want a fresh baguette or ciabatta for your weekend meal, you best get there early, as they sell out every day. One of the reasons her breads sell so quickly is that she and the Weinhard Café have developed their own sourdough starter - a crucial step in producing quality breads that have complex flavors and textures. Care- fully nurtured since August of last year, the Weinhard starter is just one of the keys to the success the café is enjoying today.

One of my favorite things to do with really good bread is to make garlic bread. No - this is not the stuff you get in the store with all that butter and goo.

Here's what you do: Get a fresh, crunchy baguette. Cut slices about an inch wide. Place on a baking sheet in a low temp oven - and watch carefully - you're making crositni here. When the bread slices are toasted and crunchy dry, rub a little raw garlic over one side, sprinkle a dash of coarse kosher salt and a dash or fine crum- bled oregano, drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil and bang - you've got REAL garlic bread. You'll notice the difference immediately and never go back to that other stuff made on the bread with all those extra ingredients that shouldn't be there.

Sante - Larry