July 17, 2023 • 38 mins
Join host Jim Serpico as he interviews Becca Wong, a classically trained pianist who dared herself to start a cottage bakery. In this episode, Becca shares her experience with bread-making and how it allowed her to step out of her comfort zone and embrace new opportunities. Jim also observes the similarities between creative careers like music and bread-making. As a former music student, he has talked to many bread-makers who are painters or musicians.
In this conversation, Jim and Becca explore the art of bread-making, including bread art and stenciling. They also discuss what it's like to pursue a life as a musician and baker. Plus, they share a fun story about an interesting trip to the vet.
This episode is sponsored by Farmer Ground Flour. Check out their website at http://www.farmergroundflour.com/For more content from Jim Serpico, follow him on Instagram: @jimserpico and @sidehustlebread. And don't forget to follow Becca Wong at @littlesparrowsourdough to see more of her amazing creations.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
In this conversation, Jim and Becca explore the art of bread-making, including bread art and stenciling. They also discuss what it's like to pursue a life as a musician and baker. Plus, they share a fun story about an interesting trip to the vet.
This episode is sponsored by Farmer Ground Flour. Check out their website at http://www.farmergroundflour.com/For more content from Jim Serpico, follow him on Instagram: @jimserpico and @sidehustlebread. And don't forget to follow Becca Wong at @littlesparrowsourdough to see more of her amazing creations.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
I'm happy to say Bread for thePeople has a new sponsor. Farmer Ground
Flower was nice enough to sponsor Breadfor the People and I wanted to tell
you a little bit more about them. Here's what I discovered. So it's
a team of conscientious millers of farmersthat was started in about two thousand and
nine by three friends, Greg Russo, Neil Johnson and Thor Oxner. They're
(00:26):
rooted in the Finger Lakes region andthey used local organic grains and focus on
supporting local communities. They're committed toleading the growth of sustainable grain economy.
Farmer Ground has designed their stone groundmilling process to retain the integrity of the
grain, allowing natural nutrients, fibers, oils, and flavors to speak for
themselves. I particularly like bacon withthe high extraction bread flower. It's an
(00:51):
eighty five percent extraction flower that issifted to remove a large portion of the
brand while retaining the wheat germ,resulting in great flavors. And go to
Farmer groundflower dot com to learn more. I highly recommend Farmer Ground and I
like to thank them for sponsoring Breadfor the People. The following episode of
(01:11):
Bread for the People is brought toyou by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's
handcrafted, artisanal bread company. SideHustle Bread is a family run virtual bakery
that's bringing the neighborhood field back toLong Island, one loaf at a time.
Head on over to side Hustle Breaddot com for more information, upcoming
appearances and merchandise. My name's JimSerpico. And this should I start with
(01:34):
my name or should I start withthis? Is bread for the people?
Do you like it like this?Welcome to bread? Or do you like
it like this? Welcome Retty,Welcome to Bread for the people? Mind?
Is there a script? Welcome toBread for the People. I'm Jim
(02:00):
Serpico. Today I have a veryspecial guest named Becca wand she is a
full time classical pianist who also starteda cottage bakery on a dare Becca,
thank you for joining me today.Thank you so much for having me.
(02:20):
I follow you on Instagram and whatI love about your Instagram account is through
your bread making, you kind ofgive us an insight into your life in
a rye funny way I really love. And sometimes it's only a couple of
(02:43):
sentences or a paragraph at the most, but I find them hysterically funny.
I wonder how many people even realizethis humor in there, but it makes
me laugh and I like getting toknow you. When just now when we
got on, you said something tome, I would love for you to
share that with the with the audience. Um, I was just surprised that
(03:07):
you asked me to be on yourpodcast because there are you know, I've
seen and I've listened to a fewof your guests that I'm like, those
are the people that I look upto and follow and they have, you
know, the Jillian more followers thanwhat I have, so you know,
so I'm like, wow, okay, um, sure. You know,
(03:30):
this last year in terms of mybread journey, has just been saying yes
to opportunities. So hey, youknow, would you like this? I'm
like, yes, you know,how much does it cost? First of
all? So, um, ifit doesn't cost much, sure, I'm
(03:52):
gonna say yes. So when thisopportunity came, I said, okay,
yeah, you know, I thinkthat there is a correlation between people with
a creative career and past and breadmaking. I was a music student. I
was a trained trumpet player. Iwent to Ithaca College. I was in
(04:15):
the jazz bands from my freshman yearthrough graduation. I played semi professionally for
a brief period after college, andI talked to a lot of breadmakers that
were or our musicians, painters,and I kind of find it fascinating that
there's some link between making bread andthe arts, and you know, I
(04:41):
was curious they talked to you alittle bit about that, and also learn
a bit about your business there,and you've made some posts in the past.
I guess you teach music as well. Yeah, and I'm curious about
that life. So tell us aboutstarting your breadmaking journey on a dare on
a dare well I am. Iwouldn't call myself one of the twenty twenty
(05:03):
pandemic bakers. I started the yearafter. In twenty twenty one one,
I was in the thick of teachingonline and actually playing professionally online, like
through Zoom, so you know,everyone stuck at home, and I think,
(05:24):
you know, through stumbling in YouTubeand in Instagram, I think I
saw some bread art and I thoughtthat was super cool. My friend had
given me one hundred year old starterthat he had bought off the internet,
and he gave me some and Iwas like, do you understand what you
just did? Because I kill plants, this is going to die. And
(05:48):
he goes, I promise you,it's not going to die. Just leave
it in the fridge and I pulledit down and had this huge layer of
hood on top. I poured itout and I fed it and it just
exploded and I went, well,crap, Now I gotta bake with it.
And I really got into baking sourdough. For the art side of
(06:11):
it. There was something cathartic abouttaking a sharp blade and just cutting into
the bread and seeing the patterns thatit makes as it's spreading, when the
bread is cold, when the doughis cold, and seeing it transform,
you know when you do the Dutchoven reveal and you pull up the lid
and you kind of go ooh.That was unexpected. And it just turned
(06:35):
into this obsession and that kind ofevolved into an outlet for me in that
it was a non performance based outletthat was still creative because I already crochet,
I do embroidery, and I dolove working with my hands. But
(06:57):
I do like the fact that thiswas an activity I didn't realize at the
time I was forcing myself to getout of my desk or to get away
from the piano, to go doa coil fold and then go back and
sit down. So it created alittle bit of you know, get your
ass off your desk and go dosomething other than you know, being stuck
(07:18):
in front of a screen. AndI was, you know, baking a
lot of overproof blobs. And youknow, again, you know, after
seeing a lot of this stuff thatTom Kukuza post about, you know,
studying your crumb, I look atmy crumb like a report card, and
(07:40):
I look at his diagram like arubric, going oh God, what I
did wrong? And what did Ido wrong? But I was baking a
lot of blobs in the beginning,but still doing this bread art. And
what was great about bread art isthat you can take a blob, an
overproofed blob and created it still intosomething beautiful that people want to go,
(08:03):
oh, that's so pretty and canI buy that from you? And that's
literally what happened. A friend ofmine is a chef up in the Washington,
Washington state area, and he waslike, hey, do you know
about this cottage license thing? AndI was like no, and he goes,
you should look into it, andat the time, I'm going,
(08:28):
do you know how busy I am? Between my playing job and my teaching
job. And with my teaching job, I have musical director stuff that I
do with theater productions, and soI am doing all of those things.
On top of any free time Ihave. I am working on new repertoire
that I am practicing so that it'sprepared and ready to go for the next
(08:52):
gig or master class that I'm playingfor. So I'm going, do you
know how busy I am? Butthen I kind of went, you know,
with the idea of yes, youknow, you really have no idea
what this opportunity is going to bringyou, and it's just paperwork and paying
a fee at the county. Andso I did that, and now I'm
(09:18):
on to my second year of mycottage license. I'm not cranking out the
large volumes like everybody else's. Iaverage about six to eight loaves a day
if when I have a chance tobake. And my friend, yeah,
yeah, I don't think everybody.In my experiences, especially in bread art,
(09:43):
but not even bread art. There'sthere's some very well known names that
we would all know on Instagram aremore like bread influencers, and they're not
cranking out large volumes all the timeeither. So whatever worked for you,
it's amazing and it's an outlet foryou, and it's working for you.
I love the art that you do. I don't spend a lot of time
on red art, but I amfascinated by it. And I see some
(10:07):
of your You do a couple ofthings that I really don't know how you
do them, but I would loveto explore that. I see you have
like these plastic you do like almostlike these cartoons with black stencil or something
ink or charcoal. I assume onthe bread. Can you tell me what
do you do there? How doyou accomplish that? So that's actually a
(10:31):
stencil that I cut with a cricketmachine, and yeah, I have a
cricket yeah, so I don't useit. Oh yeah. And that was
one of those business purchases I becausemy husband is in he's in the audio
visual business, and I was like, hey, would you by chance needs
(10:52):
a few decals made for your gearthings that has your logo on it so
it's just there, and he waslike, yeah, I think that would
be good because I looked into havingsome custom made and was really expensive.
And I was like, how doyou feel about getting a cricket under your
business account? So cricket for you? Yes, yes, pretty much.
(11:16):
Yeah. Um. But he stilluses it for his work stuff. You
know, he will smack decals andthings on his gear and his hydro flask
and you know it's good marketing andum, so I what I do is
I don't do any of those creativedesigns myself. I find them off the
(11:37):
internet. Um, whatever is freeand available, um okay, and I
put it through the cricket and Iactually cut stencils. One of the materials
I use is a four mil milar, which is a clear plastic type of
material. And what's great about theclear milar is you those are reus I
(12:00):
try to use reusable products so thatI'm not, you know, throwing a
lot of waste away. The othermaterial that I started using and I saw
somebody else doing was using this blackvinyl looking material, and I was like,
what's that? And I kind ofwent, there's got to be something.
(12:24):
And I like the black contrast becauseI can actually see what I lay
on the bread, and I discoveredthat it was window cling, you know,
the static window king clingy vinyl.Yeah, so I started using that
instead of the milar just to seehow it would do, and it would
make these very clear images. Theyare a pain in the ass to lay
(12:48):
down on the bread, but onceit's there, and once you get it
set and you pull off the stencil, it makes a very clean image on
the bread. So it's window clingvinyl that you can reuse. So you're
just flowering around and then you're peelingoff the cling and then you see the
(13:13):
shape of the object. I thoughtI was seeing at times some kind of
color contrast on your bread. No, no, maybe, okay, so
that was just it's the opposite.Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
I use rice flower and I usethe tie brand rice Flower, and it's
milt super super fine. So itdoes lay on the bread very finely.
(13:39):
It is finicky. But what's greatis rice flower doesn't absorb during the bake,
so the contrast is still there whenyou pull it out of the oven.
Yeah. Were you surprised at thebecause you might not have a ton
of followers, but you get agood amount of interaction, I will say
so, like the people are engagedin your account. Were you surprised when
(14:01):
you first started that so many peoplewere interested. I really was because in
the beginning, again, I startedthe account as a let's separate my personal
account from the bread stuff. Somy friends and you know, students and
people work related or not looking ata bunch of bread stuff they may not
(14:24):
want to look at. So inthe beginning I had like, hey,
I started this account. If you'reinterested, follow it. But I would
say ninety percent of the people whofollow me are people I have never met.
And it's and I find that verybaffling and surprising and all because of
(14:46):
my snarky sense of humor. Andthat is if you actually read the captions.
A lot of people scroll and theydon't read, but if they read,
they're like, oh, okay,that's funny. So yeah, I
am very surprised at the people whofollow me. And what I find wonderful
(15:09):
about the bread community is that Ithink in one of your other podcasts you
said it just brings people together.I love that this medium, we're not
talking about politics, about your beliefs, what you know, all of the
crazy things happening in the world isjust simple bread. And it's again it's
(15:33):
a staple. I have had friendsask me don't you get tired of eating
your own bread? And I go, do you get tired of eating rice
or pasta or potatoes? It's astaple. It's one of those things that
you know, we we don't haveto have in our lives, but it's
one of those things we choose tohave in our lives because it's something that
(15:56):
sustains us. Now, the otherday you put up I guess that was
one with the black vinyl you hadrendering of your dog and you told the
story about your dog going to thevet. Do you mind sharing that story
with the listeners? Okay? OhGod. So I have a rescue puppy.
(16:22):
She is a I call her anam buloxer. We thought we were
adopting a boxer because we were aboxer family. We thought we were adopting
a boxer. And then I guessher DNA came back and she's actually American
bulldog, a frenchie and then aboxer, and she likes to go venture
(16:42):
out into our backyard and find things. And we suspect she ate something and
she was throwing up all day andall night, and so I texted my
vet, who is a good friendof ours, and she was like,
yeah, I think you got tobring her in at least let us ray
her to see what's going on.Unfortunately, they had to open her up
(17:04):
because they couldn't find anything in theX ray, and they noticed that the
bubble in her belly was getting biggerafter an hour, so they opened her
up. They couldn't find any obstruction, but her colon was just has blown
(17:26):
up into what she said looked likea balloon animal and the surgeon was like,
Okay, looks like she doesn't haveany obstruction, but the obstruction is
actually the gas in her colon,so we got to get this out.
So the surgeon is squeezing this massivefart out of her body, and I
(17:48):
guess I was told afterwards that thestaff was screaming. My vet was screaming.
The surgeon was like, I gottaget it out. I gotta get
it all out, and they wereable to get out. I think that
was the compromise, and they're like, we'll take her on a walk and
she'll walk off the rest of it. And so she bombed pretty much the
(18:11):
whole hospital, and when I wentto go pick her up at the end
of the day, the place smelledlike air freshener and my dog, and
I was like, oh my god, Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I was soembarrassed. So as a thank you,
I made three loaves of bread forthem, and it was also again
I said a half apology. Sothe first one was any animal balloon and
(18:36):
that went to my vet. Thesecond one was a fan blowing on a
pile of shit, and that wentto the surgeon. And then the third
loaf was a five star review sayingfive stars would poop here again, Elsie.
That went to the staff and Iwent and dropped it off, and
oh my god, four days later, the place still smelled like shit.
(18:57):
And I'm thinking to myself, I'mreally hoping that that is not my dog.
That is some other dog. Andif it is my dog, I
have other concerns that I need toask my vet. And if it is
not my dog, you know,they I would feel a little bit better
about it, but also, um, you know they probably need I don't
(19:19):
know, So yeah, um,there you go. Yeah, these are
the kind of storage guys you get. You get from Becca at Little Little
Sparrow Sourdough on Instagram. Yeah,they're not all like this, but they
are slice of life and very humorousand I love it. So you're a
classical pianist, how often do youtour? Do you play out? Do
(19:42):
you play locally? So? Ido not tour at all. I play
locally. UM. I am actuallya ballet pianist for UM, one of
our local ballet training schools here Andit's great about the school is they still
(20:02):
use live music, and they stilluse a live pianist, and I'm one
of the We only have a handfulof people who do what I do.
Pretty much globally, it's a dyingart. It is expensive to have us,
so a lot of dance studios anddance schools just use recorded music for
(20:22):
their stuff for their classes. Andwhat's great is I am one of the
very few people who got into thisagain by Fluke twenty something years ago,
and I decided this is amazing.I have a dance background myself, so
this was a great way for meto stay connected in the dance world as
(20:45):
a musician. And again that's broughtme a lot of wonderful opportunities. I
freelance as a company class pianist,so a lot of the major dance companies
that come through a town and theyneed pianist to play their company class,
either beginning of the day, sometimesit's an hour before they go on stage.
(21:07):
I get to go and play companyclass for them, and it's that's
great, oh, wonderful feelings.So I don't know if I'm allowed to
say, you know what companies I'veworked for, but the but just so
I don't get in trouble, I'mjust gonna keep that one to myself.
But they they are some of thebig major companies, you know. Some
(21:30):
are based in New York, someare based in Chicago, San Francisco,
all over that. What town areyou based town? I'm actually in Orange
County. I live in South OrangeCounty, but it's a freeway commute to
downtown LA. So sometimes I driveup to downtown LA and I play at
the Music Center there, and Imainly worked for the Performing Arts Center down
(21:55):
here in Orange County. Right.That's cool. So you you had an
interest in piano as a as akid or were any of your parents involved
in music. My dad likes tothink that he was a good musician,
but he kind of hummed along andhe kind of he self taught himself the
(22:15):
Chinese flute. My mom likes torun around singing. But I guess my
mom was saying. One of thenatural things that I used to do,
even before starting lessons was I wouldhear a tune. I would go over
to the piano and kind of doodleon it and then play it back.
And of course I have the stereotypicaltiger mom. My mom, you know,
(22:40):
would sit with me and make mepractice for hours upon hours upon hours.
And of course, when I decidedto go into college as a music
major, you know, there wasa lot of conflict intension within my parents,
going, no, you're supposed tobe a doctor, you know,
the stereotypical Asian conversation. And Isaid, well, I'm gonna do this,
(23:03):
and I will also look into,you know, a teaching credential,
which I never got already did.Yeah, I ended up going to grad
school instead. That way I canteach college. And that that was how
I kind of stumbled into teaching asa all right, fine, um,
you need someone to teach, I'lldo it. Yeah. Yeah, what
(23:27):
do you think of life as amusic student. It's it's interesting. I
don't know if people realize it's.Um, I think it's very different than
a lot of other programs in college. You really spend a lot of time
in that building and then the practicerooms. You know, I would say,
(23:49):
besides the classes and doing the homework, the typical music students in a
practice room alone for at least threehours a day. Yeah, more,
yeah, you know. And thenyou also have the little the groups,
the bands, the orchestras, thateverything that you're in. It's a pretty
(24:10):
busy life, and it's a hard, hard, isolated life at times.
Yes, yes, definitely. Butthe other thing that's cool about it is
the camaraderie because everyone's hanging out downthere, everybody. It's just hundreds of
practice rooms, yes, and peoplewho are going in and out and hanging
out in the hallway, and youhave lockers down there. It's pretty interesting.
(24:33):
Yeah. I confess that ninety percentof the time spent in the practice
room was not practicing, you know. It's you know, I would practice
for about fifteen minutes, somebody wouldinterrupt you, and then you start talking
and hanging out and that, ohI gotta go, and you go back
and practice fifteen minutes more, andthen somebody else comes by and it's yeah,
(24:53):
like you said, and there Ihave some very close friends that I
still hang out with you from schoolfrom you know, being a music major
and a grad student. Mostly gradstudent, I lived down in the office
and in the music department pretty muchthe whole time. But like you said,
(25:15):
it's very isolated. I didn't goto many parties, like college parties.
That was not my thing. Idid go to a lot of hangouts.
I wouldn't call those parties, butyou know what people would see as
like a cangcoon college party. Youknow, I never did any of that
stuff. But you know, Iwas more content to have a glass of
(25:38):
wine and hang out with my friendsand and just hold the glass of wine,
not really drink it because I haveAsian drinking disease. I turned bright
red when I drink. So itwas mainly I would hold a glass of
wine just talk to people, andthat was kind of the life. But
the other isolating thing too, Itwas interesting, is there were students who
(26:03):
were very serious about their craft thatthey were isolated within the department. They
locked themselves in a practice room andthey would practice, and they were so
focused they didn't talk to anybody,and they really didn't engage in your classes.
(26:25):
They you know, they would turnin the work and they were just
I would they were super introverts,I would call them, which might be
one of the reasons they gravitated towardsan instrument because it allowed them yeah,
function, Yeah, certain psychology there, yeah, and for me, definitely
the reason why. And of course, you know, you get the egos,
(26:49):
especially being a pianist, you geta lot of ego. And one
of the things that gravitated me towardsworking with dancers was that, yes,
there's ego, but it's different becausethey have their craft in their own ego
and I have minecraft in my ownego and we collaborate it well together in
(27:11):
a dance, in a ballet situation. Right. In terms of music that
you listened to for pleasure, wasit always related to what you were studying
in grad school? Yes, soI would listen to depending on whatever repertoire
I was doing. I would listento different recordings of different performers playing those
(27:37):
specific pleat pieces. And now themusic I listened to is all work related.
Again. I am in the musicaltheater world. I am a musical
director at one of the performing artsschools here in Orange County, and so
a lot of times I'm listening tothe cast recordings of whatever show is coming
(28:00):
up that i'm you know, studyingand listening to just for you know,
tempo references and things. But onmy drive homes and in my long two
hour commutes to downtown LA and back, a lot of times I am listening
to audiobooks, podcasts, stand upcomedy. In fact, that's actually what
(28:23):
we do a lot to blow offsteam. I can't my husband and I
can't go to shows without being inwork mode because he again is in the
audio side of things, audio visualtech side of things, so he's hearing
everything that could be fixed or differentthings that he could be mixing differently,
(28:45):
and I am going, oh,that person's off, and oh that was
great, and you know, I'manalyzing their performance quality and what they're doing.
So we go to stand up alot because it's just a great way
to not think about any of thatstuff. Go sit down, have some
horrible food, and have a comedianstand up and you know, scream at
(29:07):
us for you know, an hourand whatever and have us laugh our asses
off and go home and be like, oh, that was a great set,
and Okay, let's do it again. Where do you do that?
What clubs do you go to statestand up comedy? We mainly go to
the Urvine Improv down here. Theyhave a good lineup of people. So
do you do you know the namesof any of these comedians and enjoyed?
(29:33):
Oh geez the I think the mostrecent one was Ian Bag. He is
one of our recent He's a localguy here and he so we try to
support him at anytime he's in towndoing a gig. I'm trying to think
of the most recent ones we wentto go see, I asked, because
(29:56):
I am a stand up comedy producer. Oh okay, okay, yeah,
I've done a number of specials albums. I still record comedy albums, and
I have clients that I manage thatplay the Irvine improv. Oh okay,
that's fun. Yeah, yeah,a lot of them. We get a
lot of free tickets, and youknow, when they have low sales,
(30:19):
we get a lot of free tickets, and so we could do a lot
of them, and unfortunately I neverremember their names, but we always go
see the big names of course,like Joel McHale, Margaret Show. I
love Margaret and I've heard all ofher jokes before. And what's great about
seeing a comedian that, you knowthe material, the secondary experiences is watching
(30:41):
the audience interaction and their reaction andhaving them experience they're the jokes for the
first time. That's also a veryrewarding thing to see. Yeah, and
see who else we've seen Patton Oswaldthere, Bert Kreischer, of course,
(31:03):
Dave Williamson, He's always an opener. He's super funny. I don't know
him. Oh okay, he's reallyfunny, you know, story time kind
of guy. And those are justthe some of the people that I can
think on the top of my head. So, you know, comedy again,
it is one of those things thatI try to have in my life.
(31:27):
I don't purposely try to make peoplelaugh. I think it just kind
of happens. I think I getthat deadpan, dry sense of humor from
my father. And it's also mycoping mechanism, you know, like with
my dog, dealing with that andit's stressful to have your dog, you
know, have her stomach cut open, so I have to somehow make a
(31:49):
joke out of it or exactly.I loved now be living so close to
Los Angeles, do you go toany of these world famous bakeries and maybe
they were even in Ours County andI'm not aware, but I certainly have
done the La Bakery tour and ithasn't inspired me to open my food truck
(32:15):
where I'm making artisanal sandwiches on thebread eye bake. Now, have you
checked out any of the bakery scene. I haven't had the time too that
it's that's the sad part. Ihave discovered one, and I was very
disappointed when I found out they areno longer at the ground Central Market was
I think it's called Clark Street Bakery. They also do all their pastries and
(32:37):
breads sour dough, and that's oneof the things that I like to focus
on is sour dough, being thatI do have type two diabetes and having
my own sour dough has been alifesaver in being able to have carbs.
And yeah, let's let's open thatup a little bit. Okay, some
(32:59):
of the people who don't know thebenefits of sour dough, even on a
person without diabetes, but especially ifyou have type two diabetes, how is
it possible that that bread's okay foryou? But all the breads aren't for
me. These are one of thesomething that I try to do is be
very mindful of the health claims Imake because I don't know if it's going
(33:24):
to be the same for somebody else, But it works for me. From
what I understand of it is thatthe long fermentation process breaks down the starches
within the bread and it brings downthe glycemic level. So I am able
to have a sour dough sandwich youwith my own slices for lunch and it's
(33:49):
not going to significantly spike my bloodsugar because all I'm eating is my own
fermented bread, flower or flower,salt water and the starter that I throw
into it, so there are noadditives. But even then, I dabbled
into a sour dough chokoupen that hassugar and eggs and milk, and again
(34:14):
I can have a slice and it'snot going to shoot my blood sugar up
a ridiculous amount. And it's beenyou know, it's still new to me,
this diagnosis. I knew I wasgetting it. It runs in my
family, and I think the pandemicand teaching at home and playing at home
(34:34):
just kind of sped it up becauseeveryone's at home eating carbs, and I
was eating a lot of pastas andnoodles and a lot of sugars. And
this is the one thing that Iam able to keep in my diet.
Everything else I have completely eliminated rice, pasta noodles. I have those only
on cheat days when I'm having areally bad day, and even then,
(35:00):
or you know, I would justI tell my friends all the time,
I'm like, oh what I wouldn'tgive to just have a giant bowl of
spaghetti with butter. That's it.That's it. And sometimes, you know,
if I do have a cheat day, have a little bit, but
I always chase it with a gallonof water and I go hop on my
elliptical for thirty minutes to burn itoff because I know it's gonna make me
(35:22):
dizzy and feel horrible in a littlebit, so I try to remedy that
I'm going to put that into mybody. So, but yeah, sour
dough is one of those things thatI'm able to have. And I think
going back to that bakery, theyhave a sour dough croissant that is just
beautifully laminated, and I'm able toeat that and it doesn't raise my blood
(35:45):
sugar or doesn't spike my blood sugarsignificantly. And I think it has to
do with the fermentation and also thehigh fat content within the butter, so
it's slowing down the absorption in mybody as I'm eating it. So that's
also another advantage of sour dough.So we got a lot of people that
(36:06):
come to us for the sour dough. It's just easier for their body to
digest. And yes, usually thatthey'll live otherwise gluten free life, but
they do come and eat the glutenin the sour dough. It's pretty interesting.
Yeah. I actually have a parentwho started buying a sour dough from
me last year. I guess herkiddo brought some of my bread home and
(36:30):
said, Mom, try this,and she's like, I can't have gluten.
It's gonna make me sick. Andshe had some and it didn't make
her sick. And then the nextday the whole loaf was gone, and
the kiddo came back to me andwas like, I think we needed to
keep ordering bread free me because you'reMy mom loves it. And I actually
posed the little video on my Instagrambecause just the joy on her mother's face
(36:53):
just brought me so much happiness.I'm like, Oh, that makes me
so happy that she can have this. It's awesome. Yeah, well listen,
Becca, it was really cool tochat and get to know you.
I look forward to continuing to keepup with you on Instagram. You make
me laugh. I love your senseof humor, I love your art and
(37:14):
keep doing what you're doing. Thankyou, it was a pleasure. Thank
you so much for having me.Thank you, Becca, Thank you.
This episode of Bread for the Peoplewas brought to you by Side Hustle Bread,
Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family
run business that's bringing the neighborhood fieldback to Long Island, one loaf at
(37:35):
a time. If you like whatyou're hearing, don't forget to head on
over tie iTunes and rate and reviewthis episode. Reviewing and rating is the
most effective way to help us growour audience. This episode was produced by
Milestone TV and Film. I'm yourhost, Jim Serpico. Less it be
the bread, Everyone
I'm happy to say Bread for thePeople has a new sponsor. Farmer Ground
Flower was nice enough to sponsor Breadfor the People and I wanted to tell
you a little bit more about them. Here's what I discovered. So it's
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like to thank them for sponsoring Breadfor the People. The following episode of
(01:11):
Bread for the People is brought toyou by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's
handcrafted, artisanal bread company. SideHustle Bread is a family run virtual bakery
that's bringing the neighborhood field back toLong Island, one loaf at a time.
Head on over to side Hustle Breaddot com for more information, upcoming
appearances and merchandise. My name's JimSerpico. And this should I start with
(01:34):
my name or should I start withthis? Is bread for the people?
Do you like it like this?Welcome to bread? Or do you like
it like this? Welcome Retty,Welcome to Bread for the people? Mind?
Is there a script? Welcome toBread for the People. I'm Jim
(02:00):
Serpico. Today I have a veryspecial guest named Becca wand she is a
full time classical pianist who also starteda cottage bakery on a dare Becca,
thank you for joining me today.Thank you so much for having me.
(02:20):
I follow you on Instagram and whatI love about your Instagram account is through
your bread making, you kind ofgive us an insight into your life in
a rye funny way I really love. And sometimes it's only a couple of
(02:43):
sentences or a paragraph at the most, but I find them hysterically funny.
I wonder how many people even realizethis humor in there, but it makes
me laugh and I like getting toknow you. When just now when we
got on, you said something tome, I would love for you to
share that with the with the audience. Um, I was just surprised that
(03:07):
you asked me to be on yourpodcast because there are you know, I've
seen and I've listened to a fewof your guests that I'm like, those
are the people that I look upto and follow and they have, you
know, the Jillian more followers thanwhat I have, so you know,
so I'm like, wow, okay, um, sure. You know,
(03:30):
this last year in terms of mybread journey, has just been saying yes
to opportunities. So hey, youknow, would you like this? I'm
like, yes, you know,how much does it cost? First of
all? So, um, ifit doesn't cost much, sure, I'm
(03:52):
gonna say yes. So when thisopportunity came, I said, okay,
yeah, you know, I thinkthat there is a correlation between people with
a creative career and past and breadmaking. I was a music student. I
was a trained trumpet player. Iwent to Ithaca College. I was in
(04:15):
the jazz bands from my freshman yearthrough graduation. I played semi professionally for
a brief period after college, andI talked to a lot of breadmakers that
were or our musicians, painters,and I kind of find it fascinating that
there's some link between making bread andthe arts, and you know, I
(04:41):
was curious they talked to you alittle bit about that, and also learn
a bit about your business there,and you've made some posts in the past.
I guess you teach music as well. Yeah, and I'm curious about
that life. So tell us aboutstarting your breadmaking journey on a dare on
a dare well I am. Iwouldn't call myself one of the twenty twenty
(05:03):
pandemic bakers. I started the yearafter. In twenty twenty one one,
I was in the thick of teachingonline and actually playing professionally online, like
through Zoom, so you know,everyone stuck at home, and I think,
(05:24):
you know, through stumbling in YouTubeand in Instagram, I think I
saw some bread art and I thoughtthat was super cool. My friend had
given me one hundred year old starterthat he had bought off the internet,
and he gave me some and Iwas like, do you understand what you
just did? Because I kill plants, this is going to die. And
(05:48):
he goes, I promise you,it's not going to die. Just leave
it in the fridge and I pulledit down and had this huge layer of
hood on top. I poured itout and I fed it and it just
exploded and I went, well,crap, Now I gotta bake with it.
And I really got into baking sourdough. For the art side of
(06:11):
it. There was something cathartic abouttaking a sharp blade and just cutting into
the bread and seeing the patterns thatit makes as it's spreading, when the
bread is cold, when the doughis cold, and seeing it transform,
you know when you do the Dutchoven reveal and you pull up the lid
and you kind of go ooh.That was unexpected. And it just turned
(06:35):
into this obsession and that kind ofevolved into an outlet for me in that
it was a non performance based outletthat was still creative because I already crochet,
I do embroidery, and I dolove working with my hands. But
(06:57):
I do like the fact that thiswas an activity I didn't realize at the
time I was forcing myself to getout of my desk or to get away
from the piano, to go doa coil fold and then go back and
sit down. So it created alittle bit of you know, get your
ass off your desk and go dosomething other than you know, being stuck
(07:18):
in front of a screen. AndI was, you know, baking a
lot of overproof blobs. And youknow, again, you know, after
seeing a lot of this stuff thatTom Kukuza post about, you know,
studying your crumb, I look atmy crumb like a report card, and
(07:40):
I look at his diagram like arubric, going oh God, what I
did wrong? And what did Ido wrong? But I was baking a
lot of blobs in the beginning,but still doing this bread art. And
what was great about bread art isthat you can take a blob, an
overproofed blob and created it still intosomething beautiful that people want to go,
(08:03):
oh, that's so pretty and canI buy that from you? And that's
literally what happened. A friend ofmine is a chef up in the Washington,
Washington state area, and he waslike, hey, do you know
about this cottage license thing? AndI was like no, and he goes,
you should look into it, andat the time, I'm going,
(08:28):
do you know how busy I am? Between my playing job and my teaching
job. And with my teaching job, I have musical director stuff that I
do with theater productions, and soI am doing all of those things.
On top of any free time Ihave. I am working on new repertoire
that I am practicing so that it'sprepared and ready to go for the next
(08:52):
gig or master class that I'm playingfor. So I'm going, do you
know how busy I am? Butthen I kind of went, you know,
with the idea of yes, youknow, you really have no idea
what this opportunity is going to bringyou, and it's just paperwork and paying
a fee at the county. Andso I did that, and now I'm
(09:18):
on to my second year of mycottage license. I'm not cranking out the
large volumes like everybody else's. Iaverage about six to eight loaves a day
if when I have a chance tobake. And my friend, yeah,
yeah, I don't think everybody.In my experiences, especially in bread art,
(09:43):
but not even bread art. There'sthere's some very well known names that
we would all know on Instagram aremore like bread influencers, and they're not
cranking out large volumes all the timeeither. So whatever worked for you,
it's amazing and it's an outlet foryou, and it's working for you.
I love the art that you do. I don't spend a lot of time
on red art, but I amfascinated by it. And I see some
(10:07):
of your You do a couple ofthings that I really don't know how you
do them, but I would loveto explore that. I see you have
like these plastic you do like almostlike these cartoons with black stencil or something
ink or charcoal. I assume onthe bread. Can you tell me what
do you do there? How doyou accomplish that? So that's actually a
(10:31):
stencil that I cut with a cricketmachine, and yeah, I have a
cricket yeah, so I don't useit. Oh yeah. And that was
one of those business purchases I becausemy husband is in he's in the audio
visual business, and I was like, hey, would you by chance needs
(10:52):
a few decals made for your gearthings that has your logo on it so
it's just there, and he waslike, yeah, I think that would
be good because I looked into havingsome custom made and was really expensive.
And I was like, how doyou feel about getting a cricket under your
business account? So cricket for you? Yes, yes, pretty much.
(11:16):
Yeah. Um. But he stilluses it for his work stuff. You
know, he will smack decals andthings on his gear and his hydro flask
and you know it's good marketing andum, so I what I do is
I don't do any of those creativedesigns myself. I find them off the
(11:37):
internet. Um, whatever is freeand available, um okay, and I
put it through the cricket and Iactually cut stencils. One of the materials
I use is a four mil milar, which is a clear plastic type of
material. And what's great about theclear milar is you those are reus I
(12:00):
try to use reusable products so thatI'm not, you know, throwing a
lot of waste away. The othermaterial that I started using and I saw
somebody else doing was using this blackvinyl looking material, and I was like,
what's that? And I kind ofwent, there's got to be something.
(12:24):
And I like the black contrast becauseI can actually see what I lay
on the bread, and I discoveredthat it was window cling, you know,
the static window king clingy vinyl.Yeah, so I started using that
instead of the milar just to seehow it would do, and it would
make these very clear images. Theyare a pain in the ass to lay
(12:48):
down on the bread, but onceit's there, and once you get it
set and you pull off the stencil, it makes a very clean image on
the bread. So it's window clingvinyl that you can reuse. So you're
just flowering around and then you're peelingoff the cling and then you see the
(13:13):
shape of the object. I thoughtI was seeing at times some kind of
color contrast on your bread. No, no, maybe, okay, so
that was just it's the opposite.Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
I use rice flower and I usethe tie brand rice Flower, and it's
milt super super fine. So itdoes lay on the bread very finely.
(13:39):
It is finicky. But what's greatis rice flower doesn't absorb during the bake,
so the contrast is still there whenyou pull it out of the oven.
Yeah. Were you surprised at thebecause you might not have a ton
of followers, but you get agood amount of interaction, I will say
so, like the people are engagedin your account. Were you surprised when
(14:01):
you first started that so many peoplewere interested. I really was because in
the beginning, again, I startedthe account as a let's separate my personal
account from the bread stuff. Somy friends and you know, students and
people work related or not looking ata bunch of bread stuff they may not
(14:24):
want to look at. So inthe beginning I had like, hey,
I started this account. If you'reinterested, follow it. But I would
say ninety percent of the people whofollow me are people I have never met.
And it's and I find that verybaffling and surprising and all because of
(14:46):
my snarky sense of humor. Andthat is if you actually read the captions.
A lot of people scroll and theydon't read, but if they read,
they're like, oh, okay,that's funny. So yeah, I
am very surprised at the people whofollow me. And what I find wonderful
(15:09):
about the bread community is that Ithink in one of your other podcasts you
said it just brings people together.I love that this medium, we're not
talking about politics, about your beliefs, what you know, all of the
crazy things happening in the world isjust simple bread. And it's again it's
(15:33):
a staple. I have had friendsask me don't you get tired of eating
your own bread? And I go, do you get tired of eating rice
or pasta or potatoes? It's astaple. It's one of those things that
you know, we we don't haveto have in our lives, but it's
one of those things we choose tohave in our lives because it's something that
(15:56):
sustains us. Now, the otherday you put up I guess that was
one with the black vinyl you hadrendering of your dog and you told the
story about your dog going to thevet. Do you mind sharing that story
with the listeners? Okay? OhGod. So I have a rescue puppy.
(16:22):
She is a I call her anam buloxer. We thought we were
adopting a boxer because we were aboxer family. We thought we were adopting
a boxer. And then I guessher DNA came back and she's actually American
bulldog, a frenchie and then aboxer, and she likes to go venture
(16:42):
out into our backyard and find things. And we suspect she ate something and
she was throwing up all day andall night, and so I texted my
vet, who is a good friendof ours, and she was like,
yeah, I think you got tobring her in at least let us ray
her to see what's going on.Unfortunately, they had to open her up
(17:04):
because they couldn't find anything in theX ray, and they noticed that the
bubble in her belly was getting biggerafter an hour, so they opened her
up. They couldn't find any obstruction, but her colon was just has blown
(17:26):
up into what she said looked likea balloon animal and the surgeon was like,
Okay, looks like she doesn't haveany obstruction, but the obstruction is
actually the gas in her colon,so we got to get this out.
So the surgeon is squeezing this massivefart out of her body, and I
(17:48):
guess I was told afterwards that thestaff was screaming. My vet was screaming.
The surgeon was like, I gottaget it out. I gotta get
it all out, and they wereable to get out. I think that
was the compromise, and they're like, we'll take her on a walk and
she'll walk off the rest of it. And so she bombed pretty much the
(18:11):
whole hospital, and when I wentto go pick her up at the end
of the day, the place smelledlike air freshener and my dog, and
I was like, oh my god, Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I was soembarrassed. So as a thank you,
I made three loaves of bread forthem, and it was also again
I said a half apology. Sothe first one was any animal balloon and
(18:36):
that went to my vet. Thesecond one was a fan blowing on a
pile of shit, and that wentto the surgeon. And then the third
loaf was a five star review sayingfive stars would poop here again, Elsie.
That went to the staff and Iwent and dropped it off, and
oh my god, four days later, the place still smelled like shit.
(18:57):
And I'm thinking to myself, I'mreally hoping that that is not my dog.
That is some other dog. Andif it is my dog, I
have other concerns that I need toask my vet. And if it is
not my dog, you know,they I would feel a little bit better
about it, but also, um, you know they probably need I don't
(19:19):
know, So yeah, um,there you go. Yeah, these are
the kind of storage guys you get. You get from Becca at Little Little
Sparrow Sourdough on Instagram. Yeah,they're not all like this, but they
are slice of life and very humorousand I love it. So you're a
classical pianist, how often do youtour? Do you play out? Do
(19:42):
you play locally? So? Ido not tour at all. I play
locally. UM. I am actuallya ballet pianist for UM, one of
our local ballet training schools here Andit's great about the school is they still
(20:02):
use live music, and they stilluse a live pianist, and I'm one
of the We only have a handfulof people who do what I do.
Pretty much globally, it's a dyingart. It is expensive to have us,
so a lot of dance studios anddance schools just use recorded music for
(20:22):
their stuff for their classes. Andwhat's great is I am one of the
very few people who got into thisagain by Fluke twenty something years ago,
and I decided this is amazing.I have a dance background myself, so
this was a great way for meto stay connected in the dance world as
(20:45):
a musician. And again that's broughtme a lot of wonderful opportunities. I
freelance as a company class pianist,so a lot of the major dance companies
that come through a town and theyneed pianist to play their company class,
either beginning of the day, sometimesit's an hour before they go on stage.
(21:07):
I get to go and play companyclass for them, and it's that's
great, oh, wonderful feelings.So I don't know if I'm allowed to
say, you know what companies I'veworked for, but the but just so
I don't get in trouble, I'mjust gonna keep that one to myself.
But they they are some of thebig major companies, you know. Some
(21:30):
are based in New York, someare based in Chicago, San Francisco,
all over that. What town areyou based town? I'm actually in Orange
County. I live in South OrangeCounty, but it's a freeway commute to
downtown LA. So sometimes I driveup to downtown LA and I play at
the Music Center there, and Imainly worked for the Performing Arts Center down
(21:55):
here in Orange County. Right.That's cool. So you you had an
interest in piano as a as akid or were any of your parents involved
in music. My dad likes tothink that he was a good musician,
but he kind of hummed along andhe kind of he self taught himself the
(22:15):
Chinese flute. My mom likes torun around singing. But I guess my
mom was saying. One of thenatural things that I used to do,
even before starting lessons was I wouldhear a tune. I would go over
to the piano and kind of doodleon it and then play it back.
And of course I have the stereotypicaltiger mom. My mom, you know,
(22:40):
would sit with me and make mepractice for hours upon hours upon hours.
And of course, when I decidedto go into college as a music
major, you know, there wasa lot of conflict intension within my parents,
going, no, you're supposed tobe a doctor, you know,
the stereotypical Asian conversation. And Isaid, well, I'm gonna do this,
(23:03):
and I will also look into,you know, a teaching credential,
which I never got already did.Yeah, I ended up going to grad
school instead. That way I canteach college. And that that was how
I kind of stumbled into teaching asa all right, fine, um,
you need someone to teach, I'lldo it. Yeah. Yeah, what
(23:27):
do you think of life as amusic student. It's it's interesting. I
don't know if people realize it's.Um, I think it's very different than
a lot of other programs in college. You really spend a lot of time
in that building and then the practicerooms. You know, I would say,
(23:49):
besides the classes and doing the homework, the typical music students in a
practice room alone for at least threehours a day. Yeah, more,
yeah, you know. And thenyou also have the little the groups,
the bands, the orchestras, thateverything that you're in. It's a pretty
(24:10):
busy life, and it's a hard, hard, isolated life at times.
Yes, yes, definitely. Butthe other thing that's cool about it is
the camaraderie because everyone's hanging out downthere, everybody. It's just hundreds of
practice rooms, yes, and peoplewho are going in and out and hanging
out in the hallway, and youhave lockers down there. It's pretty interesting.
(24:33):
Yeah. I confess that ninety percentof the time spent in the practice
room was not practicing, you know. It's you know, I would practice
for about fifteen minutes, somebody wouldinterrupt you, and then you start talking
and hanging out and that, ohI gotta go, and you go back
and practice fifteen minutes more, andthen somebody else comes by and it's yeah,
(24:53):
like you said, and there Ihave some very close friends that I
still hang out with you from schoolfrom you know, being a music major
and a grad student. Mostly gradstudent, I lived down in the office
and in the music department pretty muchthe whole time. But like you said,
(25:15):
it's very isolated. I didn't goto many parties, like college parties.
That was not my thing. Idid go to a lot of hangouts.
I wouldn't call those parties, butyou know what people would see as
like a cangcoon college party. Youknow, I never did any of that
stuff. But you know, Iwas more content to have a glass of
(25:38):
wine and hang out with my friendsand and just hold the glass of wine,
not really drink it because I haveAsian drinking disease. I turned bright
red when I drink. So itwas mainly I would hold a glass of
wine just talk to people, andthat was kind of the life. But
the other isolating thing too, Itwas interesting, is there were students who
(26:03):
were very serious about their craft thatthey were isolated within the department. They
locked themselves in a practice room andthey would practice, and they were so
focused they didn't talk to anybody,and they really didn't engage in your classes.
(26:25):
They you know, they would turnin the work and they were just
I would they were super introverts,I would call them, which might be
one of the reasons they gravitated towardsan instrument because it allowed them yeah,
function, Yeah, certain psychology there, yeah, and for me, definitely
the reason why. And of course, you know, you get the egos,
(26:49):
especially being a pianist, you geta lot of ego. And one
of the things that gravitated me towardsworking with dancers was that, yes,
there's ego, but it's different becausethey have their craft in their own ego
and I have minecraft in my ownego and we collaborate it well together in
(27:11):
a dance, in a ballet situation. Right. In terms of music that
you listened to for pleasure, wasit always related to what you were studying
in grad school? Yes, soI would listen to depending on whatever repertoire
I was doing. I would listento different recordings of different performers playing those
(27:37):
specific pleat pieces. And now themusic I listened to is all work related.
Again. I am in the musicaltheater world. I am a musical
director at one of the performing artsschools here in Orange County, and so
a lot of times I'm listening tothe cast recordings of whatever show is coming
(28:00):
up that i'm you know, studyingand listening to just for you know,
tempo references and things. But onmy drive homes and in my long two
hour commutes to downtown LA and back, a lot of times I am listening
to audiobooks, podcasts, stand upcomedy. In fact, that's actually what
(28:23):
we do a lot to blow offsteam. I can't my husband and I
can't go to shows without being inwork mode because he again is in the
audio side of things, audio visualtech side of things, so he's hearing
everything that could be fixed or differentthings that he could be mixing differently,
(28:45):
and I am going, oh,that person's off, and oh that was
great, and you know, I'manalyzing their performance quality and what they're doing.
So we go to stand up alot because it's just a great way
to not think about any of thatstuff. Go sit down, have some
horrible food, and have a comedianstand up and you know, scream at
(29:07):
us for you know, an hourand whatever and have us laugh our asses
off and go home and be like, oh, that was a great set,
and Okay, let's do it again. Where do you do that?
What clubs do you go to statestand up comedy? We mainly go to
the Urvine Improv down here. Theyhave a good lineup of people. So
do you do you know the namesof any of these comedians and enjoyed?
(29:33):
Oh geez the I think the mostrecent one was Ian Bag. He is
one of our recent He's a localguy here and he so we try to
support him at anytime he's in towndoing a gig. I'm trying to think
of the most recent ones we wentto go see, I asked, because
(29:56):
I am a stand up comedy producer. Oh okay, okay, yeah,
I've done a number of specials albums. I still record comedy albums, and
I have clients that I manage thatplay the Irvine improv. Oh okay,
that's fun. Yeah, yeah,a lot of them. We get a
lot of free tickets, and youknow, when they have low sales,
(30:19):
we get a lot of free tickets, and so we could do a lot
of them, and unfortunately I neverremember their names, but we always go
see the big names of course,like Joel McHale, Margaret Show. I
love Margaret and I've heard all ofher jokes before. And what's great about
seeing a comedian that, you knowthe material, the secondary experiences is watching
(30:41):
the audience interaction and their reaction andhaving them experience they're the jokes for the
first time. That's also a veryrewarding thing to see. Yeah, and
see who else we've seen Patton Oswaldthere, Bert Kreischer, of course,
(31:03):
Dave Williamson, He's always an opener. He's super funny. I don't know
him. Oh okay, he's reallyfunny, you know, story time kind
of guy. And those are justthe some of the people that I can
think on the top of my head. So, you know, comedy again,
it is one of those things thatI try to have in my life.
(31:27):
I don't purposely try to make peoplelaugh. I think it just kind
of happens. I think I getthat deadpan, dry sense of humor from
my father. And it's also mycoping mechanism, you know, like with
my dog, dealing with that andit's stressful to have your dog, you
know, have her stomach cut open, so I have to somehow make a
(31:49):
joke out of it or exactly.I loved now be living so close to
Los Angeles, do you go toany of these world famous bakeries and maybe
they were even in Ours County andI'm not aware, but I certainly have
done the La Bakery tour and ithasn't inspired me to open my food truck
(32:15):
where I'm making artisanal sandwiches on thebread eye bake. Now, have you
checked out any of the bakery scene. I haven't had the time too that
it's that's the sad part. Ihave discovered one, and I was very
disappointed when I found out they areno longer at the ground Central Market was
I think it's called Clark Street Bakery. They also do all their pastries and
(32:37):
breads sour dough, and that's oneof the things that I like to focus
on is sour dough, being thatI do have type two diabetes and having
my own sour dough has been alifesaver in being able to have carbs.
And yeah, let's let's open thatup a little bit. Okay, some
(32:59):
of the people who don't know thebenefits of sour dough, even on a
person without diabetes, but especially ifyou have type two diabetes, how is
it possible that that bread's okay foryou? But all the breads aren't for
me. These are one of thesomething that I try to do is be
very mindful of the health claims Imake because I don't know if it's going
(33:24):
to be the same for somebody else, But it works for me. From
what I understand of it is thatthe long fermentation process breaks down the starches
within the bread and it brings downthe glycemic level. So I am able
to have a sour dough sandwich youwith my own slices for lunch and it's
(33:49):
not going to significantly spike my bloodsugar because all I'm eating is my own
fermented bread, flower or flower,salt water and the starter that I throw
into it, so there are noadditives. But even then, I dabbled
into a sour dough chokoupen that hassugar and eggs and milk, and again
(34:14):
I can have a slice and it'snot going to shoot my blood sugar up
a ridiculous amount. And it's beenyou know, it's still new to me,
this diagnosis. I knew I wasgetting it. It runs in my
family, and I think the pandemicand teaching at home and playing at home
(34:34):
just kind of sped it up becauseeveryone's at home eating carbs, and I
was eating a lot of pastas andnoodles and a lot of sugars. And
this is the one thing that Iam able to keep in my diet.
Everything else I have completely eliminated rice, pasta noodles. I have those only
on cheat days when I'm having areally bad day, and even then,
(35:00):
or you know, I would justI tell my friends all the time,
I'm like, oh what I wouldn'tgive to just have a giant bowl of
spaghetti with butter. That's it.That's it. And sometimes, you know,
if I do have a cheat day, have a little bit, but
I always chase it with a gallonof water and I go hop on my
elliptical for thirty minutes to burn itoff because I know it's gonna make me
(35:22):
dizzy and feel horrible in a littlebit, so I try to remedy that
I'm going to put that into mybody. So, but yeah, sour
dough is one of those things thatI'm able to have. And I think
going back to that bakery, theyhave a sour dough croissant that is just
beautifully laminated, and I'm able toeat that and it doesn't raise my blood
(35:45):
sugar or doesn't spike my blood sugarsignificantly. And I think it has to
do with the fermentation and also thehigh fat content within the butter, so
it's slowing down the absorption in mybody as I'm eating it. So that's
also another advantage of sour dough.So we got a lot of people that
(36:06):
come to us for the sour dough. It's just easier for their body to
digest. And yes, usually thatthey'll live otherwise gluten free life, but
they do come and eat the glutenin the sour dough. It's pretty interesting.
Yeah. I actually have a parentwho started buying a sour dough from
me last year. I guess herkiddo brought some of my bread home and
(36:30):
said, Mom, try this,and she's like, I can't have gluten.
It's gonna make me sick. Andshe had some and it didn't make
her sick. And then the nextday the whole loaf was gone, and
the kiddo came back to me andwas like, I think we needed to
keep ordering bread free me because you'reMy mom loves it. And I actually
posed the little video on my Instagrambecause just the joy on her mother's face
(36:53):
just brought me so much happiness.I'm like, Oh, that makes me
so happy that she can have this. It's awesome. Yeah, well listen,
Becca, it was really cool tochat and get to know you.
I look forward to continuing to keepup with you on Instagram. You make
me laugh. I love your senseof humor, I love your art and
(37:14):
keep doing what you're doing. Thankyou, it was a pleasure. Thank
you so much for having me.Thank you, Becca, Thank you.
This episode of Bread for the Peoplewas brought to you by Side Hustle Bread,
Long Island's handcrafted, artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family
run business that's bringing the neighborhood fieldback to Long Island, one loaf at
(37:35):
a time. If you like whatyou're hearing, don't forget to head on
over tie iTunes and rate and reviewthis episode. Reviewing and rating is the
most effective way to help us growour audience. This episode was produced by
Milestone TV and Film. I'm yourhost, Jim Serpico. Less it be
the bread, Everyone
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