'Tis the Season

Friends - Family - BREAD.

Get your orders in for Thanksgiving Breadheads and loaf your loved ones well!

Cheers!

Order Bread!

Bread available for Delivery + PIckup for 6/10-6/13

Available for Cabbagetown, Inman Park, 04W, Midtown, Virginia Highlands, Reynoldstown, and Grant Park!

Also available for two morning pickups at Ammazza Edgewood!

BREAD IS GOOD!

BREAD for PICKUP at AMMAZZA EDGEWOOD 5/25

if you’re planning on wandering the Beltline this Saturday morning, end your route at AMMAZZA on EDGEWOOD and pick yourself up a little sourdough loaf for your memorial day weekend!

You must preorder here! I’ll be baking OG Pain au Levain, Cheddar Jalapeno, Olive + Rosemary, and seeded multigrain… See you Saturday!

Drunk in Strawberry Love

What a beautiful season it’s been for our local strawberries! From Georgia to the Carolinas, I really haven’t met one I haven’t loved this year. So, thanks to all the strawberry growers out there, y’all make my year!

WOOD. FIRE.

May 9th, 2019- the day that i furthered my bread love even more and propelled my bread knowledge into the world of Wood Fire hearth baking. Thanks to the amazing dudes at Ammazza, I have not 1, not 2, not 3, BUT 4 cooling italian wood fire ovens.

I need a bit more proofing time, a lot more steam, and a whole lot more understanding of what the heck is going on in that hotbox but I am AMPED to continue this process.

BRING ON THE WOOD!!

Bread is Good x The James Room

All GENIUS artwork and branding by Alvin Diec of Bros.Bros

The Thing About Granola...

… Is that you oftentimes get jipped. First of all, granola is fairly expensive as it should be, but most of the time what is sold to you and what you actually eat makes you feel a little jipped. In my opinion most granolas etierh leave you feeling like you paid $14 for a few cups of diabetes or $14 for a cup of tasteless seeds. “Granola” has become one of those trigger words/foods we hear that automatically brings to mind super healthy, mountain climbing (i.e. energy for mountain climbing), earthy, crunchy, healthy humans. But the thing is, is that granola can take on many forms and probably more often than not most in store granolas are either filled with straight up sugar, hidden sugar, or just zero nutrition. In a little jaunt down the granola aisle, it was not only mind blowing to see sugar content, but also to see amount of oils and filler ingredients in MOST granolas.

So while (in my granola per se) the oats are full of good iron and fiber, nuts and seeds are full of good heart healthy saturated fats, dried fruits add slight nutritional value but mostly flavor with less nutritional cost, and there is slight evidence of antioxidants in honey, you still need to watch what is going into granola. Granola is one of those foods i recommend either making yourself, buying local, or buying from me so as to be totally sure of sugar content, fat content, and just just getting the most local and nutritional bang for your buck.

So, the thing about granola… is you want to know what you’re buying. Know the ingredients: oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, coconut oil, honey, 1 tbs maple per 4 cups, and sometimes but rarely other various nuts especially local Georgia pecans.

Storing your Sourdough Loaves

Without the presence of chemically laden preservatives, sourdough bread gets a bad rap for not having a long shelf life. I will admit that for me, shelf life isn’t important … I tend to eat food fresh and fast and source non-pantry items such as meat, fruit, and vegetables throughout the week as needed. But I do understand that since food is the center of my universe, that is a luxury for me, and not all of us have the means or schedule to be bopping around for fresh steak and bread everyday. Sooooo, for those of you that 1. don’t consume a loaf of bread within a few days ( cough cough, as a lady who can easily consume a loaf in max 4 days, what is your excuse) and 2. do want to make that delicious loaf last a bit longer in your kitchen; here are some tips for good sourdough storage.

First to be clear, slowly fermented sourdough actually contains a good amount of natural acid that keeps sourdough loaves edible and tasty for 4-5 days when kept at room temperature. To me that is perfect and in my opinion, it’s a little personality trait about bread we all need to start wrapping our head around. Good healthy slowly fermented bread that is healthy for our guts and lives doesn’t live on our countertops for weeks waiting to be used for a boring sandwich. no no… it lives on our countertop for 2, 3, 4, maybe 5 days sliced into daily and enjoyed fully!

But ok, I’ll stop preaching… here are tips for storage as well as my trick for a nice little sourdough “re-bake,” followed en final by a few things that I personally LOaVE to do with past-it’s-peak bread and/or some frozen bread.

1. As a general rule, avoid the fridge! fridges are way too dry and too cold and will cause your bread to get super hard super fast. ayyyyyyy… that’s what… nevermind.

2. Once COMPLETELY cooled and sliced, wrap loaf well in plastic wrap and store at room temp. Vacuum sealed is also quite helpful. Aluminum Foil also works well. **Sometimes plastic bags will cause condensation especially when it’s not completely cooled which moistens your loaf and makes it gross so if you find yourself with loaves that get soft and weird, try aluminum foil instead

   • Airtight containers like tupperare or bread boxes work well as long as air is not just swooping in on your cut loaf.

3. FREEZER! utilize your freezer! You can of course just wrap whatever you haven’t eaten in plastic wrap or foil and put in freezer BUT I find the most time efficient and flavor maximizing approach is to let loaf cool, SLICE, and THEN wrap each slice individually and put into the fridge. Obvi this increases the workload on the front end, but on the back end, i.e. the eating end, all you have to do to say have a piece of toast is pull that one prepped slice from the freezer, let it warm to room temp (about 20 minutes) and then begin the action of toasted (you will definitely want to toast).

4. RE—>BAKE! I personally love a good re- bake which essentially brings a 2-3-4 day old loaf right bake to life… I spray the loaf or the half of loaf with a little bit of water and bake it at 325 for about 25-30 minutes. Seems long but baby sourdough wants what baby sourdough wants and that’s what it wants.

And en final, utilizing your loaves after their peak or past that 4-5 day window should never not be a thing. There are so many recipes that lend themselves to solid stale bread, so much goodness, that hopefully the word stale doesn’t denote something negative, but instead something damn delicious.

• French Toast… literally old bread dipped in an egg and milk batter and toasted to crunchy perfection

• Panzanella… i.e. BREAD SALAD. um yes duh. Panzanella is a florentine tradition deeply rooted in the use of juicy tomatoes i dig this Spring Panzanella along with her write up. I got to be honest though, I’m dreaming up a juicy tart spring panzanella with local strawbs and balsamic and maybe asparagus and greens and herbs.

• Croutons, + Bread Crumbs… save money, have better flavor, live better

• Stuffing- obvious, yes, but we usually think about stuffing as a thanksgiving thing so I challenge you to rethink it as a year round casserole and put whatever veggies and herbs in there and have yourself an easy filling healthy one pan dinner utilizing old bread. FUN right ?!

• also don’t be afraid to swipe some stale bread in a little chicken jus or whatever meat juices you happen to be cooking or roasting with and feeding it to your dog, it’s quite a treat and they will stare at you longingly forever if they don’t already.

The Perfect Seam

…. that damn elusive perfect seam that gives me the wearying woes. The elusive perfect seam that can only follow a contained shape which can only follow a proper bench rest which can only follow a patient bulk ferment, an intuitive mix, and first and foremost, a healthy and robustly maintained starter. The elusive perfect seam precedes an active proof which precedes a swift score which all precedes a soulful bake. The perfect seam is only realized when all parts are respected … when all parts succeed. No one part in bread baking can succeed if other parts fail or are ignored. The hardest thing to teach myself and others, OH MY GOD, is to respect the WHOLE process.… to respect the damn journey… that there is love in every part. That there needs to be patience and respect in every part not just the end. Patience in slow food must never die… also, lil booties matter.

What a dream....

… to wake up everyday and work hard at something i love so much. to wake up everyday and have my work be the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven.

‘Tis a dream I will never take for granted, nor will I ever take for granted the ability I have to keep working at this dream and that this dream will always grow and evolve and change as I grow and evolve and change. What a dang cool thing this is. I am forever so grateful.

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight... [Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells... there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.” - MFK Fisher

Cinnamon Roll Sunday

Warm, buttery, yeasty, fragrant, nostalgic, comforting, delicious … big ole cinnamon rolls are made for Sundays amirite? yes, yes, i am.

Join me tomorrow morning 2/17 at 10am sharp at Brother Moto and let me make all your Sunday Cinnamon Roll Dreams come true. Please.

… And while you’re getting ready to come eat those said cinnamon rolls, maybe put on this song, and just get yourself in the right mood! See you soon! Night night…

Bread is Good Beach Loafin’

This past weekend, I had 2 lovely requests and opportunities to take my work out of town and get the hell out of Dodge and into St. Simons.

I am so grateful for all the lovely teaching opportunities that my bread work has been bringing to me so keep it up and feel free to send me a request if interested! I had a great time with this group doing a 2 day intensive sourdough workshop. So much bread joy in one place!!

And then, THANK YOU THANK YOU to Southern Soul BBQ for hosting a Bread is Good Breakfast popup on Saturday morning, it was so nice to feed a whole new set of faces and push mu gluten loving agenda on to new palates. I had a blast!

Finally, time at the beach with my boy was not missed… he’s a little beach lover.

Also this sweet older couple walked hand and hand on the beach looking at seashells, touching seashells, talking about seashells, and I followed creepily and closely behind because it was so tender and sweet. Love is great, y’all.

2019 BREAD IS GOOD DELIVERY

Hi all, for those that are new to SEDODGE and/or bread is good, I just wanted to do a little intro.

So first off, hello hi bonjour I am Sarah Elizabeth Dodge, i.e. SEDODGE, and I love bread. I left restaurant life at the end of 2017 to regain better mental health, better life balance, and honestly, to make better bread. According to one writer, I also left restaurants to spend more time with my dog, FERGUS, which financially is not true, but emotionally, yes, I guess that’s part of it. I spent a lot of 2018 building a weird rogue gluten filled brand for myself by selling bread door to door and poppin up all over town with breakfast, bread, and pastries. I am grateful to the support I’ve been given, but mostly grateful to be able to spend my days demystifying and de-demonizing GOOD BREAD. Through bread delivery, popups, teaching, and hopefully a new commercial space, I hope to continue this weird great thing I got going and I hope to loaf more and more of you in 2019.

It can be hard and awkward to sum up what I do on a daily basis because basically i barely know what i do. It’s super fun to be around my parents friends and describe the concepts of rogue bread and popups. lol. But in sum, everyday, I wake up, mix, ferment, shape, proof, and bake as many loaves of beautiful fermented goodness as I can and then deliver said baked loaf hot and fresh straight to your door hopefully in time for dinner. Via this website, bread options will be posted every SUNDAY MORNING (unless notified) and will remain open till MONDAY at 4pm. You will purchase your bread and follow up via my email at sedodge@gmail.com with any other questions, concerns, or desires. And My bread is good delivery schpeal is this : I am like the milk man, but for bread, and I’m a babe. I am your BREAD BABE. We deliver hot bread to your door by 5pm on your delivery day. No need to be home, but if you have a reusable canvas tote, please place outside on delivery day so that we can cut down on waste and save the whales! THIS IS ALSO A GREAT MOMENT TO PURCHASE ONE OF OUR BREAD IS GOOD TOTES LIKE THIS ONE OR THIS ONE!!

Thank you all for joining on and supporting this good bread movement. I believe that it’s through little acts like breaking bread at the table with friends or little decisions like choosing to eat something made locally with good ingredients that little ripples of change in the world begin to happen. I also believe that everyone morning we have the chance to wake up and begin again and for me it all begins with that first cup of coffee and that first beautiful meal called BREAKFAST. Good bread, good pastry, good company, good breakfast, good first choices; they all shape your day. Thanks for letting me apart of that for you. I look forward to all the loaves in the company and in breading you all in 2019. cheers!

thank you, 2018

It’s been a hell of a year, y’all… so much gluten, so much butter, so much growth, so much Fergus, so much change, so many interesting places, SO MANY BEAUTIFUL FACES, so much love, so so so much to be grateful for, SO MUCH FIRE and SO SO SO MUCH to look forward to in 2019.

Below you’ll find my recap of all the great hard stressful exciting exhausting worthwhile great things that happened in the life of sedodge/bread is good in 2018. I relate to the world in visuals so enjoy!

1. POPUPS… so, I left 8ARM in November of 2017 feeling lost, depleted, poor, hopeless, sad, and used. i spend the end of 2017 feeling sorry for myself and feeling a lot of sadness for things that had transpired and losses that occurred. I woke up in 2018 realizing that the AMEX bill wasn’t going to pay itself and that Fergus was most likely not going to get a job. So, I put on my big girl pants and decided to do a popup… I made fun of the idea at first (seriously, what is this phenomenon of popups) but Cora of Queen of Cream opened up her space to me, y’all showed up, and I started baking and cooking bread, pastries, and dishes that made me happy. Me and my AMEX bill are incredibly incredibly grateful for all of you who have showed up for a bread is good popup in 2018. You have no idea the impact that your support has provided me this year.

   thanks to Queen of Cream, Mashburn, the Spindle, Little’s, a mano, and Brother Moto for so many wonderful opportunities!

2. Alvin DJ DIEC / bros dot bros office of brothers … I don’t think I will ever be able to properly put into words all the gratitude i have for the genius that is Alvin Diec. Alvin put visuals, words, and oddities to my thoughts, talents, and visions and created a voice AND A TOTE SWAG BAG for me this year. I would be lost without him, his encouragement, and the genius that he brings to my work but also so many people in this city. He is a cool cool duck, and one day, I will win the bread lottery and give all of my winnings to him.

3. Cumberland Island ————-> Israel … took my own advice and said yes to two opportunities that straight up scared the shit out of me but straight up changed my life and the trajectory of my year and probably life. First in February, I went and worked as a sub baker at the Greyfield Inn on a teeny tiny barrier island off the coast of Georgia called Cumberland Island. The time spent alone biking, walking, hiking, talking to myself, reading, figuring shit out, baking what i wanted, and ultimately finding myself again were some of the best and hardest days of my life. Mitty, Mary, Whitney, Ben, Alejandro, and everyone else… such amazing souls … such an amazing place.

Second, I took a chance and applied for a “influencers in food” trip to Israel and despite probably making the worlds worst application video, getting wait listed at first, getting in and then dragging my feet only to have my mom ask me if I was a dumbass, i said yes and little introverted me joined 50 other folks from around the world and explored Israel. To say it was an experience of a lifetime is yet another understatement. I learned a lot about myself and how little I truly have experienced the world and cultures that are different than mine.

4. Fergus… not much else to say beyond he is perfect, he makes my life better, he makes me better, and he is photogenic AF. find you a dog that treats you right, takes you on adventures, and makes you feel good to be ALIVE.

5. The humans, friends (new and old), acquaintances, randoms, and animals that i’ve met, worked with, played with, laughed with, baked with, baked for, cooked with, cooked for, traveled with, and become better for meeting as a result. More than anything, I needed a year filled with good humans, and I got that ten fold. Lucky lucky lucky grateful me. if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of them, so thank you.

6. And last but not least BREAD IS GOOD… january 2018, i had no clue who i was, what the hell i was doing, what I was gong to do, and how the absolute hell I was going to continue this baking career of mine. I signed up to do a popup, I shakingly and unknowingly and stupidly but maybe geniusly responded to a writer’s question of “whats your popup called?’ with “uuuuughhhhh breeeeeead issssssss good ?” lolol who knew from there how all of it would transpire and what would become of this little rogue-slightly-illegal-but-just-my- type-bread-4-the-people bread operation. BREAD IS GOOD hopes to continue to be good to all of you in 2019. To round this all out, I am going to lay it out there that I have started the process on a space. I am terrified -excited- hopeful - scared - beyond READY for what will become and unfold 2019. Things may fall through or they may go all the way (that’s what she said) … who’s to say, but I am pumped for it all and excited to share it with you all in the coming new year.

Happy New Year to you all !!!!!!! I look forward to breading and loafing you all in 2019. love + loafing, SEDODGE + #breadisgood

Final Loaves of 2018

I will most likely be putting together a post to celebrate all the wonderful beautiful happy things that 2018 has brought to me but for now, log onto our “ORDER BREAD!” page and get you one of the final BREAD IS GOOD loaves of 2018. Ordering is available through December 27th at 10 am. So get you a nice loaf to snuggle up to this New Years, and while you’re at it, get you a sexy saucy tote to put it in.

DJ Khaled and this baby (I’m guessing it’s his UPDATE* Hell Yeah Gluten Free has informed that this is not only his baby but also a very famous beautiful award winning fashion forward baby, now ya know) and this baby lion tiger cat thing sum it up best though, I am so grateful this year and so pumped to close out this amazing year with some hot crusty fluffy naturally fermented pain au levain for you all. cheers cheers cheers !

dear internet, let's do this!

ok all let’s give this online ordering a try … if any issues arise, please don’t hesitate to email sedodge@gmail.com

bread is good ONLINE AND HOLIDAY ordering //** AVAILABLE SOON **//

this little micro bread-is-good bakery operation is breaking into 1990 and attempting to take this ordering fully to this website on the ole internet.

we will do our best to fulfill every and all orders starting Sunday December 16th 2018 via this website through the fabulous technology that is the world wide web // NOT INSTAGRAM - NOT TEXT- NOT PHONE- NOT WORD OF MOUTH- NOT SHOWING UP TO MY HOUSE- MAYBE EMAIL THOUGH tbh// stay tuned.

breakfast 4 dinner

bulking season is here - join me and the bread is good crew for a winter breakfast for dinner + rosé + friends + comfort and joy.

time by the lake

i escaped atl for a solid 18 hours and drove otp for the first in months. lake oconee is only an hour and 15 minutes out i-20, but it feels far enough to feel like i finally got myself the heck out of dodge. 

after a dinner with wonderful family friends, we sat by the fire, drinking wine, and talking life. i slept like a bear in the world's darkest quietest room and woke up to a dreary wintery day by the lake. i'm diggin water right now, feel myself just drawn to it. calm + peaceful ... maybe what i'm wishing to manifest, but yeah, i just found myself staring at the lake with that little duck and the steam rising up. sigh. 

cheers to a Sunday not working,  staring at calming water, driving slow, listening to good music, cooking a damn delicious grain bowl with homemade salsa verde, and listening to fergus snore like an elephant. 

*janis joplin - greatest hits*

new day

i have always been a morning person. i love those quiet moments before everyone else wakes up. there's something so lovely to me about getting tasks done before people have even opened an eye. these days, i'm doing my best to be grateful for every day that is put before me. every new day is a new chance, a new opportunity to feel better, be better, do better. i feel angry about a lot of things. and in all honesty, most days, i don't want to get out of bed. but the sun comes up, everyday, like clockwork with it's own habitual schedule, and i have to make the choice- to get up and do, or stay and hide. thankfully, i have the world's most morning-loving dog, and some days it's only him that gets me up. other days, it's the pull of coffee. and thankfully, some days it's by job... the obsession and addiction i have with my insane job. i think about loaves of bread and sheets of flaky pastry dough. i think about new ice cream flavors what vegetables do i want in my quiche.  i love the days that i wake up early early and i think i'm going to make the best mother fucking loaf of bread today... i get up, and i go. 

today, it was fergus that got me up and its the 3 cups of coffee i fed myself that have kept me up. the beautiful threat of spring is near and i know that'll help. warmer weather, coffee on the porch, jacket-less early AM's i hope will make mornings a little easier. i miss him constantly, and i think about how unfair life can be. but i just keep trying to see every morning as a new chance to see the world in a positive light. 

*sia - chandelier*