tortillas, lavash, focaccia, m’smen (a Moroccan flatbread), and
challah—which Rodriguez incorporates into the menu of items
that they, as a team, produce. These breads are then sold all over
New York City, from the Union Square Greenmarket to Zabar’s to
Dean & Deluca.
Most of what Rodriguez knows about bread-making comes
from her time at Daniel (where she was the first woman ever to
work in the restaurant’s bakery). “I didn’t know if I’d love baking
before I started there,” she tells me. “But I loved the action, the
hustle-bustle.”
Turns out hustle-bustle is essential to running a business. “You
don’t realize how fast you have to work to make a bakery
profitable. It’s not how quickly you can do one baguette, it’s how
quickly you can do a hundred baguettes.”
Efficiency of movement is the name of the game, and Rodriguez
(who’s nine months pregnant when we cook together) illustrates
this as she begins demonstrating her signature country bread (or
pain de campagne). “Our bread has two leavening agents in it,” she
tells me as she begins setting the scale. “A pre-ferment and a
commercial yeast.”
What’s a pre-ferment? “A pre-ferment allows you to integrate
whole wheat batter into a white-flour dough. It’s a pretty classic
French baking technique.”
The pre-ferment—which has been refrigerated for twenty-four
hours to develop the flavor—is added to a mixture of bread flour,
yeast, and salt that’s been mixed and allowed to sit for twenty