Fundamentals of Bread Baking at San Francisco Zen Center -Green Gulch

If you haven't been to Green Gulch, I recommend it. If you haven't taken the bread baking class, I recommend that too. We spent last Saturday, August 17 learning  how to make bread in a class of about 15 people taught by Mick. Mick has a long history of bread baking including at Tassajara Bakery for many years.  He's an inspirational teacher.


The first part of the class was about the theory of bread baking, what each ingredient adds to how the bread turns out, water, flour, yeast and salt.   In the second part of class, using one type of dough, we practiced making different shapes, letting them rise while we learned how to make the dough, and then finally baking the different shapes, we go to taste how different each one tasted, although they  were all from the same dough.

We had a lovely vegetarian lunch too Delicious salad, soup and of course bread.

if you have a chance to visit, you really should. the class was well worth the price, we had a lovely time and learned a lot too!

Umami in Spice with Oaktown Spice Shop

Oh My! I would give this class a very high grade. It was totally worth it to drive to the Oaktown Spice Shop in traffic on a week night. John the owner of Oaktown Spice and the co-owners of Umami Mart, Yoko Kumano + Kayoko Akabori, all were equally as delightful.

The evening was filled with education about umami and samples of spices and Japanese tidbits to help train our palettes to taste umami as well as the other flavors we learned about.

I'm so happy we got the last two seats in the second class they opened after the first class sold out so quickly.

I can't wait to see what other classes both Oaktown Spice Shop and Umami Mart offer next.

I wish I took pictures, but I was so into it, I didn't even think of it. Let your imagination go, and visit both stores. We plan to go to Umami Mart this weekend when we are at the Eat Real Festival, it's within walking distance of Jack London Square