At 8:00 am on April 12, 2020, back when the Covid lockdown was new and novel and not killing our souls, I took my car down to Johnny Doughnuts to get some treats to celebrate my son’s birthday. It was a Saturday and he had just turned 13 years old. Jonny Doughnuts is only about 1.5 miles away from my house. As I hopped back in my car to get home, I discovered that my car battery had mysteriously died. Shit. I have a subscription to roadside assistance through my insurance provider, but I had left my mobile phone at home. Shit. So I turned to the line at Jonny’s to see if someone could give me a jump.
This young couple (who I later learned were just friends… I think) kindly offered to jump my Nissan off their little Honda. As we went about getting that done, I asked them some questions about who they were and what they were up to that morning. She was a poet. I forget what he did. They were from the East Bay and in the midst of picking up fresh bread donations for a non-profit in Oakland. People in Marin were baking bread and then donating it to “The Bread Fairies” as they called themselves, to help feed hungry families suffering during the pandemic. I loved the idea, and I saw an opportunity to repay their kindness. So I offered to pitch in and be one of their bakers.
Thus began a journey that continues to this day (though the Bread Fairy’s disbanded after 8 months). My first loaves for the Bread Fairies were technically bread, yes, but they were not good. It was all just a magical mystery, this baking thing. But, gradually, I became familiar with the steps, ingredients, quantities and timing that go into baking a beautiful, delicious, hole-filled, crusty golden brown loaf. We eventually bought a stand mixer and that helped tremendously. And, like many bakers just starting out, I eventually worked up the confidence to grow my own sourdough starter. I do so love a good sourdough loaf.
There are wonderful stories about people having the same sourdough starter for more than a decade. They become a part of the family. People even give them funny little names like Dr. Doughlittle, Shannon Dougherty, and the Yeasty Boys.
But that joy was not to be mine.
No, despite many months of careful scientific efforts and dogged determination, I could not seem to get a starter started. I devoured articles about how to do it. My wife even bought me a gorgeous book about the art of sourdough (including a “foolproof sourdough starter recipe” - thanks). I drew sketches of the process. I fed the starters religiously. I tried different flours. I tried adding citrus. I tried doing several at once to hedge my bets. I tried talking to the starter – which later devolved into yelling and cursing (those fucking little fuckers). I asked others for their secrets. Starter after starter after starter…kaput. It is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever tried to do. Most things I can figure out eventually, and I love a good challenge. But, like 11th-grade trigonometry, sourdough stumped me.
For those who don’t know, a sourdough starter is essentially just water, flour, and a wee bit of sugar (and citrus, if you employ that strategy) in a see through jar. Leave it out at room temperature, lightly covered, and “feed” it with a bit of flour every day. Eventually, the naturally occurring (i.e. “wild”) yeast microbes in the flour become activated and form a happy little sour-smelling yeast colony that must be refrigerated and fed once a week in perpetuity. The original fermentation process takes about two weeks – if it happens at all. Then, you can use it to bake bread, make waffles, make crackers, pizza dough, basically anything. The colony of microbes metabolizes the flour's natural sugars to produce carbon dioxide, ethanol, and lactic acid, which serve to raise the bread but also delivers that notorious tangy flavor and light bubbly texture of sourdough.
But it must be cared for. Some sourdough lovers get a sourdough starter babysitter or put their starter up in a sourdough hotel when they go away on extended holidays to ensure it doesn’t die in their absence. As I said, the yeast, they’re like family members.
Crust Sourdough Deli in San Jose
(anyone who loves the town of San Jose might want to skip the next para)
San Jose is an ugly town that was obviously built for cars, not people. The intersection near Crust is itself the size of an entire city block. In front of the deli, traffic roars by on a four-lane road. Across the street is a bland office park. Down the (very loooong) bland block… another bland office park. It’s a cold, hard, soul-sucking concrete landscape. Driving through it makes me feel sad and lonely. But this little deli has something special. And that something is freshly baked sourdough bread.
I’ve spoken many times before about the importance of fresh bread. And it goes without saying that the freshest possible bread you can get is baked right there in the deli. So that’s what they do at Crust and it’s magnificent. Appropriately, the crust of the bread is absolute perfection. It’s just hard enough to have a certain crispness, but not so hard that it injures the roof of your mouth. It also has plenty of that signature bubbliness that sourdough loaves tend to have.
They do not offer any other kinds of bread.
Some deli aficionados might be skeptical about the decision to offer only one kind of bread. But narrowing your focus is often the best way to differentiate. Otherwise, what’s the big difference between you and a regular old grocery deli? I spoke with the owner, Ron, for a minute and he told me that one woman from Los Gatos told him, “I’ve been in marketing for 35 years and I can tell you right now, that’ll never work.” He then went on to open three more locations in as many years. So much for 35 years of marketing experience. (Side note: the majority of marketers try to make their marketing sound EXACTLY like everyone else because, ultimately, they are risk-averse conformists to the bone - and that is part of the reason it almost always sucks).
The tangy, fruity aroma of freshly baked sourdough tickles your olfactory glands as you walk in. Which, to some degree, offsets the San Jose blandness of the interior of the deli – a sort of “get your food and get on with it,” cafeteria charm. Clean, well-lit, and lots of natural light, but not a place you want to hang out and have a nice long chat with a friend. And maybe that’s the idea. The vibe is upbeat and friendly. And because it wasn’t terribly busy, Ron took the time to answer my questions.
Nick and I both got the roast beef sandwich with a side of au jus for dipping. The beef was good – Boar’s Head – and the bread did an excellent job absorbing the jus while retaining its crunchy exterior. In addition to the au jus and meat, the sandwich had a bit of shredded lettuce, bacon jam, swiss cheese and house spread. All in all, a well-considered and well-constructed sandwich. We both enjoyed it. To be honest, the au jus didn’t add much to the experience, but it did amp up the saltiness of the food.
They also sell a few different flavors of sourdough cookies and they are worth the trip all by themselves. In fact, Ron attributes his success to the strength of those cookie recipes. We got the lemon cookie, which delivered exactly the right amount of lemony goodness.
If you’re in San Jose, Los Gatos or Milpitas, you can stop by and grab a sandwich and cookie. And be on the lookout for new locations because this guy is not stopping anytime soon.
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On The Side
What a swell fellow. Shaquille O’Neal walked into Kenny and Ziggy’s Delicatessen in Houston, Texas on Christmas Eve and paid for everyone’s meal. Apparently, his son Shaqir plays basketball at Texas Southern University. Nice.
“Life is a blessin,’ a delicatessen … ” To me, the world of delicatessens serves as a symbol of how the multiculturalism inherent in liberal philosophy is a strength rather than a weakness. Writer Allan Woods of the Greenfield Recorder in Massachusetts wrote a public “Merry Christmas” letter essentially making this case.
He writes, “There’s so much to choose from in the wide world of delicatessens: Jewish latkes and matzo ball soup; German sausages and sauerkraut; Italian lasagna, mortadella, and Parmigiano; Greek grape leaves and baklava; Middle Eastern hummus and olives; Romanian pastrami; corned beef adopted by the Irish; Chinese egg rolls; pho from Vietnam; Mexican enchiladas; pupusas from El Salvador; Russian borscht; Polish kielbasa; and on and on and on. America isn’t a melting pot for a homogenous stew, but a great feast of distinct, delicious, dishes.” Amen to that.
A pleasantly piquant pepper sauce. I’m proud (and a little nervous) to announce that my creative agency has launched a food company called “House of Hot.” Our first product is called “Peter Piper’s Pepper Sauce.” We are currently in the process of getting it to market, but the product and brand is coming along nicely - thanks to the creative design of John Bukowinski and Katie Freathy and the operations expertise of Melissa Harris. If you want a bottle, just reply back and let me know. If you’d like to help us get to the next mile marker (i.e. selling sauce) please drop a donation off over here. Yes, it’s a saturated market, but we think we have a unique selling point (which you’ll have to read about over here).