The Omnivorous Fish

I spent one of the more interesting nights I’ve had in a long time getting in everyone’s way at Della Fattoria, a stellar bakery in Petaluma, California, up in Sonoma County. It means “from the farm,” or even more accurately, “from the family farm” or at least “small farm.” And let me tell you, it is ON the farm. To get to the bakery, you drive down a long dirt path through rows of vines and past the throng of sheep and dogs to the barn where the bakery is housed.

I met Kathleen Weber, one of the owners and founders, at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market (in San Francisco) a few months back and she told me about her oven, a huge wood-fired number custom made for them. As many of you know, I have been toying with the idea of opening a pizzeria for about 20 years now, and have yet to work with a wood-fired oven, so when I heard about Kathleen’s, I had to see it.

I met Kathleen at the farm in the afternoon, much better than the 8PM or so start time I was expecting, and I jumped right in, setting up boards, shaping, racking, but mainly just trying to stay out of the way.

After a few hours of dough work, Aaron, Kathleen’s son/Oven Guy Extraordinaire, began to get the oven ready. Interestingly, this mainly involves cooling the floor of the oven using such high-tech methods as sheet pans with wet towels on them, a wet mop and spraying water into the oven’s crown. He does, however, monitor the temperature with an infrared thermometer, the only real gadget in the place.

I will say right now that pictures on this site look best in Safari. I’m working on that.

Steaming the oven

Loading the oven

I just liked this

Unloading the oven

Loading the corners

More unloading

The belly of the beast

Slashing the loaves

Onto the cooling racks

More loading

The bread

As you’ve noticed, most of the images are blurred. This is either because everyone is moving so fast, or because I am moving so fast to stay out of their way. This is what a bakery is all about, constant, economic motion. After 10 years or so working in bakeries, I have to say it was a great priveliege to work with this crew.

Special thanks to Dave who mixed all the doughs; Scotty- training but kicking butt on the oven unloading; Kashaya who kept him running (and kept me from hanging myself while chopping 20 pounds of figs); Lucas, who after cutting and shaping all afternoon spent the evening nipple-deep in olives; Peter, backing up the oven loading; Aaron, who is a master oven guy; and Kathleen, who forced them all to put up with me for the evening. Bravi fornai!

Don’t touch the cake
Cake? I thought you said ravioli? I’ve got a pound of flour in front of me and squash in the oven, when the hell did you decide to make a cake?

Well, I was always going to make a cake, and since yesterday got eaten up at the greenmarket and working on my apartment (I own a place the Agent is not involved in), today became about the cake. If, yesterday, I would have cooked the squash, so it could have drained, I might have been up for ravioli tonight, but now I must find a way to spend the evening not up to my elbows in flour. Oh well.

We survived. We’ve eaten more since Friday than we have in the last year, but we survived. Every pan, every bowl, every dish¹ and every appliance except the ice cream maker- all of which has been in boxes for over a year- has been used. Looking at the overflowing dish drainer last night, and the nut bowls littering the butcher block with little bits of this and that, it was like a battlefield; silent after the carnage.

I’ll start with the last meal first. I tried to balance my love of Autumn with the schizophrenic weather we’ve been having, and, therefore, came up with- climactically speaking- a more or less schizophrenic menu. Here it is: