Dear Mark Friend:

{ Monday, June 30, 2008 }

Two things amaze me about your artisan bread: how good it is and how much of it you make. It's everywhere around the city! That's some operation.

I like knowing that you're a family-run company. It's not an insignificant thing to build the knowledge of a business and a craft into the raising of children who then want to contribute to the business in their adulthood.

I like knowing that Farm To Market Bread and your family contribute to local organizations not only with your product but your time.

And I love your bread. Have you ever noticed how some foods' flavor and texture don't match? Like plain nonfat yogurt. Who expects a creamy food to taste that sour? Or that chewing gum with the flavor center. You know it's there; it's the reason you bought the gum; but the squirt of non-gum feels so wrong, so -- arterial.

Your bread is the opposite. The earthy, yeasty flavor starts hitting sensors just as your jaw registers the resistance between your teeth. Your eight-grain bread is warm with flavor, nutty and fragrant like a beer with loads of hops. Your Italian loaf, airy but reliable, holds in its crust the fire it was baked over. The asiago ciabatta? Everybody who eats it makes noises. Suggestive ones. It's the cheesecake of breads.

Thank you for your bread. I have, to date, never been unhappy while eating it. This coincidence prompts me to make a promise. It is a promise to your bread.

Farm To Market Bread, I will never eat you inattentively. I will never eat you, bread, in anger or in boredom. I will never put a fat-free spread substitute of any kind on you.

Mr. Friend, I wish for you lowered grain prices in a land of plenty. I wish for you to always be part of our plenty.

Sincerely,
Ann Elizabeth


Artisan Bread Links
Farm to Market bread
The Bread Baker's Guild of America
Artisan bread: a description
The Fresh Loaf community for bread enthusiasts

1 comment:

Foodie said...

I agree! Farm to Market Bread you are the reason I feel I can bear to live in Kansas City. My promise to you is that I will always buy you over any other bread no matter what if you are available.

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