#hot bread kitchen

[bastiaan12]

Box Hill, the last days in Orange.

[allwaysfull]

Hot Bread Kitchen | Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez and Julia Turshen

[winnieau]

I loved photographing Kerry Diamond, co-founder of Cherry Bombe, and Jessamyn Rodriguez, founder of Hot Bread Kitchen, for Rachael Ray Magazine. This is part of a story in the March issue featuring kick-ass women who are taking over the food world.

Photos by: Winnie Au

[notesfromatinykitchen]

April Bread Challenge: Challah

One of my most anticipated cookbooks I received for Christmas was The Hot Bread Kitchen. Here it is, four months later, and I finally got around to making something from it. To be fair, this was my THIRD try to make Challah. Bread baking can be such an involved, time intensive, heartbreaking process. This recipe takes at least two days to create. To avoid using too much yeast, you create a pate fermentee or starter. 

The first time, the pate fermentee didn’t rise - back to the drawing board. For my birthday, I got myself a Kitchen Aid, and was excited to dive in. The cookbook’s timing all use a mixer as a reference, saving everyone a million years and their arms in kneading. My mixer immediately broke, due to a faulty bowl. Cut to ordering and waiting for a new bowl, and being scared to use it as it may fly off at any moment. 

I finally got it together this weekend. Joe was encouraging, I had some successes in the rising department with other breads, I felt ready. The pate rose, I was ready for the next major step, getting the mixer involved. It had been working, but of course somehow the bottom came lose again and it’s flying all over the place. Queue bread based tears, and wondering if maybe the Challah is cursed. I took many deep breathes, put on my headphones, and buckled down to hand knead until it passed the window pane test. 

After another hour of rising, it was time to learn how to two strand braid. With Joe’s help, I figured it out, let it rise again, and then FINALLY baked them up. They came out beautifully. I’m not a mom, but when I tasted it this morning, it was as if I had forgotten the pain of childbirth and only felt adoration for my beautiful bread babies. 

I’ve decided to try to a new bread each month from the book. I like the ideal of learning about these complicated breads, the stories behind them, and the cultures attached. It also falls neatly under my New Year’s resolution to slow down, take a breath, and really be in the moment. For now, here’s to Challah! 

[munchies]

How to Turn a Bakery Into a Hub for Social Justice

Hardly just a neighborhood bakery, Hot Bread Kitchen is a social enterprise that empowers immigrant women, largely supported by its bread sales.

[impaledinferno]

I work for a nonprofit organization named Hot Bread Kitchen. We make breads from all over the world. I randomly decided to look us up here, and now I'm like "geez! This place is way more famous than I knew" Which, weirdly enough, fills me with a sense of pride. The work is hard, But rewarding. I just had no idea how big this little company is... Seriously... I'm proud like a mother watching her child grow up. This is scary. Lol.

[fijianbusinesswomen]

Once upon a Fijian business woman

Once Upon A Fijian Business Woman

How can a businesswoman succeed in Fiji’s patriarchal society? Mere Samisoni, the entrepreneur behind ‘Hot bread Kitchen’ gave us an appropriate answer when she said ‘I roll with it’, although the pun was probably unintentional. In fact, it is difficult to imagine this dynamic lady being pushed around. Anybody who manages to build up a chain of bakeries from scratch, capturing 35% of the country’s urban consumer market in the process, must have a lot of determination. At the same time, Mrs Samisoni displays a strong sense of social commitment.

She believes in community values, advocates group decision-making and consensus, and even describes the tax system as ‘reasonably fair’. In short, she contradicts the widely-held view propagated by lurid American TV series, that a dog-eat-dog attitude is needed for business success.

More on: http://fijianbusinesswomen.tumblr.com/women Published in the Nigerian Observer

[nycedc]

"In most parts of the world women bake bread, but somehow when you look at the workforce that staffs bakeries in the U.S. and Europe, it’s men that are getting these jobs." - Jessamyn Rodriguez, CEO and Founder of Hot Bread Kitchen

Unlike most other kitchens, immigrant and minority women rule the dough at Hot Bread Kitchen.