Mark Furstenberg

I find it barbaric to ask people who want to come to your restaurant to wait in the street. We are going to have at Bread Feast one menu, one dinner. People will be able to buy a seat (or seats) first-come-first-serve on the Internet. No waiting, no line.

It's going to be a good collaboration, I think. My objective has been to have a neighborhood bakery, rooted in the neighborhood and rooted in baked goods. I didn't have that downtown at The BreadLine; that was a restaurant. It upset me that I hadn't been able to create a neighborhood bakery in the city and now I think we are on the way to having done that. The addition of Frank Ruta's cooking, it seems to me, moves us one step further. There is no restaurant nearby. We are in a neighborhood that responded so much to Bread Furst and wants a restaurant. Frank's restaurant was a mile down the street. It seems so natural.

It's true: We have two sizes, one kilo and a half-kilo and the one kilo costs $12. I don't know what price Whole Foods charges for its challah. I don't know its size and I don't know how or from what it is made. I do know how ours is made and from what and think our price is fine. Retail is wonderful. People who like what we do can buy what we do. I hope they will. People who don't like what we do don't have to buy it. Although Whole Foods is not, as far as I know, renowned for its low prices, your correspondent may have found there something that satisfies him, the price.

It's kind of you to remember and inquire. I am working on a book, not exactly a cookbook although it does have recipes. I hope that I will finish it in 2006. If I said that I would finish it in 2005, I was quite unrealistic. However, my son's book about George Washington will be published by Penguin in 2006.

Either the dough got too hot or there was too much yeast in the dough. Don't forget that dough behaves differently when it is hot and cold. You could have saved the dough when you saw it getting out of control first by folding it several times to deflate it and then chilling it as fast as you could, folding once more during the chilling process.

No, Nancy decided to expand her brand before she sold her company. She built a large, large bakery to make par-baked products and distribute them widely. I spent a fair amount of time at La Brea. I asked to be permitted to do an internship there because I admired her bread so much. My own taste in bread has changed somewhat, however, and I prefer slightly less assertive, less sour, thinner crusted breads than Nancy was then making. I see bread not as the centerpiece, but as an accompaniment that makes a good difference in people's eating experiences.

Lessons from Marvelous Market: I don't like multi-unit and do it poorly. I dislike walking into a place I own and not recognizing my own foods and breads. I have to be close to production because I want everything always to be perfect. (It's not.) So I have resisted expanding The BreadLine. Second, I don't want to make too many things because too many things cannot be made well. Marvelous Market when I was there had 12 doughs. The BreadLine, on a regular basis, makes six. Third, I like changing foods because customers like that; all of us get bored when foods aren't changed. That's impossible in a multi-unit environment but possible in a single place.

I would not walk 45 minutes in 100 degrees to go to The BreadLine or any other restaurant on earth. As for the water, it was inspired by a water someone prepared at Greystone, the west coast culinary school I go to frequently. It was Mai Pham who owns a fabulous restaurant in Sacramento called Lemon Grass.

Small business is very hard. Small business is not very profitable. But small business enriches communities in a country where retail is increasingly homogonized. Carr America rented The BreadLine's space to me when I was in personal bankruptcy because of my reckless expansion of Marvelous Market. The Carrs, father and son, and their president John Donovan wanted an interesting retail in a space they could have rented to any chain. That's unusual; that's remarkable. What most property owners want to do is rent to tenants who can pay very high prices, ask very little allowence from the landlord in the construction of the space, and are utterly dependable about paying rent. (At one point in The BreadLine's history, our landlord allowed me to go $48,000 in arrears; they stuck with it "to see what was going to happen.") Starbucks, Corner Bakery (Brinker Corp.), and banks are utterly dependable. They have deep pockets and don't have to be profitable at every location. They are ideal from the perspective of landlords. That's why banks are popping up everywhere in the downtown. It's a bad thing for Washingtonians.

You see many of them at your farmers' market -- local growers, cheesemakers, butchers, the craft side of our business. McLeod Creamery in Marshall, Va, for example. A fomer government worker, Stan Feder, who is about to start sausage-making here. This is important and is going to be more and more prominent, I hope. In fine dining, Jean Louis Palladin inspired and befriended many of us and for a long time was the name brand in Washington. His role has been taken by Michel Richard who now inspires many chefs of the city. At the same, a lot of youngish chefs have been able to open restaurants and are certainly making a big difference here. Phyllis Richman made a big contribution for more than 20 years by imposing her standards on the restaurant community. And the ethnic restaurants of the city's suburbs; Washington has been quite hospitable to this development.

I am chronically unhappy about what we do at The BreadLine. I look at the bread, the tuna salad, the greens, everything and am dissatisfied. I keep wanting to change things -- and in truth, I think change is the biggest casualty of my consultation to others. I had a program for next week and then I was asked to fly to California to speak to chefs from the Brinker Corporation, owner of Chili's, Corner Bakery, Maggianos, Macaroni Grill, et al, about nutrition. How can I give up the possibility of having a slight impact on the quality of the food offered by a company with such power? So I have to shelve my dissatisfactions with The BreadLine until later.

Yes, there are great differences among flours. I think that King Arthur is the best flour that is widely available in small quantities.

Enough already, Don. First, on the subject of chains, it's difficult but not impossible. Potbelly, Corner Bakery, Cosi, Quiznos, Starbucks, and a new place that has chain aspirations are all within a block of us. They have lots of advantages that we don't have; we have the advantage of flexibility and creativity. No doubt they affect our business; but it's not impossible. I am far more fearful, if the truth be known, about the banks that are gobbling up prime locations everywhere in downtown. My favorite things at The BreadLine: Whatever we are doing that is new and/or seasonal -- and most of all, the bread itself. As for the book, let's wait, if you don't mind, for three more months.

A BLT when tomatoes are in season. Thank you.

I feel guilty all the time about not writing more frequently. The one underway is about why people don't cook anymore. As I cannot seem to manage to send more of these and as I am working on a book, I don't expect to do anything as ambitious as a blog, a form of writing that in any case seems to me awfully undisciplined.

Peter Reinhart's book, Crust and Crumb, as is Jeffrey Hammelman's. I am working on one myself in an effort to help people who feel just as you do. If I were starting, I would make focaccia and try to perfect it and along the way use that dough for grilled pizzas and try to perfect them. Leave the Poilane loaves and baguettes for much later.

Gosh, this is so complicated and without seeing what you do, I can't respond properly. I don't know why you make a sponge with your starter. If your starter is well-tended it should eliminate the need for that step. Sponges are generally made to add flavor and hydration to a dough but the starter should do that. You can get more sourness by adding a little bit of white rye flour to your starter, very little. The refrigerator is indeed too cold for proofing. You might use it for retarding and then pull the loaf out for three-four hours for a final proof. Or if you would prefer not to retard, put the bread in whatever room(s) in your house are air conditioned. Your first fermentation is very long. I hope you are folding the dough at least one time during the fermentation. My favorite type of bread to bake is the baguette because it is the one I never get right. And to eat, I most love a campagne.

That scene was quite spontaneous. Well, not exactly perhaps. Mark arrived with his producer, Charlie Pinsky and couple of camera people and Michel and we just did it. And no, Mark did not pay; but I must say he is an old, old friend.

Don: I suspect there are lots of underappreciated people in our business in Wasington. Vince MacDonald who created Vincenzo's just above Dupont Circle where now his Etrusco is producing pure, simple, classically Italian food. Frank Ruta who is finally getting attention. Susan Lindeborg who has a following but doesn't get the buzz at Majestic Cafe. Lots of people -- I will think of more during the week. As for seeing my face on a jar, not likely; I don't like that sort of thing.