Raising Dough for Duck Island Bread Company

Julia Child is said to have once remarked, “How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?”

It’s a question Long Island resident Robert Biancavilla took to heart when he established Duck Island Bread Company several years ago. Bob’s gorgeous European-style breads and pastries have been a fixture – and a hot commodity – at the Northport Farmers’ Market for many seasons. He hand-shapes his breads and pastries and allows each small batch of dough to develop its deep, satisfying flavors through natural fermentation and carefully nurtured starter-cultures. Duck Island's delicious offerings include brioche, baguettes, croissants, cinnamon buns and pretzel rolls, among many other options.   

I profiled Duck Island Bread Company a year ago for Edible Long Island. Bob is passionate about baking. By day, he’s an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, but on Friday nights he shifts focus and works all night at a rented commercial bakery to shape and bake the breads and pastries sold at the market on Saturday. 

Robert Biancavilla and his wife Sherri of Duck Island Bread Company

Now, Bob is working to establish a bakeshop and retail home for Duck Island Bread Company in Huntington and has initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund store renovations and purchase of refrigeration, mixers and a proofer. 

Check out the Duck Island Bread Company Kickstarter campaign here.  It’s a worthy cause to consider this holiday season, not only because Bob is an accomplished baker, a true gentleman and community-minded individual, but I also love the idea of the community getting behind “the raising” of a local shop that sells nourishing bread made from scratch.

Because, James Beard got it right when he said, “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” 

 ©2014 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Berkshire Bread and Chocolate and the Keystone Arches

When I think I’ve seen everything in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, there are still new discoveries to be made.

Why am I drawn back to the Berkshires? Is it the magical landscape, the history, the literary legacy of Hawthorne, Melville and Wharton, or the ghosts of people and memories that seem to inhabit every branch, leaf and stone?

Certainly, it is the breakfasts, and the welcoming family at the Rookwood Inn in Lenox. I’ve made an annual autumn visit there for nearly 18 years.  

After breakfast at the Rookwood, there is usually little need of daily bread, but I’ve recently learned of the Berkshire Mountain Bakery in nearby Housatonic. One of their signature loaves is known simply as “Bread and Chocolate.”  How can I resist a pilgrimage?

I make the drive past the glittering Stockbridge Bowl, framed by fiery autumn leaves.   

For whatever reason, I’ve spent very little time in Housatonic during my visits to the Berkshires. Like everything in the Berkshires, it is just moments away.  

The Berkshire Mountain Bakery is a large brick structure that sits on the banks of the Housatonic River and was founded by Richard Bourdon in 1986.  

The bakery practices the ancient art of natural sourdough bread baking and Bourdon studied fermentation in Holland, where he headed one of the first bakeries there to revive the craft. The Berkshire Mountain Bakery now offers this ancient ingenuity daily in the form of delicious artisanal breads.  

It is a stunning autumn morning.  The early sunlight filters through the bakery window, illuminating mounds of rustic loaves.

I make my purchase, tuck the loaf of Bread and Chocolate into my backpack and head for my next destination. The perfect round loaf, studded with chunks of chocolate will be the ideal lunchtime repast.

I drive some 30 minutes to the trailhead of the Keystone Arches Bridge Trail, near the small town of Chester, Massachusetts.  The hike follows the Westfield River and the path of the Western Railroad, built in the 1830s.  Major George Washington Whistler, who was the painter Whistler’s father, surveyed the steep area.  

While not immortalized like Whistler’s Mother, the Major was involved in some extraordinary accomplishments.  In its day, the Western Railroad was the longest and highest railroad in the world.  

The series of Keystone Arch Bridges that supported the now abandoned route, are accessible by foot, and are a monument of manmade engineering and natural elements.  

After an hour or so of walking, I reach the most spectacular Keystone Arch and carefully make my way down to the river to observe its grandeur.

Seated on a rock by the side of the river, I pull the Bread and Chocolate from my pack and eat chunks by hand, watching the autumn leaves swirl on the water near my feet.

The bread is sturdy, significant and decadently delicious, much like the magnificent structure that stands before me. 

Bread and Chocolate and the Keystone Arches – ingenuity at its finest.  

©2013 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Bread and Chocolate

Is food sensual or simply sustenance?  

In the case of fresh baked bread, sustenance imagery goes back to biblical times.  But, the connection between bread and sensuality is unmistakable – the tactile experience of kneading the smooth elastic dough, and the intoxicating, uplifting aroma of warm yeast.  The bread comes alive and its living essence dances in the air.  

But, suppose commonplace bread were merged with something a little dark and alluring?  The seeds of temptation were sown recently when my friend Laura Luciano wrote in her wonderful blog out east foodie about the chocolate bread sold at the Blue Duck Bakery Café in Riverhead, Long Island.  

I’d never heard of chocolate bread.   I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind – a delicious touch of decadence folded into our daily bread.  It quickly became an obsession. With nary enough time for a field trip to Riverhead, I opt for the do-it-yourself approach and troll the Internet for ideas.   I land on this recipe.   It’s not exactly in the artisan style of the Blue Duck, but it’s a good starter recipe that will allow me to learn the method and see how the ingredients and flavors mesh together.  

The recipe is much like a traditional yeast bread loaf, with the addition of cocoa powder and semi-sweet baking chips that are melted in a saucepan with milk and butter.  

The initial, shaggy dough is streaky with flecks of cocoa.  

A few minutes of focused kneading results in a ball of dough that is rich chocolate brown. 

After two rises, the dough is split between two loaf pans and baked for about thirty minutes.  

The house is filled with the aroma of warm brownies laced with yeast. 

Unlike an intensely sweet chocolate dessert, the flavors are far subtler.  I can taste the essence of chocolate, without the dizzying sugar high.  The bread is really quite beautiful in its dark simplicity.  

So when to eat this alluring bread?    Breakfast?  Lunch? Afternoon tea?   I yield to temptation, drizzle a slice with some local honey and don’t even wait for an official meal.  

©2013 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

A Blizzard, a Couple of Entrepreneurs and Honey Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread

Some days are just made for baking bread – the morning after winter storm Nemo made his exit, for example.  

Yes, while my neighbors were digging out, I was kneading bread.    Here’s why.

While the Weather Channel was trumpeting the arrival of Nemo, I was wishing hard – wishing that I would get a call from “Jim and Nick Snow Removal.”   Five years ago, just prior to another threatening storm, Jim and Nick left a leaflet in my windshield at the train station.  They were probably just entering junior high school at the time, and I admired their entrepreneurial spirit.  The storm was as bad as predicted and I called them.   They arrived with a SWAT team of workers and in about 30 minutes, they’d disposed of mountains of snow.  

Now, whenever the snow prediction is dire, I get a phone call, and soon after, Jim and Nick arrive.   I fear at some point they’ll go off to college, but so far, their record is impeccable.   Once again, my wish was granted.  This time, it was Jim and Matt.   Like most great business partnerships, perhaps Nick has moved on, but his name remains part of the marquee service.

Sure they’re a little pricey, but I gladly pay it.  Jim and Nick (and Matt) are worth it.  They wrapped the job in about 40 minutes.  It would have taken me at least three hours.  They saved my aching bones, and I feel that I’m contributing to the future success of a team of enterprising young businessmen.  

And, I get to bake bread, which is one of the best things in life – Honey Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread, which will probably be spread with a dollop of apple butter prepared at a recent Restoration Farm canning workshop. 

Even the brilliant red cardinal, shivering atop my back yard tree was happy as Jim and Nick (and Matt) did their magic, bread was baking in the oven and Nemo made his dramatic exit.

© T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved